Floodlines · The Atlantic

Rebirth

August 1, 2025·40 min·3 clips

Leanne loses her stepfather, a legendary tuba player, and her brother to violence, forcing her to become the family cornerstone.

Host Van Newkirk opens by acknowledging a five-year gap since Floodlines, naming the pandemic, elections, the insurrection, hurricanes, and personal loss as the backdrop of those years. He recalls being drawn back to Leanne Williams, a New Orleans woman who was 14 when Katrina struck and whose story anchored Floodlines in 2020. After the show aired, Van watched Leanne navigate more hard times but also celebrations — a new job, a new home, a daughter thriving in school. He chose the 20th anniversary of Katrina as the occasion for a visit. He arrives on a Sunday to find Leanne in Pontchartrain Park, a historic neighborhood closer to where she grew up, living with her mother Patricia and daughter Destiny, the living room full of family. He contrasts this with where Leanne lived in 2020 — New Orleans East, described as a holding area for people displaced by gentrification, known for crime, food deserts, and pollution. Leanne describes the East as dangerous, with carjacking for fun and no activities for youth. In 2023, when Destiny was around the same age Leanne had been during Katrina, catastrophe struck again. Jeffrey Hills, Leanne's stepfather and the man who helped raise her, died suddenly in his sleep at 47. Jeffrey was a veteran tuba player who had played with all the major brass bands and mentored younger musicians. His funeral drew musicians who skipped Jazz Fest to attend, and 11 tuba players marched in a second line through the Sixth Ward — a moment Leanne describes as feeling like the New Orleans before Katrina. The day after Jeffrey's funeral, Leanne's brother Christian was shot and killed two blocks from her house. The episode spends time with Leanne as she absorbs these losses and takes on Jeffrey's role as the family's anchor. She organizes Sunday gatherings, coordinates Mardi Gras preparations through a family Facebook group, and works as a phlebotomist while building credit to buy a home. Van walks with Leanne and Destiny to the levee near their new home, where Leanne reflects on living below sea level and the ongoing threat of flooding despite a new floodgate built by the Army Corps of Engineers. He notes that Leanne now evacuates every time, regardless of storm category. Destiny, 16, is observed navigating a teenage life shaped in part by Katrina's shadow — watching documentaries about the storm at her mother's insistence, holding a job at a tourist mall, and receiving scholarship offers for out-of-state colleges. Van draws a comparison between how Leanne and Destiny are both strong-minded and headstrong, while noting that their aspirations diverge: Leanne has spent her life trying to return to New Orleans, while Destiny wants to leave and see the world. Van closes by reflecting on the ice cream Leanne was given by a stranger during the flood — using it to argue that Katrina exposed not savagery but the depth of community love, and the failure of the city and country to match it. He asks Leanne whether she sees herself as an ambassador for New Orleans. She says yes.

As heard by us

A Katrina return that keeps memory and aftermath in focus.

Floodlines comes back to Katrina through memory, aftermath, and the people still living under its shadow. Van Newkirk lets Leanne and Destiny hold the center, which keeps the piece grounded in lived experience instead of thesis.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want Katrina memory told through one family, this one stays with you.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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