Managers at centre of B.C. nursing college probe 'caused or contributed to' young woman's death, mother alleges

Bethany Lindsay CBC
JUNE 10,2021
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© Supplied by Margaret Lavery Katrina Lavery, shown here at left with her mother Margaret, died in hospital at the age of 21 after living in housing operated by Victoria's Garth Homer Society.

Katrina Lavery had a thirst for life.

She loved people and animals and rarely argued with her mother — even during her teenage years.

"[She was] the happiest camper every morning of every day that she woke up … pretty much a very joyful person that was taken way too soon," mom Margaret Lavery recalls.

Katrina died at the age of 21, succumbing to a bowel obstruction on New Year's Day 2018 in a hospital room in Victoria.

Katrina had Angelman syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes intellectual disability. She was non-verbal and required full-time nursing. At the time of her death, she was living in a home operated by the Garth Homer Society (GHS), a local non-profit that provides services for people with developmental disabilities.

Her mother filed a lawsuit in 2019 alleging that senior managers at GHS ignored symptoms of Katrina's condition for months, rebuffing support staff who urged them to seek medical attention and severely restricting Lavery's access to her daughter when she spoke out about her concerns.

"I feel like Katrina's death just didn't need to happen," Lavery said. "I feel like I've gone through a kidnapping."

This is the first time Lavery has spoken publicly about what happened. She agreed to an interview with CBC News after learning that the College of Nurses and Midwives of B.C. had suspended the nursing licences of Victoria Weber and Euphemia (Phemie) Guttin, both senior managers at GHS, after identifying "serious concerns" about the care they were providing.

The disciplinary action is a direct result of what happened to Katrina in GHS's care, along with complaints from two other families and a former employee.

Community Living B.C. (CLBC), the Crown agency that provides support for adults with developmental disabilities, also launched an investigation in the aftermath of Katrina's death. In May 2018, it cancelled its housing contract with GHS, withdrew funding for five residences and removed the society from a list of pre-qualified vendors for residential services, according to a civil claim filed by GHS earlier this spring.

Through all of this, Weber and Guttin have kept their jobs in high-level positions at GHS — Guttin as the executive director for service operations and Weber as the senior manager for health services and education. GHS has said they are "integral members" of the team.

In a written statement this week, the society's CEO Mitchell Temkin described Katrina Lavery as "a much-valued member of the Garth Homer Society community" and said everyone there was saddened by her death.

"Because of privacy legislation and because these matters are before the courts, we are unable to share details of her care when she was with the Garth Homer Society. However, we are confident that the care provided by GHS did not contribute to her unfortunate passing," Temkin said.

He said Katrina died two months after leaving the society's care — referring to the period of time she spent in hospital.

'Her skin was stretched so badly'

The allegations in Lavery's lawsuit have yet to be tested in court, but a trial date has been set for October 2022.

In a civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court in March 2019, Lavery alleges that GHS "caused or contributed to" Katrina's death through its negligence, naming as co-defendants Weber, Guttin, GHS's residential supervisor Rana Weihs and CLBC.

Lavery's claim alleges that beginning in May 2017, Katrina's belly became increasingly distended, and she started having more frequent seizures and high temperatures.

In photos taken of Katrina during that time period and shared with CBC News, her abdomen appears hard and rounded, prominently jutting out from the rest of her body.

"Her skin was stretched so badly that she looked like she was nine months pregnant," Lavery alleged.

"Staff were told that they couldn't call an ambulance."

Lavery's claim alleges that when she began reaching out to GHS and CLBC with her concerns, they told her she was inappropriately interfering with their business and "severely restricted" her access to her daughter, while threatening staff with discipline if they spoke to her.

Katrina was admitted to hospital on Oct. 27, 2017, where she was diagnosed with a bowel obstruction "that had been left untreated for many months," the claim alleges.

Despite multiple surgeries, doctors were unable to save Katrina's life. She died on Jan. 1, 2018.

GHS denies causing or contributing to Katrina's death, according to a response to Lavery's claim filed on behalf of the society, Weber, Guttin and Weihs.

The document disputes the allegation that Katrina's symptoms became progressively worse in GHS's care, claiming that Katrina's bowel obstruction "occurred spontaneously and acutely" rather than developing over months.

GHS also denies restricting Lavery's access to her daughter, but says there were mutually agreed-upon "terms of engagement."

Guttin, Weber and Weihs did not respond to requests for comment.

CLBC has also denied all allegations of wrongdoing in Katrina's death in its response to Lavery's claim.

'Dismissive of front-line staff's concerns'

There are parallels between the allegations contained in Lavery's legal claim and the issues investigated by the nursing college.

In a May 27 disposition letter to Lavery, the college's professional conduct review consultant Tansey Ramanzin confirms that Guttin and Weber breached professional standards.

"Ms. Guttin and Ms. Weber ... failed to take steps to properly assess Katrina and escalate care when symptomatology was present, ongoing, and/or worsening. They were dismissive of front-line staff's concerns," Ramanzin wrote in the letter, which Lavery shared with CBC News.

Ramanzin said Guttin and Weber asked staff to forward cellphone photos of Katrina rather than doing in-person assessments of her condition.

The disposition letter also says Guttin and Weber were "combative" in their communication, alienating and obstructing Lavery when she tried to advocate for Katrina.

"They negatively characterized and labelled you as difficult and/or dangerous, downplayed your concerns about Katrina's health, and told people you may be acting contrary to Katrina's best interests," Ramanzin wrote.

"Staff were told not to communicate with you upon threat of termination."

Lavery said she is planning to ask for a review of the college's consent agreement with Guttin and Weber, explaining that she wants their licences to be revoked permanently.

"I don't think they've done enough, and I don't understand," Lavery said.

In a response to Lavery's concerns, the college offered a written statement describing the disciplinary measures as "severe and proportional" to Guttin and Weber's conduct.

The statement notes that both of their licences will be suspended for more than three years altogether, and they will have to undergo remedial education and work under "extensive oversight" if they choose to return to nursing.

