The aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and the ongoing flooding in Houston have already drawn comparisons to Hurricane Katrina.
The images that played out on television over the past several days are, in many ways, reminiscent of August 2005, when the levees in New Orleans failed, flooding the city and displacing thousands of residents.
About 80% of the city was flooded, and thousands of homes were ruined. Like Houston, people waded through flooded streets and climbed on rooftops to wait for rescue. More than 1,500 people died.
But there are some people who are intimately familiar with the scenes we were faced with this weekend. Kate Quarrella Beard, a resident of Dickinson, Texas, just outside Houston, is one of them.
“When we got up at 2 a.m. yesterday morning, we watched the news for 14 hours,” Beard told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Monday. “And it was literally like watching everything that I had already been through one time happen right again in front of my eyes. So it was really hard.”
Beard lived in Kenner, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans, when Katrina hit. She later relocated to Texas.
She said her experience prepared her for what Harvey brought to her doorstep Sunday morning as flooding swept the region.
Beard, who is six months pregnant, fled Dickinson on Monday with her 18-month-old son in tow. Now she’s in New Orleans at her parents’ house.
She said that when the floods come, all people can do is grab their most important documents and memorable belongings and leave.
“After Katrina, it made me a realist,” Beard said. “I know anything can happen at any given time, so I take zero chances.”
After Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, many evacuees were displaced and sent to other cities while officials in New Orleans dealt with the tragedy and recovery efforts.
More than 1 million people in the Gulf region were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Other cities took in refugees from the Big Easy, particularly Houston, Baton Rouge, Dallas and Atlanta.
In Houston, some found shelter under the roof of the Astrodome. The stadium gave a temporary home to people fleeing the devastation of Katrina.
Beard moved to Texas after Katrina, but her experience 12 years ago in New Orleans did show her how a community can rally together.
“We went through it once and came back stronger than ever,” she said. “And I know that being in the Houston area, we’ll have many people who will reach out to us and help again and rebuild and come back even stronger.”
“The community literally will be bigger and stronger and prevail over this.”
