Longreads<p>"On August 28, just before 9:30 a.m., Mayor Ray Nagin issued a mandatory evacuation order for every resident of New Orleans, the first in the city’s history. By then, my family and I were already gone." —Clint Smith for The Atlantic </p><p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/09/hurricane-katrina-new-orleans-twenty-years-later/683565/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theatlantic.com/magazine/archi</span><span class="invisible">ve/2025/09/hurricane-katrina-new-orleans-twenty-years-later/683565/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.world/tags/HurricaneKatrina" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>HurricaneKatrina</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.world/tags/NewOrleans" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>NewOrleans</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.world/tags/Essay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Essay</span></a></p>