I Expected Katrina: Come Hell And High Water To Be Just Another Documentary. Here's Why I Was Very Wrong

Twenty years ago this month, Hurricane Katrina swept into New Orleans and nearby communities along the Gulf Coast, leaving behind more than 1,000 lost souls, shattered homes and businesses, and flooding on a scale never seen before. Though I didn’t grow up in NOLA, I was a senior in high school in northern Louisiana when the storm made landfall on August 29, 2005, and my life was never the same.

When I heard about Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, the new Netflix original chronicling the storm and its impact on my fellow Louisianans, I thought it was going to be just another documentary. Now that I’ve watched all three episodes full of pain and triumph, and experienced one of Spike Lee’s best projects in years, I can say that I was very wrong. Here’s why…

I Went Into The Three-Part Netflix Doc Thinking I Had Seen It All

Before I pressed play on the three-part Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, I thought I had heard and seen it all when it came to Hurricane Katrina and its impact on New Orleans. I watched the coverage nonstop when it was going down in August 2005, made friends with teenagers displaced by the storm when they came to my high school, volunteered at the local college, and so on. I’ve visited New Orlease multiple times over the years, including a trip a year or so after the storm, when you could still see watermarks on buildings and overpasses and piles of debris in vacant lots where houses once stood.

However, watching the documentary, hearing the stories of those who survived and carried on, and being exposed to parts of the story that aren’t discussed as much as issues at the Superdome or Convention Center, really opened my eyes and left me an emotional wreck.

But Then It Started Unburying All These Old Memories From 2005

Whether it was New Orleans native Wendell Pierce, local musicians and poets, or everyday residents sharing stories of survival, death, and rebirth, watching Katrina forced deeply buried memories to resurface after 20 years of hiding out in my brain.

Early on in the first episode of the documentary, various people talk about how Hurricane Ivan missing the city in 2004 led them to believe that it would be the same for Katrina. For the first time in 21 years, I remembered an interview with a musician in the French Quarter talking about how he would never leave, no matter what. As Katrina hit one year later, I remember wondering about him and whether his confidence was still unshaken in the face of the devastating storm.

And there are others, like the almost jovial tone of people going to the Superdome, thinking everything was going to be okay. Or the footage of people trying to survive in the days following the levees being breached and turning New Orleans into a swamp. All of these memories came rushing in, flooding me with raw emotions I haven’t felt in two decades.

The Interviews With Parents Talking About Losing Their Children In The Flood Cut Deep

Going in, I knew that death, loss, and grief were going to be unavoidable throughout the three episodes, but I was not ready to hear parents talk about losing their young children in the storm and ensuing flood.

The opening of the third and final episode (more on that next) features an interview with a woman recounting her five-year-old daughter’s death during the natural disaster and how she still feels her spirit 20 years later. My daughter is the same age. After I finished the documentary late at night, I went into her room, sat down, and counted my blessings, hoping that I never have to experience anything like that in my own life.

That’s just one of the stories of loss that make up this nearly four-hour documentary. I tried to watch all of this without crying, but it was a losing battle, and I was left in tears.

The Third And Final Episode (Directed By Spike Lee) Painted A Beautiful Portrait Of A Healing City

The first two episodes – “We Gonna Ride it Out Like We Always Do” by Geeta Gandbhir and “Shelter of Last Resort” by Samantha Knowles – are stunning, personal, and engaging deconstructions of the storm, the events that led to it, and the triumph and tragedy that followed. However, the documentary really shines when it gets to the third and final episode, “God Takes Care of Fools and Babies,” which was directed by none other than Spike Lee.

While the first two chapters take a more straightforward approach to the tragedy, Lee’s closing act is best compared to a visual poem with its freeze-frames on, text appearing on the screen, and a portrait of a healing city. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of heartbreak in the final episode, especially when it comes to the way lower-income families got the shaft in the rebuild, but there’s also this triumphant spirit that can be felt throughout its nearly 90-minute runtime. It’s raw, it’s honest, and it’s uplifting…

This Is The Most Impactful Katrina Documentary I've Watched Since Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke

It should come as no surprise, but Katrina: Come Hell and High Water is the most impactful documentary about the storm that I’ve watched since Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Parts came out one year after the storm in 2006. The epic documentary, which is streaming with an HBO Max subscription, along with If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise, centered on the lives of New Orleanians in the days, weeks, and months following the storm and documented their struggle to rise above the floodwaters, life-and-death situations, and the political and cultural fallout of the disaster.

It’s still too early to tell if Lee’s latest chronicling of the most devastating storm in New Orleans' history will be held in as high a regard as his first exploration of a hurting city, but it’s honestly a remarkable achievement for the documentary format.

All three parts of Katrina: Come Hell and High Water are available with a Netflix subscription. If you want, the documentary’s trailer does a great job of teasing what you’ll see over the course of nearly four hours.