PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Gary LeBlanc still remembers the sights, sounds and smells of the disaster that changed his life and inspired the creation of Portsmouth-based Mercy Chefs.

LeBlanc, who grew up in New Orleans and spent 25 years in the hotel and restaurant industry there, said the storm felt deeply personal.

“New Orleans was my hometown. It’s where my family was from. It’s where we went every year. It was that touchstone for me as a child growing up,” LeBlanc told News 3's Jay Greene. “The people I saw standing on bridges on the television from my home in Virginia were people that I knew. They were people that I used to work with, and I was compelled in my heart to go and do something.”

That decision led him to volunteer in th

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