The storm that saved a city

As she made landfall at 6:10 AM on Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina seemed like just another category 3 hurricane, similar to many others the city of New Orleans had seen before. And even in the immediate hours that followed, residents throughout the city were confident that the storm passed with minimal damage to their homes or to the city. It is surprising, however, how our perspectives can change so quickly.

Over the next 24 hours as the levees broke and water flooded the city, a horrifying reality started to set in. When all was said and done, Hurricane Katrina was a once-in-a-century storm, claiming 1,392 lives, unleashing $201 billion in economic damage, and forcing almost half of the residents to relocate to other cities. In the days and weeks that followed, the worst of sinful humanity seized a broken city as crime and cruelty ran rampant. What first seemed like just another category 3 hurricane changed the city of New Orleans forever.

For the first 5-10 years, most people thought that Katrina nearly destroyed the city. I suppose that this perspective was unavoidable given the severity of the damage, the massive cost to rebuild the city, and the heartless crime waves that hurt our people. I remember driving the streets near New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary a year after the storm to find a city that looked like a warzone. Even after all those months, the city was still decimated.

Yet, with 20 years of historical perspective now behind us, many New Orleanians have a very different takeaway from the great storm. For many, Katrina isn’t the storm that almost destroyed the city; it is the storm that saved it. While still haunted by the catastrophe brought by Katrina, many New Orleanians now recognize that the storm forced a much-needed reset for a city in rapid decline. The rebuild of New Orleans forced industry and commerce back into the city, and in the wake of pain and suffering, the city found a new footing. A new influx in medical care, construction, technology, art, film and worldclass cuisine helped not simply to revitalize our city, but to make her even stronger than she was before.

In hindsight, several important lessons are clear. First, Katrina’s impact on the city of New Orleans reminds us that we are not in control. We like to think that we can avoid danger and catastrophe, but when nature does its worst, there is little to nothing that we can do. This reminds us of our place in the world. We are promised nothing about tomorrow, and our ability to predict what the future holds is severely limited.

Along those same lines, Katrina’s impact also reminds us that we are terrible prognosticators about the future in the wake of catastrophe. At the peak of her horror, most of us thought that Katrina would kill New Orleans. With such massive devastation, how could an already struggling city ever survive? We thought this would be the end of New Orleans, but it was actually a reset that inaugurated better days for the Crescent City. The demise we thought would come, simply didn’t.

Finally, Katrina reminds us that God often uses catastrophe to open the door for the gospel. This is somewhat surprising given the ugliness we saw in humanity in the immediate aftermath. Crime surged, burglary went unchecked, stores were looted, women and children were raped, the murder rate rose dramatically, and political corruption exacerbated all these problems. It was truly one of the darker moments of our history.

Despite all of this, however, God’s people stepped into the darkness of our city. Through the kind and compassionate work of Southern Baptists and other evangelical groups who were the first to show up with help for our desperate people, the city saw a vivid expression of the love of Jesus Christ. Our city took note, and it has not forgotten. There is still plenty of brokenness and darkness in New Orleans. But our city is also a place where the gospel is preached openly, welcomed with sincerity, and listened to intently.

This is not something we could have done on our own. God used a hurricane to open the door to the message of Jesus Christ.