Gulf Coast Standing Strong after Hurricane Katrina

Eleven years ago today Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. The storm destroyed buildings and flooded thousands of homes in the region.
News 25’s Kendra Turley shows us how the Coast and its residents are still standing strong years later.
Biloxi resident Isabel Kessler said, “When the storm was coming in, we were kind of not exactly sure what it was doing. So, we waffled back and forth. Should we leave? Should we stay? Should we leave?”
Kessler and her family made the risky decision to stay in her Biloxi home as Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast in 2005. “We had boards on the windows. You couldn’t see much outside. Pretty soon, it got very, very windy. The force was unbelievable.”
Her house sits less than a mile away from the beach, but the water damage her home received was minimal compared to others along the Coast. Eighty out of Mississippi’s 82 counties made federal disaster declarations. MEMA Executive Director Lee Smithson said, “MEMA was working with six southern counties to prioritize where the food, the water and the ice were going to go. What kind of medical distribution there was going to be. Where we could work with the power companies on getting the power back on.”
Emergency officials continue to correct and perfect any mistake they may have made during the 2005 storm, in case another disaster strikes the state. “I think one of the biggest lessons learned is that we know what to communication, what the priorities are, what the life saving measures are,” said Smithson.
While it’s easy to dwell on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, residents say they’d rather focus on how resilient the people of Mississippi truly are and how much the state has progressed since 2005. “It was like we had a common goal. We were Mississippi, Biloxi, Gulfport, on down the line. And we made it back,” said Kessler.