CLBC contract was wrongfully terminated: GHS

Meanwhile, the Garth Homer Society began its own legal battle earlier this spring against Community Living B.C., alleging the Crown agency wrongfully terminated its contract in 2018.

The society's notice of claim also accuses several CLBC staff members of defamation for telling GHS clients and their families the contract was cancelled because of "allegedly unsafe, mismanaged and inadequate" services.

CLBC has yet to file a response and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

Spokesperson Randy Schmidt confirmed in an email that CLBC no longer contracts with GHS for residential services, but said he couldn't comment further on that issue or Katrina's death because of the legal actions.

"CLBC believes it has followed its responsibilities and monitoring guidelines and we will be responding via the appropriate legal process and will continue to do so," Schmidt wrote.

Hurricane Ida shows the increasing impact of climate change since Katrina & SANDY

September 2, 2021 

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina. (Hilary Scheinuk/AP Pool)

Sixteen years to the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Hurricane Ida struck at Port Fourchon, La., on Aug. 29, as a Category 4 hurricane with 240 kilometres per hour winds. Given the date and location of the area affected, Katrina and Ida comparisons are being made.

While no two disasters are the same, looking at differences between past and present disasters can help us to better understand what is needed to prepare for future disasters. As a professor of emergency management, I was on the ground in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, making observations to study aspects of the hurricane’s impact and hurricane evacuations.

Given the scope of the emerging impacts of Hurricane Ida, we see that while this is not a repeat of a Katrina disaster, questions are being raised about the effect of climate change and the resiliency of lifeline infrastructure like electricity.

Remembering Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane in 2005, its associated storm surges were among its most significant impacts. The levees that separated New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain failed. Katrina’s toll was 1,833 killed with US$163 billion in economic losses, making it the costliest weather disaster in the past 50 years.

In looking back at Katrina, forces of nature were not the only causative factors for the disaster. Human-caused circumstances, such as a history of economic and engineering decisions that over time replaced natural coastal wetland buffers against storm surges with a 120-kilometre long industrial canal, were in part to blame for the disaster.

In addition, numerous disaster response debacles complicated the immediate aftermath of Katrina. The disaster exposed racial- and class-based segregation that resulted in disproportionate disaster impacts being felt by racialized populations. What started as a natural disaster played out more like a complex humanitarian emergency.

As the aftermath of Hurricane Ida continues to play out, it remains to be seen if the disaster recovery and the economic losses will approach those of Katrina.

The damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward in April 2006. (Jack Rozdilsky), Author provided

Differences in hurricane behaviour

A hurricane’s behaviours related to disaster damage include the combination of the effects of high-speed damaging winds, intense periods of rainfall and storm surge flooding in low lying coastal areas.

Katrina’s behaviour is remembered for its devastating water-related hazards with storm surges inundating New Orleans neighbourhoods such as the Lower Ninth Ward.

For Ida, the entire breadth of the storm’s wind field stood out as significant. The storm’s behaviour will be remembered for its wind-related hazards. Ida had a slow path of inland movement with highly destructive sustained winds of 200 kilometres per hour for eight hours over a 120-kilometre long path through portions of Jefferson and LaFourche parishes.

In 2005, Katrina crossed a cooler water column in the Gulf of Mexico as it neared the shore, weakening it from a Category 5 to a Category 3 storm at landfall. In 2021, Ida did not encounter any cooler waters, resulting in its rapid intensification. Rising water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are related to climate change.

New preparedness challenges

While the situation remains tenuous in hurricane-stricken locales, at least Ida’s casualty count appears to be nowhere near that of Katrina. As of Sept. 1, Ida’s death toll was at six and counting. It is too early to estimate Ida’s economic losses.

Unlike the situation in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina, the levees and drainage systems protecting New Orleans held up under the stress of Ida’s storm surge. Since Katrina, the U.S. federal government has spent $14.5 billion on levees, pumps, seawalls, floodgates and drainage. Apparently, in the case of Hurricane Ida, that investment in hazard mitigation paid off.

However, while preparations to protect against Katrina-like storm surge flooding appeared to be successful, other aspects of preparation did not fare as well. The region’s electrical grid did not remain functional under the hours of sustained hurricane force winds. Local utilities serving Louisiana said it would take days to assess the damage to their equipment and weeks to fully restore service across the state as problems with the electrical grid continue. All the eight main transmission lines bringing electricity from power plants into New Orleans were knocked out, and more than one million people remain without power three days after landfall.

Without power, the situation is becoming increasingly desperate. As one example of the collateral damages related to a lack of electricity, the gasoline distribution system imploded. As conditions degrade due to a prolonged electrical outage, people who did not evacuate during the storm may be forced to, and those who evacuated will be prevented from returning.

Looking at the aftermath of Hurricane Ida illustrates how climate change is making hurricanes more devastating. While studies continue to assess the climate change contribution to hurricane intensity, there is little doubt that the increased frequency and intensity of hurricanes impacting the Gulf Coast of the U.S. is being influenced by global warming.

Sixteen years of additional climate change since Hurricane Katrina adds to preparation needs. Even if we are doing better with challenges like protecting against storm surge flooding, the impacts of future hurricanes call for additional measures. These include increasing the resiliency of our infrastructure to better meet the risks of a changing climate.

Author

Jack L. Rozdilsky
Associate Professor of Disaster and Emergency Management, York University, Canada
Disclosure statement
Jack L. Rozdilsky is a Professor at York University who receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as a co-investigator on a project supported under operating grant Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid Research Funding.

Hard Lessons From Katrina We’re Still Learning 20 Years Later


Hurricane Katrina not only exposed the vulnerability of communities to extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, but also systemic injustices and a deeply flawed US insurance system.


Water surrounds homes in the devastated Ninth Ward in this aerial view of damage from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on August 30, 2005.
(Photo by Smiley N. Pool/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Charles Slidders

Alexandra Colon-Amil
Aug 29, 2025

CIEL Blog

It’s been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States, wreaking havoc in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. An estimated 1,833 people died in the hurricane and the flooding that ensued. The storm destroyed or damaged more than a million housing units and more than 200,000 homes, causing one of the largest relocations of people in US history.

