Overview

• Spike Lee’s three-part Katrina: Come Hell and High Water debuted on Netflix this week, arriving after National Geographic’s Race Against Time, with reviewers noting overlapping material and a forceful focus on the two-decade aftermath.
• The American Society of Civil Engineers concluded the 2005 catastrophe stemmed from levee and floodwall failures, which helped produce more than a thousand deaths and mass displacement.
• Reporting highlights uneven recovery: Louisiana’s Road Home formula tied aid to pre-storm appraisals that disadvantaged poorer neighborhoods, while Brad Pitt’s Make It Right later faced construction failures and a 2022 $20.5 million settlement.
• Researchers and survivors detail a lasting human toll, including a Harvard finding that roughly one in six children experienced persistent mental-health problems and accounts of residents who never returned.
• Defenses and forecasting have improved, yet coastal erosion and climate change keep New Orleans and other U.S. regions vulnerable, with experts urging stronger preparedness even as some national disaster policies are criticized for backsliding.