NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Betsy and the 10th anniversary of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, beginning Aug. 13, the Presbytère in New Orleans will exhibit photographs of the storms’ devastating impact drawn from its permanent collection.
“The anniversaries of these storms puts into perspective the relationship Louisiana has had with hurricanes,” Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne said. “The photographs, along with the Hurricane Katrina exhibit, show Louisianians’ resilience in the face of adversity and their enduring goodwill toward neighbors in times of disaster.”
Sept. 9, 2015, marks the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Betsy. Nicknamed Billion-Dollar Betsy because it was the first storm to cause more than $1 billion in damage, the category 3 storm came ashore at Grand Isle, killing 58 in Louisiana and flooding more than 22,000 homes in greater New Orleans.
Capturing the wide reach of the storm, the nine images from 1965 were taken by anonymous photographers in St. Bernard, Jefferson, Plaquemines, and Orleans parishes and show homes washed off their foundations in Pointe à la Hache; a school in Yscloskey nearly obliterated; and a house severely askew in New Orleans, among other scenes.
Forty years later, hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused far greater havoc. Both storms at sea reached Category 5 and weakened to Category 3 before making landfall. On Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina first came ashore at Buras, and then at the Louisiana-Mississippi border, becoming the costliest hurricane in U.S. history and the 3rd deadliest, with 1,833 killed. On Sept. 24, Rita hit the Texas-Louisiana border, with minimal loss of life, though more than 100 deaths were attributed to evacuation.
The set of 14 images depicts enormous destruction but also the struggle to recover, ranging from Donn Young’s photo of an Apache migrant worker at rest in a tent city, to David Rae Morris’ 2006 photo of 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge mowing the lawn of his destroyed home.
Images also span a wide range. They include those of the immediate response, with a Morris photo of a search and rescue crew with trained canines confronting a stray dog; the political response, with the Tom Neff photo of Caroline Koch on a rooftop with “THIS IS NOT AMERICA” boldly printed in white on the asphalt shingles; and the aesthetic response, with a photo by Louisiana State Museum’s Mark Sindler of the artist Phil Sandusky in the Lower 9th Ward creating one of 45 paintings on the destruction.
The photographs are in the hallway adjacent to the permanent exhibit Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond. The disaster commonly known as Hurricane Katrina had a number of causes, including the collapse of poorly designed floodwalls that should have withstood the storm surge. These breaches led to the flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans and widespread misery and destruction.
The expansive $7.5 million exhibit in the four ground-floor galleries presents first-person narratives of those caught in Hurricane Katrina, as well as scientific explanations and interactive stations on storms, engineering and the environment. View image highlights here, exhibition fact sheet here. For more information, visit LouisianaStateMuseum.org.