In the months and years that followed, entrenched inequalities, questionable policy choices, and predatory practices by private insurers decided who could return home and rebuild. For instance, countless residents impacted by the hurricane learned too late that their standard homeowners’ insurance offered no protection against flood damage, leaving them to shoulder devastating repair costs themselves. In cities such as New Orleans, these dynamics further marginalized Black residents, who were more likely to live in flood-prone neighborhoods. The result was widespread and often permanent displacement, with longtime communities effectively erased from the map.

Hurricane Katrina not only exposed the vulnerability of communities to extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, but also systemic injustices and a deeply flawed US insurance system. Private insurers pour billions of dollars into the fossil fuel industry, which is the main contributor to climate change. Thus, insurers help fuel the very crisis that is driving more frequent and severe climate disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, they are passing the financial risk of the escalating impact of climate change onto policyholders and forcing them to bear the costs of the crisis the industry itself helps perpetuate.

As climate-driven storms grow more frequent and increasingly destructive, the same insurance failures, housing crises, and inequitable recovery that followed Katrina now threaten communities nationwide. Two decades later, Katrina’s hard lessons cannot be ignored. Everyone deserves to live in safety and the opportunity to stay in the place they call home. Corporate greed and government negligence cannot continue to undermine these rights.

The Hurricane

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall with winds that reached 140 miles per hour. These high-velocity winds drove a storm surge that raised sea levels 25 to 28 feet above normal along parts of the Mississippi coast, and 10 to 20 feet along the southeastern Louisiana coast. The surge breached protective levees, causing catastrophic flooding. Two days after the hurricane struck, 80% of the city of New Orleans was underwater. Other coastal towns and cities in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and along the western Florida panhandle also experienced significant storm surges and destructive winds, which caused widespread flooding and damage to homes.

The Great Displacement

Approximately 1.5 million people aged 16 years and older had to leave their residences in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama because of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans, where the mayor issued a mandatory evacuation order, a population of around 500,000 was reduced to a few thousand people within a week of the storm.

As water was pumped out of the flooded areas and basic services and infrastructure were restored, New Orleanians were allowed to return. But tens of thousands were not able to do so. One year after Katrina, approximately 197,000 residents had not come back to the city; many relocated to the relatively close cities of Houston and Baton Rouge, but others as far away as Alaska and Massachusetts. Still today, many of those who evacuated the city, hoping to return, remain displaced. New Orleans’s metropolitan area population remains 20% below pre-Katrina levels.

The Impact On Black Communities

The development of New Orleans has been fraught with injustices. Racial segregation, redlining, and chronic underinvestment in Black communities pushed residents and renters into areas with crumbling infrastructure, poorer-quality homes, and greater exposure to environmental hazards and contaminants.

When Katrina hit, Black residents were concentrated in the most vulnerable parts of New Orleans, located well below sea level and poorly protected by inadequate levees. Accordingly, neighborhoods with the highest percentages of Black residents saw greater housing destruction from the storm.

Did You Know?

The disparate impact of climate disasters on property and infrastructure in US minority communities is the result of nearly a century of discriminatory home lending and insurance policies.

In the 1930s, the US federal government used a rating system in its low-cost home loan program to assess lending risk. Assessors created maps ranking the perceived risk of lending in certain neighborhoods, with race often used as the determining factor in assessing a community’s risk level. Black and immigrant neighborhoods were typically rated as “hazardous” and outlined in red, warning lenders that the area was a perilous place to lend money. Known as redlining, these and other discriminatory practices led to a lack of investment in minority communities.

This lack of financial access resulted in shoddy construction and poor infrastructure that have made minority neighborhoods less resilient to climate disasters and more prone to other financial risks. For instance, insurers are more likely to increase premiums if they determine that properties are less resilient to climate damage. This new financial practice is known as bluelining, and it occurs when insurers raise their prices or pull out of areas that they perceive to be at greater environmental risk.

Reconstruction: A New Pathway to Segregation?

For Lousina’s Black residents, Katrina’s damage was compounded by discriminatory recovery policies that deepened inequalities. After the storm, the federally funded Road Home program was launched to help residents repair or rebuild damaged homes. It offered grants of up to $150,000 per homeowner, but payments were based on whichever was lower—the home’s pre-storm value or the cost to rebuild.

Because property values in Black neighborhoods were often far lower than in white neighborhoods, this meant many Black homeowners would receive only a fraction of what they needed to rebuild. In one case, a woman had rebuilding costs of over $150,000, but because the estimated value of her home pre-storm was much lower, she would’ve received an essentially useless grant of $1,400. As a result, the program was alleged to discriminate against Black homeowners, and a federal class action suit was filed on November 12, 2008, on behalf of 20,000 homeowners. The litigation settled with Louisiana agreeing to reward approximately 1,300 homeowners with $62 million in additional compensation.

The Blow to Affordable Housing

Renters fared no better. Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed 82,000 rental units in Louisiana, 20% of which were affordable to extremely low-income households. The impact on public and federally subsidized rentals was especially severe. In New Orleans, public-housing residents were displaced at a rate of nearly 90%. And reconstruction policies only exacerbated the disparities these residents faced.
Consider this.

Before the storm hit and floodwaters rose, the Housing Authority of New Orleans evacuated all residents living in its 7,379 public housing units. After the waters receded, residents were allowed to return to approximately 1,600 units. Most other units were sealed off with steel doors and barbed wire—officially due to storm damage—before being slated for demolition. Yet, the redevelopment that followed included far fewer mixed-income apartments. By 2010, five years after the hurricane, less than half of the original 7,379 units were open in any form. The dramatic decrease in public housing contributed to the permanent displacement of many of New Orleans’ longtime residents.

