Authoritarians love to tell stories that make us afraid of each other, but how we respond in disasters shows that people often act with extraordinary grace and solidarity.
Synopsis: There is a story about human nature that serves authoritarianism well: the idea that we are either too feckless or too vicious to function in the absence of strong authority backed by the threat of violence. But disasters tell us a different story about human nature, about who we really are, one that is profoundly important for everyday life.
Twenty years ago, on August 29, 2005, a huge hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. New Orleans’s levees failed, as had been predicted, and much of the city went underwater. Although the authorities had issued a mandatory evacuation order, they had provided no resources to the many who were too poor to evacuate. They were left behind. The levees broke, the city flooded with water polluted by sewage and by the oil refineries all around, the power went out, supplies were scarce. Almost immediately after the storm hit and the city flooded, mainstream news organizations and government leaders began cooking up stories about those mostly poor, mostly Black people who were left in the city — racist stories that they were marauding hordes, murderous gangs, rampaging looters. The stories the powerful told about the stranded people of New Orleans were bad stories in two senses: They were extremely not true, and they justified violence and punitive measures against the people demonized as threats rather than recognized as victims
However, despite the grotesque stories and institutional panic, there was bumper to bumper boat traffic the morning after the storm hit, of people trying to launch their boats to see what they could do for the people of New Orleans. The flotilla was dubbed the Cajun Navy. The Cajun Navy has always served as a beautiful example for me of active hope.
Hope is not an emotion; it is a commitment to not give up, to keep looking for possibilities, to remain resolute in the face of uncertainty and even danger and devastation, to remember we make the future in the present.
Read the entire article here: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/09/tell-different-story-hurricane-katrina-disasters/
Volunteers pull a woman from the water who was hanging onto the roof to escape the rising flood waters from Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than 25 books, including “Hope in the Dark,” “No Straight Road Takes You There,” “Recollections of My Nonexistence,” and “A Paradise Built in Hell.” A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian and serves on the boards of the climate groups Oil Change International and Third Act.
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