Hurricane Katrina made landfall 20 years ago today, on August 29, 2005. In the days that followed, failures in the levee system caused catastrophic flooding across the New Orleans metro area. Two months after the storm, HNOC began partnering with local, state, and federal agencies to document the experiences of first responders working on the front lines. The interviews recorded for the Through Hell and High Water Oral History Project capture the disaster’s painful, chaotic, and murky aftermath—

In August 2005, Father Vien Nguyen was only two years into his tenure as pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in New Orleans East when Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failures inundated the city. The latest episode of NOLA Life Stories on New Orleans Public Radio revisits a 2008 interview conducted by HNOC Senior Historian Mark Cave, in which Nguyen describes riding out the storm and its aftermath with his parishioners. Listen to the full episode: https://ow.ly/EVT750WLMHe Nguyen’s