Friday, August 29, 2025

Katrina, 20 years later

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This is America

Stories of justice and action across America

Fri Aug 29 2025

Two decades ago one of America's premier cities, New Orleans, was submerged under water after Hurricane Katrina wrecked much of the Gulf Coast and opened up national wounds in the process.

Hey there, This is America readers, Phillip M. Bailey, chief political correspondent for USA TODAY.

The storm that changed so much roared ashore on Aug 29, 2005 and left death and destruction in its wake.

More than 1,300 people were killed and roughly $200 billion in damage was heaped upon the Louisiana city, but the disaster also revealed a canyon in how poorer Americans suffer disproportionately with many of the dead and abandoned living in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, a predominately Black area.

Thousands were displaced and forced to settle elsewhere, such as Michelle Gibson, a dance teacher who relocated to Dallas, Texas and has never returned.

"When I left home, I didn't leave home. I took home with me," she told USA TODAY.

Drivers and passengers wait outside their cars as traffic snarls on the interstate highway leaving downtown New Orleans August 28, 2005.

Rick Wilking, REUTERS

Remembering one of the country's worst natural disasters has many reflecting on what America has learned in terms of race, poverty, environmental disasters and the federal government's responses.

For more on Katrina, 20 years later, check out the USA TODAY Network's coverage:

•	USA TODAY national correspondent Rick Jervis went back to see if New Orleans' culture survived Katrina. Here's what he found.
•	Katrina: 'The storm that told us what was to come' for climate and insurance
•	As a nation, we remember Hurricane Katrina. But how about its lessons?

Grand juries pushing back on Trump's crime crackdown in D.C.

Members of the National Guard patrol Washington, D.C., past a banner of President Donald Trump on Aug. 27, 2025.

Brian Snyder/Reuters

One of the strongest lines of resistance against President Donald Trump and his administration's militarized surge in Washington, D.C. is coming from average citizens who aren't buying everything that federal prosecutors are selling.

A grand jury refused to indict Sean Charles Dunn this week who went viral for throwing a sub sandwich at a federal agent during an Aug. 10 confrontation. This came after the White House featured Dunn's arrest in one of its online videos celebrating the crackdown, by the way.

The failure to get an indictment has put a spotlight on Trump's deployment (which he is promising will come to Chicago next) but it also underscores the vital role civilians play in the legal justice system.

At least one other D.C. federal grand jury, for instance, has declined on three separate occasions to indict a woman who is alleged to have assaulted an FBI agent. Grand jurors in Los Angeles have similarly turned down attempts to indict people who were arrested for protesting against the Trump administration's immigration enforcement actions.

Experts say these cases show jurors won't just "roll over" for the administration and are fulfilling their historic duty "as protectors of the public from overzealous prosecutions."

Thanks for reading! See you back next week with more stories of justice from across the country. You can find me on social @ phillipmbailey.