Rebuilding New Orleans: Katrina five years later
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Rebuilding New Orleans: Katrina five years later
By Eve Troeh
NEW ORLEANS–Five years ago I was living here when Hurricane Katrina hit.
I evacuated ahead of the storm, and my house didn’t flood. But I did come back to the city a few weeks after the levees broke to report on its recovery. A crashed city bus sat across from my front door for months. The word “HELP” in spray paint remained visible on a street around the corner for years after the storm.
Today I live in Los Angeles, but Marketplace sent me back to New Orleans to report on the Katrina recovery five years later. My assignment was to ask some of the “whatever happened to” questions, from blighted properties to new residents to missed opportunities for business recovery.
Lots of the big picture plans and ideas for rebuilding didn’t work out, or never happened. What sprung up instead is a patchwork system fueled by the tremendous energy of residents and innovative policy solutions.
In my special report I explore where the city’s been since the storm, and let you listen in on what I discovered as I roamed around the streets of New Orleans to find out where the city might be headed five years after Hurricane Katrina.
On Marketplace Money, meet the YURPs – Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals who showed up to help bring the city back and stayed.
Follow me on a multimedia tour with local photographer Frank Relle as we meet residents from three neighborhoods who are rebuilding the their communities through a program that helps them buy the empty lots next door in an effort to reclaim abandoned lots around the city. And hear more stories from my series.
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