After Katrina, renters faced a range of economic pressures. Many landlords delayed repairs or rebuilding, especially in low-income areas, which are seen as less profitable. Some used the disaster as an opportunity to renovate and target higher-paying tenants, further shrinking the supply of affordable rentals. Within five years of the Hurricane, the stock of mid-priced housing units in New Orleans had declined by more than two-thirds, pushing the median rent from $689 in 2004 to $876 in 2009. These rising costs hit Black residents hardest, forcing many to leave and permanently altering the city’s character.

Even those who could afford to return to New Orleans and buy a new home after Katrina faced soaring prices—up 14% in the first year alone—as demand outpaced the reduced housing supply. In addition, homeowners’ insurance premiums jumped 22% in Louisiana between 2005 and 2007, adding yet another barrier to homeownership.

The Flood Exclusion Trap

Then, as now, and to the surprise of many victims of the Hurricane, standard home insurance policies in the US did not protect homeowners from floodwater damage. This means residents must buy additional flood insurance to be protected in the event of a disaster like Katrina.

New Orleans residents had among the highest participation rates in the country in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a federal government program that provides flood insurance to homeowners, renters, and businesses. However, the majority of residents in areas affected by Katrina had not purchased flood insurance. Uninsured property losses due to flooding were economically devastating, exceeding an estimated $41.1 billion (USD 100 billion in 2024 prices). In addition, the NFIP incurred some $16.1 billion in losses and a deficit exceeding $18 billion as a direct result of the flooding caused by Katrina.

Even for New Orleanians with flood insurance, coverage likely fell short. Policies typically covered about $152,000—the city’s median house price at the time. But this was rarely enough to replace the damaged household contents or to pay residents for temporary housing while their home was uninhabitable.

More and more, whether people hit by climate-driven storms get anything from their insurers depends not on the fact that their homes were damaged, but on how they were damaged.

While the standard home insurance policy does not cover water damage from a hurricane, it does cover wind damage. This gap left residents and insurers arguing about whether Katrina’s destruction to their homes was caused by its high-velocity winds or the flooding that followed, with multiple lawsuits challenging the validity of flood exclusions in insurance policies. Even before the flooding receded and residents of Louisiana and Mississippi could start to rebuild their lives, courts were inundated with litigation, with about 6,600 insurance-related lawsuits being instigated in the US District Court. Yet, Katrina’s destructive flooding was driven by a storm surge powered by the hurricane’s high winds—the very peril homeowners’ policies are supposed to cover.

On September 15, 2005, Mississippi’s Attorney General Jim Hood filed a case against five of the largest homeowners’ insurers in the state. Attorney General Hood sought a court declaration that the flood exclusion provision in standard home insurance policies was “void and unenforceable” and in violation “of the public policy of the State of Mississippi.” However, in that case and others, courts ruled that the flood exclusions were spelled out clearly in homeowners’ insurance policies and did not violate public policy.

The exclusion of water damage from insurance coverage remains a present issue for existing homeowners. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, since 1996, 99% of US counties have been impacted by flooding, but only 4% of homeowners have flood insurance. And, more importantly, over half (56%) of American homeowners don’t know that their home insurance policy excludes flood damage. As hurricane season intensifies, many homeowners will be shocked to learn that their insurance does not cover flood loss.

Insurers’ Favorite Loophole: Wind vs. Water Damage

After Katrina, some insurers exploited the false dichotomy between wind and water damage, classifying losses as water damage to shift liability onto homeowners or the NFIP.

In 2013, a federal jury in Mississippi found that State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. defrauded the NFIP after avoiding covering a policyholder’s wind losses from Katrina by blaming the damage on storm surge, which is covered by federal flood insurance. Almost 10 years later, in August 2022, State Farm settled the case, agreeing to pay $100 million to the federal government.

State Farm was not the only insurer engaged in nefarious behavior, attributing Hurricane Katrina damage to flooding instead of wind. In oral argument before the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2009, insurance company USAA publicly admitted that it shifted its own costs to the NFIP and thus taxpayers.

The false dichotomy between the wind and water damage resulting from a hurricane remains nebulous. The damage caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina in 2022, with its record-high wind speeds, generated $63 billion in private insurance claims. In contrast, 2018’s Hurricane Florence primarily caused water—not wind—damage in North and South Carolina, leaving uninsured flood losses estimated at nearly $20 billion and letting private insurers largely escape liability. More and more, whether people hit by climate-driven storms get anything from their insurers depends not on the fact that their homes were damaged, but on how they were damaged.

Regulators Must Act: People over Profit

Hurricane Katrina exposed widespread gaps in home insurance coverage that persist today. In the 20 years since Katrina, unmitigated climate change has fueled rising temperatures and made extreme weather events such as hurricanes both more frequent and more severe. As storms grow costlier and more destructive, insurers have raised home insurance premiums and declined to renew many policies, leaving households with fewer options for protection. This escalating cycle has produced today’s insurance crisis.

Federal and state lawmakers must respond. The federal government must reform the NFIP to improve federal flood insurance and ensure it provides affordable coverage for more hazards. At the same time, the NFIP should do more to support community-based mitigation. States, meanwhile, must use their regulatory authority over insurance markets to address skyrocketing insurance costs and growing coverage gaps resulting from mounting climate change impacts.

Regulators should adopt legislation, like New York’s Insure Our Future bill, to prohibit insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, require them to phase out support for existing projects, and force insurers to divest from fossil fuel companies.

The insurance industry cannot ignore its role in fueling the very crisis it now faces. Climate change-induced disasters are indisputably driven by fossil fuel emissions. And insurance companies facilitate climate change by investing in fossil fuel companies and underwriting fossil fuel projects. US insurance companies have investments of more than $500 billion infossil fuel-related assets, including coal, oil, and gas. In 2022 alone, insurers worldwide collected $21 billion in premiums for underwriting fossil fuel projects—directly enabling their expansion.

Regulators should adopt legislation, like New York’s Insure Our Future bill, to prohibit insurers from underwriting new fossil fuel projects, require them to phase out support for existing projects, and force insurers to divest from fossil fuel companies. Without bold action, insurers will continue to profit from climate destruction while leaving families and communities to bear the costs.


