---
title: "Remembering Katrina: Wide racial divide over government’s response"
description: "Ten years ago this weekend, Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,000 people. From the start, the tragedy had a powerful racial component – images of poor, mostly black New Orleans residents stranded on rooftops and crowded amid fetid conditions in what was then the Louisiana Superdome.\\n"
date: "2015-08-27"
authors:
  - name: "Carroll Doherty"
    job_title: "Former Director, Political Research"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/carroll-doherty/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/08/27/remembering-katrina-wide-racial-divide-over-governments-response/"
categories:
  - "Disasters & Accidents"
  - "Federal Government"
  - "Race & Ethnicity"
---

# Remembering Katrina: Wide racial divide over government’s response

![A man pushes his bicycle through flood waters near the Superdome in New Orleans on Aug. 31, 2005. Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay.](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2013/08/FT_13.08.28_KatrinaAnniv_640x300-jpg.webp?w=640)
*A man pushes his bicycle through flood waters near the Superdome in New Orleans on Aug. 31, 2005. Photo credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay.*

Ten years ago this weekend, Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,000 people (the true [death toll](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-still-dont-know-how-many-people-died-because-of-katrina/) may never be known). From the start, the tragedy had a powerful racial component – images of poor, mostly black New Orleans residents stranded on rooftops and crowded amid fetid conditions in what was then the Louisiana Superdome.

[![Ten Years Later, a Look Back at the Racial Divide Over Government's Response to Hurricane Katrina](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2015/08/FT_15.08.26_katrina_420px.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/08/28/remembering-katrina-wide-racial-divide-over-governments-response/ft_15-08-26_katrina_420px/)

Initial reactions to the government’s response to the crisis were starkly divided along racial lines. [In a national poll](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2005/09/08/two-in-three-critical-of-bushs-relief-efforts/) conducted Sept. 6-7, 2005, a week after the storm made landfall, African Americans delivered a scathing assessment of the federal government’s relief efforts. Two-thirds (66%) said that “the government’s response to the situation would have been faster if most of the victims had been white.” Just 17% of whites agreed – most whites (77%) said the race of the victims would not have made any difference.

Just 19% of blacks rated the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina as excellent or good, compared with 41% of whites. And nearly three times as many whites (31%) as blacks (11%) said then-President George W. Bush did all he could to get relief efforts going quickly.

Fully 74% of blacks said they felt depressed by what had happened to areas affected by the hurricane; nearly as many (71%) felt angry. Fewer whites experienced such strong emotions – 55% said they had been depressed and 46% angry.

Blacks and whites also drew very different lessons from the disaster: Most blacks (71%) said it showed that racial inequality remained a major problem in the United States; most whites (56%) said that this was not a particularly important lesson of Katrina.

A decade after the storm hit, racial differences in attitudes about the impact of Hurricane Katrina linger. Earlier this month, the Kaiser Family Foundation and NPR released their fourth [post-hurricane survey of New Orleans residents](http://kff.org/other/report/new-orleans-ten-years-after-the-storm-the-kaiser-family-foundation-katrina-survey-project/). For the most part, both black and white New Orleans residents are optimistic about the city’s future. But while 70% of whites say the city has mostly recovered from Katrina, just 44% of African Americans agree.

*Note: This is an update of a post originally published Aug. 28, 2013.*