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Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans\u00a0rest at the old Windsor Mall Shelter where they were visited by San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger, and U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez. At a time of crisis, San Antonio opened its heart.<\/p>\n
BOB OWEN\/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS<\/p>\n
Twenty years, the levees broke and an American city drowned.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans <\/a>and became one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history. The Category 5 storm submerged 80% of the city under water, killed nearly 2,000 people and caused more than $150 billion in economic damage.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This nation is no stranger to deadly and costly hurricanes, but because of the disproportionate harm inflicted on poor Black people less able to evacuate the city, Katrina was the first to force the nation to bear witness to systemic racial, economic and environmental inequality.<\/p>\n It also illustrated how poorly prepared the federal government was to respond to a disaster, and this prompted reforms that improved the Federal Emergency Management Agency \u2014\u00a0 reforms the Trump administration is now undoing.<\/a><\/p>\n In the most technologically advanced country in history, people were abandoned without food, water and sanitation, and sought shelter in the Superdome and safety on rooftops.<\/p>\n Many New Orleans residents who evacuated did so with few resources or any idea of where to go, their fate dependent upon the willingness of other cities in other states to accept them.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Texas, under Gov. Rick Perry, mobilized quickly and efficiently to accept Katrina evacuees. By Thanksgiving more than 400,000 evacuees were living in the state.<\/a><\/p>\n Perry called San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger, who was new to the office, and asked if the city could accept 10,000 evacuees. Hardberger said it could, setting in motion a signature moment of generosity in San Antonio\u2019s history.<\/p>\n Mayor Phil Hardberger, center, surrounded by city, county and emergency officials outlines plans to house evacuees from New Orleans in San Antonio. At a time of crisis, Hardberger and the city offered a model response.<\/p>\n KIN MAN HUI\/SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS<\/p>\n In a CNN interview on Sept. 1, 2005,\u00a0Hardberger became the face of that generosity when he invited those displaced by the storm to come to San Antonio.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe intend to welcome these people with open arms and to try to give them some dignity, which these circumstances have taken away from them,\u201d Hardberger said.<\/a> \u201cIt’s certainly a cry for compassion and understanding of one human spirit to the other. And we will not fail to respond the way we would want to be responded to.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither the city government nor its residents failed in their response. When the first wave of 13,000 evacuees arrived by planes and buses in San Antonio, four shelters\u00a0were waiting\u00a0to house them. Two were at Kelly AFB, now Port San Antonio, and the others were at the former Levi Strauss manufacturing plant and abandoned sections of Windsor Park Mall.<\/p>\n At those locations, evacuees not only received hot meals and new clothes but access to phones, pharmacies, banks, beauty and barber shops, and shopping centers.<\/p>\n Thousands of San\u00a0Antonians flocked to these shelters to welcome the evacuees. \u00a0Kelly, especially, became a small town as hundreds of vehicles filled with volunteers lined up to enter the former military installation.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Local school districts enrolled the displaced children, and businesses gave jobs to the adults. Some San Antonians took evacuees into their homes, and many of the evacuees stayed in San Antonio to start new lives and businesses.<\/p>\n San Antonio\u2019s response to those Katrina displaced showed how government, businesses,\u00a0nonprofits and private citizens could bond to not only create a safety net but to thread one another into the fabric of a community.\u00a0<\/p>\n When President George W. Bush visited San Antonio on Sept. 24, 2005, he said our city had the best operation in the nation.<\/p>\n In a news conference,\u00a0Hardberger said<\/a>, “We’re going to go ahead and write whatever checks need to be written right now to take care of these people and let them know that people in San Antonio love them.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Those checks amounted to nearly $38 million, which was later reimbursed by the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n