© 2024 Center for International Environmental Law


Charles Slidders
Charles Slidders is the senior attorney for financial strategies in CIEL’s Climate & Energy Program.
Full Bio >

Alexandra Colon-Amil
Alexandra Colon-Amil is the communications campaign specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law.
Full Bio >

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BUSH KATRINA

Children of climate change come of age in ‘Katrina Babies’
BY DREW COSTLEY

yesterday

1 of 7

Edward Buckles, Jr., a New Orleans native who was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit and directed the documentary "Katrina Babies," poses underneath the Claiborne Avenue overpass for a photo in the city on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. The film looks at how a generation of New Orleans residents coming of age after Hurricane Katrina, are reconciling with the catastrophic storm that transformed their lives. (AP Photo/Chansey Augustine)


Edward Buckles, Jr. was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and completely upended his life. Buckles and his family moved from New Orleans to Lafayette, Louisiana for several months while their hometown began to recover from the catastrophic storm.

He told The Associated Press he doesn’t remember much from those months living in Lafayette, grasping for a sense of normalcy in the aftermath of one of the most destructive hurricanes in American history.

His community was experiencing so much destruction. Now as an adult, he views that blank spot in his memory as a response to the trauma of what he witnessed.

Buckles’ parents asked him at the time if he was okay, but he wasn’t quite able to figure that out for himself in the moment. Later the trauma resurfaced. With kids, he said, “what’s responsible and what’s important is that you set them up to deal with that trauma once it surfaces.”

But the filmmaker said in his new documentary “Katrina Babies” that not all the children who were traumatized by living through the hurricane and its aftermath had adults checking in on them. So that’s what he set out to do, capturing several New Orleans residents as they reconcile with a childhood marred by Hurricane Katrina.

The documentary, which has garnered critical praise, will be available for streaming on HBO Max on August 24 and debuts on HBO the same day at 9 pm ET, 17 years and a day after the hurricane formed in the Atlantic Ocean.

It shows how New Orleans and its people were changed by the storm. It depicts the childhood trauma it caused for a generation coming of age after one of the United States’ first major climate-related disasters. New Orleanians featured in the documentary share stories of seeing dead people and pets, of leaving home and returning to communities destroyed, while they were still children.

The film looks at climate past and present and, the filmmakers hope, sounds alarm bells for the climate future.

“I hope this is a local and American story that will motivate people to want to do better and care about human beings, and about how intrinsically linked we are with nature and that the future is clear: There is going to be more of this,” said Audrey Rosenberg, lead producer of the film.

Buckles said that while Hurricane Katrina might has been a formative experience for him and the youth of New Orleans at the time, more waters have come through since. Though he isn’t a climate scientist, he knows firsthand the repeated damage wrought on his hometown by hurricanes and tropical storms made more intense by climate change.

“My grandmother lost her home due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “She has been flooded seven more times just from tropical storms.”

Cierra Chenier, 26, was featured in the documentary and also knows people who have had to rebuild multiple times since Hurricane Katrina due to subsequent hurricanes and storms.

She said the loss of culture and history in New Orleans due to repeated climate-related disasters like Hurricane Katrina shaped her decision to become a local historian and writer.

“I got into wanting to preserve our history because of how quickly I felt my childhood became history,” she said. Even though the storm was 17 years ago, she said, it continues to shape the present.

“In preserving our stories, writing about those stories and narrating those stories, it’s always connected to the present and we can form better solutions for the future,” she said.

Chenier, Buckles and the other youth affected by Hurricane Katrina have a lot to say about the future, having experienced years of government inaction to limit climate change or prepare and recover from climate disasters. Year after year, New Orleanians and the state and federal government know that hurricane season is going to come and be potentially catastrophic because of climate change, Buckles said.

And still, he said, Hurricane Ida, which hit New Orleans 16 years to the day after Hurricane Katrina, affected people in his community in eerily similar ways to the 2005 storm. The relief measures, he said, were nearly as slow.

As a result, people in his community have become more resilient. But he said he wonders whether government agencies are relying on those harmed by climate-related disasters to help themselves when what they really need is public planning and preparation.

“The youth are tired of dealing with this, myself included,” he said. “And we cannot forget to hold accountable those who need to be held accountable.”


Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

 

20 years after Hurricane Katrina: Could cuts to disaster preparedness leave the US vulnerable again?

Copyright The Library of Congress/Unsplash

By Craig Saueurs

Published on 29/08/2025 - 

Experts warn that another Hurricane Katrina isn’t just possible, but it’s also likely.

Twenty years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina ripped into Louisiana and left New Orleans flooded. Nearly 2,000 people died. Entire neighbourhoods were lost. It was the costliest storm in US history, and it reshaped how the country responds to disasters.

But the systems built in Katrina’s wake are now under threat.

Scientists and emergency managers are warning that cuts to forecasting and federal response systems risk leaving the US exposed in the midst of hurricane season, and as climate change fuels ever stronger storms.

The storm that changed America

Katrina made landfall on 29 August 2005 as a Category 3 hurricane. The wind was brutal, but it was the flooding that devastated New Orleans.

Built by the Army Corps of Engineers to help ships navigate the Mississippi River, the flood walls and concrete levees surrounding the city failed, leaving 80 per cent of it submerged for weeks.e

Thousands clung to rooftops waiting to be rescued. Others were crammed into the city’s Superdome stadium without food or medicine. 

In all, 1,833 people died across five states, and the economic cost was staggering. Adjusted for inflation, damages topped $200 billion (€170 billion), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The city’s population has never recovered. From nearly half a million before the storm, it has dropped to 384,000 today. Many who fled Katrina never returned.

Forecasting gains are suddenly under threat

The scale of the failure forced many changes. FEMA was restructured. And NOAA launched a major research effort to sharpen its hurricane forecasts. New levees were built to protect cities from floodwaters. 

