Meet the Texas Hill Country's Hurricane Katrina evacuees
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Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover streets on Aug. 30, 2005, in New Orleans Photo: Vincent Laforet/AFP via Getty Images
After Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans 20 years ago, Bishop Willie Monnet and members of his Smoking for Jesus Ministry escaped the city, eventually landing in the Texas Hill Country, where the church still exists today.
The big picture: New data shows that tens of thousands of New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina ended up — and stayed — in Texas.
- The storm flooded about 80% of New Orleans 20 years ago this week, leaving much of the city suddenly uninhabitable.
Flashback: Monnet tells Axios that as Katrina approached, he and his wife left town with three days' worth of clothes, confident they'd be back, as they had been many times before.
- In New Orleans, his church operated out of an old funeral home, and the congregation owned a shopping center with a restaurant, beauty salon, car wash and lawn service.
- The church's motto is "On fire for the Lord!"
Zoom in: As Katrina hit, they fled to Beaumont — but then were displaced again when Hurricane Rita struck a few weeks later. They heard about cheap apartments available in Marble Falls, and 200 members of the congregation moved along with Monnet to Burnet County, a conservative — and very white — portion of the Hill Country.
- Their migration immediately increased the Black population of the county by a third, the Texas Observer wrote in 2007.
- Some congregants opened a New Orleans-inspired restaurant in Marble Falls, and the church purchased 56 acres near Kingsland.
- The church has retained about 70 of the 300 congregants from New Orleans, Monnet says.
What they're saying: "It's a totally different culture, but it develops people's faith," Monnet says of Burnet County.
- "It's almost like a resting place that we found," he says.
- "With the tragedy going on now with the floods, it all comes back — it's like we were dropped off in a high place."