As the nation marks the 2oth anniversary of the historic catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina, two words resonate in my mind. The first is betrayal. The second is renewal.

While Katrina was one of the four most intense hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States, the monumental scope of death, devastation, and heartbreak it left behind was entirely man-made.

In August of 2005, I had been out of office about three years and had moved to New York to lead the National Urban League. I had attended a funeral in New Orleans two days before Katrina hit, and flew out just as people were starting to evacuate. When I turned on the television on Monday morning and Tuesday, and saw the people at the Convention Center and the Superdome suffering in the heat with no food, with no water, no

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