Since 2005, forecast accuracy has improved 50 per cent, according to NOAA data cited by the non-profit Ocean Conservancy. Tracking and intensity predictions have become more precise, saving billions by allowing tighter evacuation zones and faster response.

In the last three years alone, predictions about the tracks hurricanes will follow have improved 8 per cent and intensity forecasts 10 per cent, according to Ocean Conservancy.

Related

• Trump reports distort science to justify rollback of key climate protections, experts warn
• From renewables to foreign aid, experts are optimistic the EU can step into the void left by the US

Those gains have come from long-term investment. NOAA’s Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, launched in 2007, built the research backbone for better models and data. Its Hurricane Analysis and Forecasting System, operational since 2023, now provides seven-day forecasts on storm tracks, intensity, surge, rainfall and even tornado risk. Upgrades planned for 2025 now aim to capture how multiple storms interact across vast distances, providing unprecedented detail to forecasters.

But all of this depends on NOAA’s full system being operational – its satellites, ocean sensors, planes, supercomputers and data from international partners. US lawmakers are now weighing cuts that would slash that system and reduce the staff who oversee it.

“NOAA saves lives. Period,” Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy said in a press release this week. “Cut any link in that chain and you weaken the whole and put people at risk.”

The warning comes as the Atlantic has started producing stronger storms than ever.

Hurricane Helene in 2024 was the eighth Category 4 or 5 hurricane to hit the US in just eight years – equal to the number that struck in the previous 50 years combined.

FEMA in crisis

NOAA is not the only American agency in turmoil.

According to a letter signed by more than 180 current and former employees at FEMA – the US Federal Emergency Management Agency created by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 – around one-third of the agency’s permanent staff have left since January. It follows criticism and threats of closure from the Trump administration. Senior officials were pushed out while inexperienced political appointees took over, the authors note.

In the letter – titled the ‘Katrina Declaration’ – they accused the Trump administration of ignoring the lessons that lawmakers wrote into the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act.

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“Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one,” they wrote. “Two decades later, FEMA is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions [that law] was designed to prevent.”

The letter comes in the middle of a hurricane season that NOAA expects to be above-normal, and just a month after deadly floods in Texas killed at least 135 people, including 37 children. Experts say FEMA’s weakened capacity worsened the death toll.

New Orleans remembers Katrina’s devastation

In New Orleans, the 20th anniversary stands as both a memorial and a warning.

Survivors and community leaders plan to gather in the Lower Ninth Ward, where a levee breach inundated a predominantly Black neighbourhood.

The commemoration, organised by Katrina Commemoration Inc. and Hip Hop Caucus, will include a wreath-laying ceremony, exhibitions from local artists and a brass band second line parade – a New Orleans tradition rooted in African American jazz funerals.

Organisers say the event is also meant to highlight the city’s fragile infrastructure, gentrification and growing vulnerability to climate change. Local leaders are hoping to keep these issues at the forefront of people’s minds as they push for the anniversary to be recognised as a state holiday.

Could Hurricane Katrina happen again?

Experts say yes. Stronger storms, a weakened FEMA and threatened cuts to NOAA make another Katrina not only possible but also more likely.

“The inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified and effective aid left survivors to fend for themselves,” the FEMA letter warns. 

Two decades later, those same conditions are being recreated, the authors argue.

“Hurricane Katrina took nearly 2,000 lives and caused [billions] in damage. We learned hard lessons and built world-class forecasting as a result,” says Watters.

“Cutting those systems now – on the 20th anniversary and at the height of hurricane season – would be reckless.”

Katrina: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

See my other blog postings on Katrina:

A Paradox called Katrina

Katrina: It's a Dog-gone Crime

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina blasted the hell out of the Gulf Coast of the US what can we say about this. Well there was the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE GOOD: The thousands of people, ordinary citizens who helped each other and volunteered to bring food and supplies to the Gulf Coast without the help of the state or so called civil society; NGO's and humanitarian bueraucrats. I will even give credit here to a San Diegeo Oil magnate and a movie star who both filled private airplanes with supplies and without media fanfare delivered the goods to those in need. To the thousands of people who are currently rescuing animals that the state forced to be left behind in their hasty post Katrina evacuation. The expressions of genuine mutual aid and self organiziation that is the hallmark of Anarchy.

New Orleans has been governed throughout this entire debacle. Don't blame anarchy for government's failures. If anything, this helps illustrate the case for self-government.
Enjoy Every Sandwich

Yep it was Anarchy in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, chaos was created mnot by the storm but by the disorganization of the agents of law and order, but real anarchy arose in the actions of citizens. Self government was created in the disaster areas, to deal with the disaster.

Dhalgren in New Orleans
What an old science-fiction novel can tell us about the Big Easy
Bidisha Banerjee

Like Kid, who leaves the city after losing Lanya and other friends in the fire and confusion resulting from a race riot, those who choose to stay in New Orleans will, in all likelihood, come to harm. But, I hope, not before glimpsing more than the city's nightmares. About two dozen people in New Orleans refused to accept the cancellation of the Southern Decadence gay pride parade scheduled for last weekend. They donned wigs and beads, and celebrated in the streets. A restaurant started giving away $20,000 worth of free food, and two bars in the (mostly dry) French Quarter remained open through the hurricane. In the absence of any controlling legal authority, residents even formed ad hoc defense committees. You wouldn't know it from the blathering of countless columnists, but while Katrina was busy disproving some non-existent policy of "small government," private citizens from Wal-Mart to New Orleans hoteliers proved their ability to keep functioning in an unreal city. It's a start—not only for the city's will to rebuild itself, but also for the inhabitants who hope to stick it out until then. There are many stories about the bodies still afloat in New Orleans, but this one, with its detail about a corpse with one shoe on and one shoe off (an image that haunts Samuel Delany's work, Dhalgren) stands apart.


