"Katrina Babies" Explores Childhood Trauma in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Seventeen years ago today, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana as a category 4 storm. It caused more than 1,800 deaths, and roughly 200,000 people were displaced from the Gulf Coast area.

Edward Buckles Jr. was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and this month, he released the documentary “Katrina Babies” on HBO. The film intimately documents the experiences of children who were traumatized and displaced by the catastrophic levee failures in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including Buckles himself. 

We talked with the writer and director Edward Buckles Jr., and we spoke with Denese Shervington, founder and CEO of the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies, a national non-profit health organization based in New Orleans that explores the intergenerational impact caused by the trauma of Hurricane Katrina in its research and advocacy.