Hurricane Katrina has a silver lining for some survivors

Inside the dome, it just got real crazy. You know the smell was really, really horrific. You talking after the first day the toilets were already backed up. And not having drinking water and all that other stuff was real, real bad, you know, I watched a lot of people suffer.-  Shelton Alexander, a New Orleans poet, on Hurricane Katrina

After Katrina passed, leaving so much of New Orleans destroyed in her wake, hundreds of thousands of residents sought out new, permanent refuge -- leaving the city, and never returning. 

They're spread across the U-S., in cities like Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Dallas and Houston.

As we mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina today, we're focusing on that diaspora of displaced New Orleans residents. Because even as we remember the suffering and destruction that Katrina brought, it is becoming possible, one decade on, to discern some silver linings in the storm's clouds. 

Lumar LeBlanc is one of the thousands who left his home in New Orleans, and now lives in Houston, Texas. He is the leader of the Soul Rebels Brass Band. We reached in New Orleans, where he performed with the Soul Rebels last night. 

Elizabeth Fussell is an associate professor of population studies at Brown University. And when it comes to population movements, New Orleans has had a tumultuous decade. Elizabeth Fussell joined us from New Orleans.

When large parts of a city's population suddenly leave, and don't come back -- what kind of an effect does that have on the people? It's not the kind of question that sociologists often have a chance to really study in real life, but New Orleans and Katrina offered just such an opportunity. 
    
David Kirk is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oxford, in England. 
 

This segment was produced by The Current's Naheed Mustafa, Ines Colabrese and Nicole Abi-Najem.