Hurricane Katrina Survivors Remember Storm’s Deadly Devastation 20 Years Later in New Documentary: ‘It’s Still Real’

NEED TO KNOW

• Nearly 20 years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, the city’s residents are reflecting on how the devastation shaped the future of Louisiana

• Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, Netflix’s upcoming three-part docuseries, details how the brutal hurricane “turned cataclysmic through human error and neglect”

• The Spike Lee-produced series will premiere on Aug. 27

Nearly 20 years after Hurricane Katrina made its historic landfall on the Gulf Coast, the storm’s survivors are reflecting on surviving the devastating flooding and subsequent destruction.

In a new Netflix documentary from a group of award-winning directors including Spike Lee, New Orleans residents recount the moment the eye of the Category 5 storm struck their vibrant city, leaving it submerged in water for weeks due to failures in the levee and floodwall systems surrounding the city.

Titled Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, the three-part series details how the brutal hurricane “turned cataclysmic through human error and neglect.”

“The series sets the stage for a tragedy — whose man-made elements exposed the systemic governmental neglect that led to the city being defenseless in the face of the storm — and Katrina’s impact that changed New Orleans irreparably,” says a press release for the docuseries.

“Detailed, harrowing and triumphant first-person accounts and never before seen archive illustrate the magnitude of Katrina, the aftermath of the levees breaking and the bungled recovery,” it continues.

According to Netflix, the docuseries splits its tale into three “gripping and emotional” pieces, in which New Orleans locals reflect on what led to the horrific natural disaster that claimed more than 1,100 lives and highlighted the racial and financial disparities across the country — as well as the fallout that came later on.

“This is the story of a brutal coastal hurricane turned cataclysm through human error and neglect. Over the course of a gripping and emotional three episodes, the people of New Orleans recount their past, lay bare their present and lean into the future of what they and their beloved city survived and have become 20 years later,” the streamer says.

In the latest sneak peek of the series, released on Netflix’s YouTube channel, survivors can be seen sharing their memories of pre-Katrina New Orleans, including home videos, childhood photos and more.

“There’s something washed away in the storm that they can never get back,” one person says in the teaser.

“I have flashes,” someone else says. “Like flashes that go off, like memories… like I can see all those faces. The elderly lady, the little kid that I was close with, this veteran or this man. I can remember the conversations.”

“I stayed out here many years,” another person adds. “But I had to just pull away because it was overwhelming.”

The series is executive produced by Spike Lee (who also directs the third episode) and the rest of the team behind the Emmy-winning Lee-directed 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, which surveyed the devastation in New Orleans following Katrina. It is the first project from Message Pictures founders Alisa Payne, Sam Pollard and Katrina director Geeta Gadbhir.

“Twenty years later, it’s still real,” one resident says in the trailer. “That’s what makes it a disaster.”

Katrina: Come Hell and High Water premieres globally on Netflix Aug. 27.

Read the original article on People