The end of August has long been a time of deep reflection for me. It brings back all the trauma and horror of having covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago in 2005. We had lived in New Orleans more than 30 years, but as a photojournalist I had never evacuated for a storm. I had always stayed to cover it for a variety of news organizations. Until Katrina.

As Katrina moved toward our home city, I evacuated to Jackson with my partner and 3-year-old daughter on Saturday, Aug. 27, soon using the offices and Internet connection of the Jackson Free Press, then in Fondren. It had power back on quickly when much of Jackson did not, including where we stayed with family and friends in Belhaven.

The remains of 107 Washington St. in Bay St. Louis, Miss., after Hurricane Katrina made landfall Aug. 29, 2005. Photo by David Rae Morris

But I was back fairly quickly, first on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi and Gulfport four days after the storm made landfall and then in Bay St. Louis and Waveland over the weekend. The storm had devastated both towns.

I was on assignment for The New York Times on Friday, Sept. 2, working on a story about historic preservation and the landmarks that had been damaged. We found Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis’ homestead turned museum, in complete ruin. There were people who rode out the storm in their beachfront houses and were lucky to survive.

That was also true in Turkey Creek, a Black community in nearby Gulfport, which would soon face land grabs by Mississippian officials.

Martha Snellings, right, with her granddaughter Dominique McCarther, 10, in front of her house on Rippy Road on Sept. 2, 2005, in the Turkey Creek community in Gulfport, Miss. Hurricane Katrina devastated the community. Photo by David Rae Morris

I had been to Bay St. Louis often to visit friends and would go to a specific spot on the beach in Waveland. As I walked out onto Beach Boulevard that Saturday, I could find no reference point for where I was because all the elegant beachfront houses were gone. It was like a bomb had gone off. There was debris everywhere.

I went to mass that Sunday at St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis, Bishop Thomas Rodi had come over from Biloxi to lead the service. There was no power and he read from the scriptures by flashlight.

People asked him why this had happened. “I don’t know,” he said.

Bishop Thomas Rodi leads the 7 a.m. Mass by flashlight at St. Rose de Lima Catholic Church on Sept. 4, 2005. It was the first mass at the church since Hurricane Katrina destroyed many of the communities along the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. The two other Catholic Churches in Bay St. Louis were destroyed or unsafe. Photo by David Rae Morris

I had covered a lot of tough stories over the years. A good journalist has to maintain a shield to protect him or her from the pain of what is in front of them. I put up my wall and went to work. I returned to New Orleans on Sept. 8, and commuted back and forth for several months before moving back into my house, even though there was still no power.

I covered the aftermath of Katrina for three years. It was the story of my life, and it fell in my lap. It was one of the most productive periods of my career. There were exhibits, book projects, talks, lectures, print sales, magazine covers and awards. But it wasn’t for many years that I realized how deeply affected I really was by Katrina.

One cannot live and work in the midst of such pain and misery without absorbing some of the trauma. Katrina still haunts me. As I drive around New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast I remember what happened to me in specific places, or what I photographed at a given location. I have terrible insomnia.

The National Guard patrolled the beach in Waveland, Miss., on Sept. 4, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the town. Photo by David Rae Morris

I still go to the beach in Waveland and park in the same spot off Beach Boulevard. Some of the beachfront houses have been re-built, but the scars are still there.

The most important thing to remember about Katrina is that Mississippi was hit by a real hurricane. New Orleans experienced an engineering failure. But because of the tragic scenes at the Convention Center and the Superdome, New Orleans received the vast majority of the attention.

But I was in Mississippi before I returned to New Orleans, and I have always been moved by the resilience of the people on the Coast in the wake of a real natural disaster. I still live in New Orleans, and am just as moved by the resilience of the people there, and worry that it could easily happen again.

I hope the nation is ready if it does.

Read more Free Press coverage of Hurricane Katrina, with our archive dating back to 2005, at mississippifreepress.org/hurricane-katrina.

Read original article by clicking here.

‘Such Pain and Misery’: Photojournalist Recalls Post-Katrina Gulf Coast, New Orleans

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