By Jamahri Williams

Hurricane Ida fell on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina(Aug 29, 2005), one of the most destructive storms to ever hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Both had tragic effects on people’s lives uprooting and completely changing how they lived. From the research I did, Ida displaced about 14,000 people and destroyed over 800,000 homes, which was close to the same amount of homes that Katrina took. Not only did it flip everyone’s lives upside down, but it also brought back all the memories that happened 16 years ago. For most, losing their home and having to leave wasn’t something that they wanted to relive, and for others, it was something that they had never experienced before. On top of it all, school life was just getting back to normal after being online from the Covid pandemic. But now, two years later in 2023, families are still displaced, and Louisiana and its homes haven’t gotten back to normal. Not only that but insurance is getting very messy and costly for a lot of families. 

To better understand what people have gone through and are still going through, I interviewed a member of the Marsalis family to find out how they were affected by Ida as they are located in New Orleans East. I talked to Kaya Marsalis about her home, what she did for the storm, and if she and her family left. Kaya (46) said, “We did not stay and we evacuated to Bandon, Mississippi, and there was little to no damage to our home, and when we got back, all of their necessities were on and working .” I also talked to her about FEMA relief, insurance, feelings on the rising cost? and what she thinks could be done in the future. She said, “I did receive the relief, but I don’t remember how much it was but it wasn’t enough to support my family.” She also said “It is very unfortunate that insurance companies are pulling out because of the rising claims, but I am not surprised because we live in a capitalist society, and insurance companies’ main goal is to not pay multiple claims. It isn’t profitable to them and they want to make money, not lose money.” Most importantly, I asked, “What should be done in the future?” Kaya answered, “There is not really anything that can be done, the increasing storms are from global warming like you can’t stop it, we are in the grips of global warming, so there’s not much to do.”

To give some more context to this, I would like to talk about the timeline of things when it comes to the two important hurricanes. When both Katrina and Ida hit, the city got destroyed and was closed for a while, especially schools and nursing homes that were damaged. With repairs in full swing, everyone thought the city would get back to normal after Katrina. In reality, places and homes became abandoned and roads got worse than they already were. That same thing that happened then is starting to happen now after Ida because it has been Two years and many people are still gone, waiting for their house to be finished, or still waiting for the insurance claim that they sent out approved so that they can start repairs on their home “But outside the city, more than 100,000 customers were without lights through Sept. 13. As of Friday evening there were still about 38,000 customers without power, and many people remained displaced from damaged homes”(NYT). I just want that to be known because a lot of people are living with their homes still in bad condition after the storm and that’s not okay for it to take this long for people to get back on their feet and live in a fully repaired home. It’s not okay for them to have to fight the insurance companies because, as Kaya brought up, “companies are starting to pull out of New Orleans and Louisiana.” She also mentioned that she can only get Louisiana Citizens insurance, which is most likely true for other citizens. “The growing number of bankrupt insurers is forcing homeowners back into the arms of Lousiana Citizens where, by law, coverage offered must be at least 10% higher than private options. The organization now has more than 100,000 policyholders, nearly three times as many as before Hurricane Laura.”(NOLA.com)

There has been a lot of talk about insurance throughout, and what I mean by this is the basic things like homeowners, floods, and other ones like dwelling insurance that a lot of people need. The first two may seem like they could be similar, but what I have learned is that “While your homeowners’ insurance may pay for water damage due to broken pipes, flood insurance pays for damages caused by the rising of a body of water that covers normally dry land” (Transparity Insurance Services) so new homeowners, get these to protect their home. However, most homeowners don’t try to get both or don’t have the right financial situation for both, except if they have a mortgage that the bank requires homeowners insurance on, especially in Louisiana because of the rising prices, they have to pick one or the other. So if major storms happen like Ida most residents lose their homes completely or can’t have anything done because they went for the insurance they could afford. But even that insurance isn’t working and homeowners are trying to fight the price. At this point, Louisiana citizens are struggling and won’t know what happens next storm especially now since each storm puts Louisiana deeper below sea levels over time that at some point can’t be stopped by the levees “One death in Louisiana was a drowning in storm surge in Lafite in Jefferson Parish, while a second was a drowning when a car was driven into freshwater flooding in New Orleans. The two other deaths in Louisiana were due to high winds that damaged buildings in Ascension and St. James Parishes”(NHC).

So whether it’s past effects that are still seen today or ones that are just happening now, we have to focus on the future because the more storms we get the more that the number of housing costs gets higher and the number of people leaving and staying gone get higher. This is all because we don’t have a perfect plan for the future. The past didn’t help change how we look into the future so a lot of people are lost and will stay lost if relief, insurance, and all-around help don’t get better as time progresses and we see more storms like Katrina and Ida.