New Orleans marks 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with solemn memorials, uplifting music

"We do everything to keep the memory of these people alive," said Orrin Duncan, who worked for the coroner when Katrina hit. He comes to the memorial every year, opening the cemetery gate and making sure the grass is cut.

A Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina inflicted staggering destruction. The storm killed nearly 1,400 people across five states and racked up an estimated $200 billion in damage, flattening homes on the coast and sending ruinous flooding into low-lying neighborhoods.

Two decades later, it remains the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The failure of New Orleans' federal levee system inundated about 80% of the city in floodwaters that took weeks to drain. Thousands of people clung to rooftops to survive or waited for evacuation in the sweltering, under-provisioned Superdome football stadium.

In New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black community devastated by flooding when parts of the protective levee collapsed, hundreds watched Friday as an ensemble of white-clad children atop the levee wall sang a song of sorrow and survival.

"We are the children of the ones who did not die," they sang. "We are the children of the people who could fly. And we are the children of the ones who persevered."

Mayor says New Orleans came back 'better and stronger'

At the cemetery memorial, revered jazz clarinetist Michael White played "When the Saints Go Marching In" as a procession carried several wreaths to lay beside mausoleums of the storm victims. Mayor LaToya Cantrell recalled the city's sacrifices and projected optimism for its future.

"New Orleans is still here; New Orleans still stands," Cantrell said. "New Orleans came back better and stronger than ever before."

A sense of exuberance and communion filled the streets where hundreds joined a brass band parade known as a second line. The beloved New Orleans tradition has its roots in African American jazz funerals, in which bands accompanied grieving families marching beside a loved one's casket.

Second line parades have been a staple of Katrina anniversaries since 2006. On Friday, people on bikes and stilts moved among dancers in bedazzled outfits as they marched to the snap of snare drums and the brassy thump of tubas.

Michael Jenkins painted his face and wore his black-and-gold feathered Mardi Gras costume to march in the parade. He fled New Orleans as the storm bore down 20 years ago and wasn't able to return for two years.

"It's a joyful time, but it's also a somber time because we remember that we overcame a lot," Jenkins said, adding: "By the grace of God, we're still here."

In the Lower Ninth Ward, a minute of silence in front of the levee was followed by defiant speeches from community leaders recalling the delayed government response to Katrina that exacerbated suffering in New Orleans and worries that President Donald Trump's talk of dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency, if carried out, would have grave consequences.

"Government neglect killed us," local civil rights attorney Tracie Washington said. "We will never forget it."

Katrina's impact still felt

In Mississippi, where hundreds perished as Katrina's storm surge demolished homes overlooking the Gulf, residents and officials gathered to mark the anniversary in Gulfport.

Haley Barbour, Mississippi's governor when the hurricane struck, recalled the "utter obliteration" he witnessed from a helicopter after the storm passed.

"It looked like the hand of God had wiped away the coast," Barbour said.

The population of New Orleans, nearly half a million before Katrina, is now 384,000 after displaced residents scattered across the nation. While New Orleans remains a majority Black city, the exodus disproportionately affected its Black residents. Tens of thousands were unable to return after Katrina.

In the storm's aftermath, the levee system was rebuilt, public schools were privatized, most public housing projects were demolished and a hospital was shuttered.

New Orleans resident Gary Wainwright said never misses the cemetery memorial service on Katrina's anniversary. On Friday he wore a frayed red necktie, covered with the phrase "I love you." He salvaged it from his battered home in the storm's aftermath.

"It's a little bit tattered, like the city," Wainwright said. "But it's still beautiful."