THE BAD: The State, NGO's and humanitarian agencies that percipitated this disaster by not evacuating everyone or having a plan of evacuating everyone, or a plan period. Reacting too late to a crisis which had they evacuated on Friday before Katrina hit would have had lots of time to get everyone out of New Orleans at least. The Greyhound bus company that removed its buses from New Orleans on Saturday before the hurricane.

The STATE at all levels failed, the limited government created by the neo-cons created a STATE which cannot govern in times when it is needed most, during disasters. The reduction in taxes, in the rational governing of resources, and the increasing authoritarian Securtiy State of the Bush Administration met their Waterloo in Katrina.

And all this could have been avoided if the STATE had listened to the government, in this case the Hurricane Emergency Adisory agency in Louisiana which do its duty, understaffed and underpaid, warned all STATE agencies, local, state and federal, of the pending disaster. But nobody listened.

Fed Response to Katrina Gets Thumbs Down
September 4, 2005--Just 28% of Americans give say that the federal government has done a good or an excellent job responding to Hurricane Katrina. Another 25% say the government has done a fair job while 45% say poor.

Poll: Respondents dissatisfied with Katrina response
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Posted: 1546 GMT (2346 HKT)
(CNN) -- A majority of Americans surveyed in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday said they disapproved of President Bush's handling of the response to Hurricane Katrina

THE UGLY: Gretna, Louisiana across the bridge from New Oreleans, armed racist police refused access to survivors from NO. The police guarding the bridge between Gretna and NO generously refered to the evacuee's as 'looters'.

This should be no surprize, except to those 70% of white Americans polled who said that race was not a factor in the failure to evacuate or rescue victims of Katrina.

Poll shows wide racial divide on views of Katrina
Six in 10 African-Americans say the fact that most hurricane victims were poor and black was one reason the federal government failed to come to the rescue more quickly. Whites reject that idea; nearly 9 in 10 say those weren't factors. In New Orleans, Bush on Monday said race played no role.

The New York Times Leads the Pack in Scapegoating Black Americans
Race, Katrina and the Media By ISHMAEL REED

Of course there was no racism, this is the gentile land of Southern Gentlemen and Southern Belles after all.

A Guide to Southern Hospitality The Deep South has always taken great pride in its reputation for “Southern Hospitality”. Yet Jefferson Parish, a suburban bedroom community of New Orleans, Louisiana, harbors a dark and shameful culture of racism. Throughout its history, from the prolific lynchings in the 1890's to the senseless diatribes of its extremist politicians in the 1980's, Jefferson Parish is gifted with the ignoble distinction of “America’s Johannesburg.”

Nope no racism in the Deep South.

When Hate Came to Town: New Orleans' Jews and George Lincoln Rockwell,

Gretna is the stomping grounds of white supremascist/neo-nazi and former Klansman, David Duke.

David Duke a Biography

David Duke on Stormfront-Neo Nazi Site.

There's an old sheriff in town: The legacy of racism in the parish that blocked N.O. from fleeing Hell
"If there are some young blacks driving a car late at night in a predominantly white area, they will be stopped. If you live in a predominantly white neighborhood and two blacks are in a car behind you, there's a pretty good chance they're up to no good. It's obvious two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominately white neighborhood - I'm not talking about on the main thoroughfare, but if they're on one of the side streets and they're cruising around - they'll be stopped."

-- Jefferson Parish, La., Sheriff Harry Lee in 1986.

In 2005, Harry Lee is still the sheriff of Jefferson Parish -- a county that also once sent David Duke to the statehouse and tried to erect physical barriers from a mostly black New Orleans community. And last week, his deputies took part in what may become the most notorious racial incident of our young new millennium.

After Blocking the Bridge, Gretna Circles the Wagons

City of Gretna Louisiana-The most evil, racist city in America.

Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans

Three New Orleans suburbs to reopen Wednesday

13 Sep 2005 23:56:54 GMT

Source: Reuters
GRETNA, Louisiana, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Three suburbs of New Orleans announced they will reopen on Wednesday, saying residents have safe water, electricity and sewer service 15 days after Katrina struck. The cities of Gretna, Westwego and Lafitte, Louisiana, said residents could come back starting at 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning but cautioned that they would face a strict curfew "The city now is open for business," Westwego mayor Robert Billiot told WWL radio. "We are going to rebuild Westwego. We look forward to you coming home." The three cities are all in Jefferson Parish, a county of suburbs that borders New Orleans on both sides of the Mississippi River. They are on the south side of the river, the so-called West Bank, and did not suffer the widespread, continued flooding that other areas hav

After Katrina

George W. Bush failed to be on site in New York immediately after 9/11. He failed again when Katrina devastated New Orleans.

On September 14, 2001 he cruised over WTC site in a helicopter, shades of flying over New Orleans, and does his famous photo-op with the Firemen at Ground Zero.

==Around mid-afternoon on Friday, Bush finally appears in New York City with a large Congressional delegation and takes a quick helicopter tour of the devastated area with Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki as warplanes fly overhead. Afterwards, Bush visits Ground Zero, where he engages in a rare impromptu exchange with a crowd. As rescue personnel chant “U.S.A! U.S.A.!,” Bush climbs atop a small pile of rubble and uses a bullhorn to thank them for their efforts. When some workers call out that they can’t hear, Bush responds "I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" The crowd reacts with cheers and more chants of “U.S.A.!” Workers at Ground Zero are clearly encouraged by Bush’s visit, but there is also annoyance over the two hour shutdown of rescue work caused by the extremely tight security measures. [nyt.Sep.14.2001 / cnn.Sep.14.2001 / dmn.Sep.15.2001]

After talking to state officials and emergency teams in New York, the president flew to Camp David for what a senior US official called a "decision-making meeting" later on Saturday with top advisors.

September 14: President Bush declares a national emergency. The Senate adopts a resolution authorizing the use of U.S. armed forces against those responsible for the attacks. President Bush visits the World Trade Center site. Federal officials release names of the 19 hijackers. Bush declares a "national day of prayer and remembrance." Many Americans attend religious services. Congress unanimously approves $40 billion for emergency aid, including $20 billion for New York. President Bush activates 50,000 national guard and reserve members to help with recovery and security.

