This Labor Day weekend brings with it the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s direct hit on New Orleans.  The storm killed over 1,800 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. For days, people were stranded without food or water as government rescue squads were slow to get underway. Local rescuers reverted to fishing boats with outboard motors, going house to house, looking for survivors hiding in their attics. The Superdome first became a place of refuge for thousands of displaced urban residents, then FEMA's slow response left the Superdome overcrowded for days without resources, and soon it turned into squalid conditions.

Over 80% of New Orleans went underwater after the levees surrounding the city began breaking a day after the hurricane. The levees were created decades ago to protect the city from annual Mississippi River flooding while also creating deeper shipping lanes. However, protection from the river floods slowly sank New Orleans into a bowl as the river silt built up the delta around the city. The bowl filled up from the hurricane, and the water couldn’t get out.  

Two summers later, I joined the youth at our church in Charlotte for a mission trip to New Orleans. We helped with the rebuilding of a Baptist church and worked on three different homes that were in the early phases of reconstruction—we were a decent sheetrock crew. All of this we did nearly two years after the hurricane. While downtown New Orleans had recovered, the neighborhoods we visited were still devastated.

Following Katrina, several reforms were implemented at FEMA. Now, with Katrina’s memory fading, those reforms are being dismantled.  Climate change is making hurricanes, flooding storms, wildfires, and tornadoes more destructive. This anniversary of Katrina is a reminder of how we need to work together to face these chronic problems.  

We are all connected in this garden God has planted in the Milky Way Galaxy. Even in the first days of the Christian Church, the apostle Paul was collecting funds in prosperous towns for the needy in other towns suffering under famine (I Cor. 16:1-4). Missions, giving, and disaster relief were an ancient service of the early Church. Now, more than ever, the Church should be speaking up.

~ Dr. Tim Moore