"The knowledge we have built from storm to storm is the true legacy of Hurricane Katrina"

Hurricane Katrina served as a wake up call that has led to US cities becoming more resilient and safer, writes Amy Chester on the 20th anniversary of deadly disaster.

Twenty years ago, the world watched as Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. What followed was unthinkable – New Orleans under water, people waiting on their roofs to be saved, the spray painting on homes to indicate they had been checked for bodies.

This was America, and a new era of climate devastation.

In intensity, scale, devastation; in the light it shined on governmental failure and racism; and in the lessons it held for disaster recovery and rebuilding, Katrina was a new type of event for the USA. The hurricane claimed 1,833 lives and uprooted one million people.

Now 20 years later, have we made our cities safer?

New Orleans and the surrounding areas had been living with hurricanes for decades so when Katrina left the region in shambles, an understanding that we were all at risk proliferated across the US, now 20 years later, have we made our cities safer?

Seven years after Katrina, in 2012, I found my own city under water. The damage and destruction from Hurricane Sandy hitting New York, New Jersey and Connecticut left parts of "the city that never sleeps" in the dark. Wall Street closed for two days – the longest weather-related closure since 1888. The physical destruction was even greater than Katrina with 650,000 homes damaged or destroyed and eight million people without power.

However, the death tool was dramatically lower, with only 10 per cent of the deaths of Katrina. We had learned something. Our disaster preparedness and response had progressed.

Acknowledging past failures with Hurricane Katrina, president Obama's administration approached this recovery differently, forming the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force with 23 federal agencies.

It aimed to ensure that communities are better able to recover from future storm events

The taskforce coordinated policy recommendations to help homeowners stay in and repair their homes, strengthen small businesses and revitalize local economies. Also, significantly it aimed to ensure that communities are better able to recover from future storm events through a regional-scale competition.

Katrina gave way to a new cadre of architects and designers, who had invested in New Orleans at a time when deciding whether or not the city should rebuild was still a debate. So when the government put out a call for help after Hurricane Sandy, the world responded.

The US Housing and Urban Development launched Rebuild by Design, under the America Competes Act, calling for international, interdisciplinary design teams at the centre of rebuilding between local governments, the private sector and community interests.

Importantly, for the first time, disaster dollars were allowed to be spent on making communities safer for the next storm. Seven large-scale initiatives in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut received $930 million and began implementation in 2014 – launching a portfolio of innovative projects for the world to learn from.

Those developments, some completed and some still underway, have attracted additional investment totalling $4.5 billion.

Halfway through the competition, the design teams traveled to New Orleans to learn the lessons and realities of rebuilding. They met people deeply committed to their communities, building back in creative ways but hamstrung by regulations requiring that post-storm funding warned of the red-tape we might encounter: waiver petitions and lengthy approvals asking the federal government to build what was needed after the storm. Already, the very regulations that were holding NOLA back were changed for Hurricane Sandy.

Designers have the unique position to catalyze the United States

Just as the lessons of Katrina informed Sandy, Sandy informed hurricanes Maria, Harvey, Irma, Fiona, Ian and Helene – learning from each storm and teaching the next community. Across the US there are new resilient projects that are building dykes and levees, restoring wetlands and moving people out of harm's way.

The glue carrying forward lessons learned between storms are the architects, landscape architects, engineers – the design community – leading the way to learn from the past and prepare communities for the future.

As our understanding of risk evolves, so do the specialities and so does the responsibility. Climate change may bring destruction and displacement, but with its challenges comes the opportunity and responsibility to rethink our communities to be the places we want to leave for our children and grandchildren.

Designers have the unique position to catalyze the United States forward to investment in the changes every community must make to withstand future climate disasters, regardless of our federal policies. By courageously fighting against norms & rearview thinking, the design community will be the true superheroes of our generation, driving this momentous shift.

Every piece we build or rebuild must be part of moving everyone forward

Here are some ways we can each do our part towards making our communities more resilient.

Every time we build a house, upgrade a park, plan a new community, we must consider how that singular piece of infrastructure can play double, triple duty. A home can reuse its own rain, lowering the sewer load during an intense rainfall. Or, it can go further, becoming that block's resilience hub, offering back-up power and water to neighbors during critical times.

Designers can also prepare communities for the influx in local migration: over four million adults were displaced by natural disasters in the last year, with around 450 thousand still unable to return home.

Finding new ways to design for inland communities to welcome climate migrants and leverage population shifts into opportunities to expand the tax base, attract a diverse multi-generational workforce and invest in ways that help the existing residents.

We also need to consider risk to our neighbours. We cannot think of one parcel divorced from our community's adaptation. If you live on the shoreline and you build a retaining wall to keep you dry, you will flood your neighbour. Every piece we build or rebuild must be part of moving everyone forward.

New Orleans is a more resilient city thanks to a $14.5 billion investment

As we mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a more resilient city thanks to a $14.5 billion investment in a network of levees, floodwalls, surge barriers and pumps.

A new ethos of planning and building spurred by the design-focussed resilience strategy – the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan – has created a new sector of architects, designers, and landscapers who strive to integrate "living with water" into their work. At the same time federal disaster policy is being rolled back, yet storms are becoming more frequent and becoming more costly.

In the northeast, another major section of one of the Rebuild by Design competition projects – the BIG U designed by Danish Studio BIG (pictured above) – will soon open. Located in New York City's East River Park, this section brings an amphitheater, recently opened tennis courts, a splashpad, soccer fields and basketball courts.

These community amenities will double as essential flood protection when that community needs it most, imagined by designers who created something bigger and better than what was there before, uniting physical resilience and social resilience, inspired by the learnings from Hurricane Katrina.

Are US cities more prepared for disasters than we were 20 years ago? Yes.

In the past 20 years, cities across America have built physical infrastructure that inches us towards a safer future. However, our true strength comes from the knowledge we have built from storm to storm – the true legacy of Hurricane Katrina.

The main photo of the BIG U is by Jeff Tao, courtesy of BIG.

Amy Chester is the director of Rebuild by Design at New York University. Rebuild by Design recently released the Atlas of Disaster that aims to allow communities to see how they have experienced climate events.

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