After Katrina he failed to visit New Orleans until the anniversary of 9/11. Weeks after the hurricane hit. And then it was for another photo op like 9/11.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) Sunday, September 11, 2005;

-- President Bush arrived in Louisiana Sunday as the official death toll from Hurricane Katrina climbed past 400 and the search for bodies continued nearly two weeks after the storm hit the Gulf Coast.

The visit is Bush's third to the region but his first chance to get a first-hand look at the streets of New Orleans, which were flooded after levees protecting the low-lying city broke.

Two days after the storm hit, Bush surveyed Katrina's destruction from Air Force One on his way back to Washington from Crawford, Texas, where he'd spent a month's vacation. He visited other parts of the region in two subsequent visits.

He was on vacation prior to Katrina as he was prior to 9/11.

“News coverage has pointedly stressed that W.'s month-long stay at his ranch in Crawford is the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. Washington Post supercomputers calculated that if you add up all his weekends at Camp David, layovers at Kennebunkport and assorted to-ing and fro-ing, W. will have spent 42 percent of his presidency ‘at vacation spots or en route.’” Charles Krauthammer, “A Vacation Bush Deserves,” The Washington Post, August 10, 2001.

Yesterday he commemorated his regimes failure to support the people of New Orleans then and now. And as usual there was no mea culpa.

President Bush and other officials observed the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, honoring the dead and touring still ruined neighborhoods.

However the real scandal is not that he arrived late after Hurricane Katrina, but that after two years the City has not been rebuilt, funds have been squandered.

A recent report from the RFK Center for Human Rights and the Institute for Southern Studies estimated that the Bush administration was overstating federal funding for the Gulf Coast rebuilding campaign by as much as 300%, with about $35 billion of an estimated $114 billion actually spent.

With America's largest black city and thousands of blacks stranded in the immediate aftermath of the storm the failure to rescue them smacked of racism.

That the federal government has utterly failed in these lethal days is universally obvious.

Is it because so many of these people are black and poor? Is it because Bush has successfully stolen a second term and just doesn't care? Is it because this gouged and battered organization that was once our government has been so thoroughly exhausted by war and corruption that it cannot or will not manage so basic a task as bringing the necessities of life to its needlessly dying citizens?

But to hear of dead bodies being stacked outside a professional football stadium to avoid further stench where ten thousand Americans can't get water, food or sanitary facilities.To see dazed elders who've just lost their homes or hospital rooms being laid on sidewalks to die. To watch crying children stretched out on the ground, separated from their parents, dehydrated, overheated, starving....this is too much to bear.

How utterly can our nation have failed? How totally bankrupt can we be?

And the guy in charge of all this who should have been fired; Homeland Security boss Chertoff, wasn't.

Congressional investigators lambasted the U.S. government for its response to Hurricane Katrina, saying a lack of a clear chain of command hindered relief efforts and that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff or another top official should have been the point person on relief efforts.

The Government Accountability Office also found that the government still lacks sufficient plans and training programs to prepare for catastrophic disasters like the Aug. 29 storm that devastated much of the Gulf Coast area. But it also singled out Chertoff in several shortcomings.

Until now, Chertoff has largely escaped widespread criticism of the government's sluggish response to Katrina. By contrast, then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, the principal federal official at the disaster site, quit his job after becoming the public face of the failures.

The report said that neither Chertoff nor any of his deputies in the disaster area acted as President George W. Bush's overall storm coordinator, "which serves to underscore the immaturity of and weaknesses relating to the current national response framework."

After all Katrina was not a surprise to the administration since they had anticipated it.

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all."

Some critics are suggesting President Bush was as least partly responsible for the flooding in New Orleans. In a widely quoted opinion piece, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal says that "the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature," and cites years of reduced funding for federal flood-control projects around New Orleans.

Our fact-checking confirms that Bush indeed cut funding for projects specifically designed to strengthen levees. Indeed, local officials had been complaining about that for years.

And with a lame duck President and an administration running on the spot nothing has changed. The failures that led to the destruction of New Orleans plague the White House still.

When investigating the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, a House of Representatives select committee cited a “failure of initiative” at all levels of government. The storm killed 1,836 people, caused an estimated $81 billion in damage, and displaced some two million people. The population of New Orleans is currently about 66 percent of its pre-Katrina level, and the city’s uneven recovery is examined in depth in this New York Times interactive feature. The Department of Homeland Security has since quadrupled its stockpiles of emergency supplies and sought to improve emergency planning at the community level. The 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act signed by President Bush in August promises to provide increased funding for emergency communications and first responders. Yet some experts believe the lessons of the disaster appear to have gone unlearned. In his recent book, The Edge of Disaster, CFR’s Stephen Flynn says the levees that failed to protect New Orleans two years ago are being rebuilt to the same standard as before, capable only of enduring a Category 3 hurricane.

Now compare Bush's slow response to President Johnson's visit to hurricane ravaged New Orleans after Hurricane Betsy. And a visit to the same lower ninth ward that Bush visited yesterday.

Lyndon Johnson received high marks for visiting the Lower Ninth Ward and victims in shelters a day after Hurricane Betsy ravaged New Orleans. ("I put aside all the problems on my desk to come to Louisiana as soon as I could," Johnson said.)

President Lyndon Baines Johnson flew into New Orleans the day after Hurricane Betsy in September 1965 and announced at the airport, "I am here because I want to see with my own eyes what the unhappy alliance of wind and water have done to this land and people."

The day after. Not a week later.

LBJ believed in the 'Great Society'. Bush believes in 'compassionate conservatism'. The latter is an ideological reaction to the former. And it has proven to be more of a failure than the Great Society ever was.


SEE:

Our Living Earth

Surge Blackout

What He Didn't Say

Soul of a City

Remember Katrina and Rita?

Katrina Mission Accomplished

Katrina: It's a Dog-Gone Crime

This is What Global Warming Looks Like

A Paradox called Katrina

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