ABC's Robin Roberts retraces her post-Hurricane Katrina journey back to
hometown
[August 28, 2025]
By DAVID BAUDER
Revisiting the time she broke down on “Good Morning America” while
covering Hurricane Katrina's destruction of her hometown Pass Christian,
Mississippi, Robin Roberts said she feared losing her job.
Only three months after she was named a host of the ABC News show with
industry vets Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, Roberts had played it
straight on the Gulf Coast. That's what reporters do: they keep a lid on
emotions to get the work done. Then Gibson asked, during a live shot, if
Roberts had determined that her mother and other family members were
safe.
So much for professional reserve.
“It's one thing if you shed a tear, but I was boo-hooing,” Roberts said.
“I was delighted that in the end people were touched by that in a way
that I wasn't expecting, that it was authenticity. That was proof that
they just want you to be real in the moment.”
That clip of a much younger Roberts — still a “Good Morning America”
host — is replayed on her ABC News special looking back at Katrina after
20 years. It airs Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern and is streamed on Disney+
and Hulu starting the next day.
Roberts, 64, has been back in the region more times than she can count
since then, both to report and visit family. Her mother, Lucimarian,
died in 2012 at age 88. Her sister Sally-Ann, a longtime news anchor in
New Orleans, has retired.
“I still can't believe it's been 20 years,” she said. “Two decades.
Going through the old footage was a little PTSD. You kind of blocked
some of that out.”
In the special, Roberts retraces the ride she took from New Orleans to
Pass Christian 20 years ago. There are fewer “staircases to nowhere”
along the way, evidence of destroyed homes, each time she's back. But
remnants from Katrina are still there.
Retracing her steps back to hometown
She tours Pass Christian with the longtime former mayor, Chipper
McDermott. They visit her rebuilt high school — spotting the picture of
Roberts on display — and the new version of a favorite family restaurant
that had been washed away.
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Robin Roberts arrives to honor Jane Fonda with The Harry Belafonte
Voices For Social Justice Award during the Tribeca Festival at
Spring Studios, June 10, 2023, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP,
File)
 McDermott shows new homes with
living areas built 20 feet in the air to protect against future
storm surges. “A lot of people say, ‘why would you live in a place
where you have to live on stilts?’” Roberts said. “It's home. Pick
anywhere in the world where Mother Nature can't have the upper hand
at some point. But home is home.”
Roberts wanted to pay tribute both to people who stayed in the area
and rebuilt, and people who came to the Gulf in the storm's
immediate aftermath to help.
“It took a lot of strength to raise our hands and say we need help,”
she said. “It's very hard for Southerners to do that. We like to do
it on our own. We did a lot on our own, but we got a lot of help.
And we're very appreciative of that help.”
The special doesn't ignore tough issues, like economic inequality in
the pace of rebuilding. Some affordable housing was replaced by
hotels and casinos. One effective segment visits a New Orleans
photographer, Jeremy Tauriac, and musician, Jasmine Batiste, who
were children when rescued from Katrina and talked about the
difficulties rebuilding their lives.
There's music, too. What would a visit to New Orleans be without it?
Roberts talks with Harry Connick Jr., Trombone Shorty and Branford
Marsalis.
“It is different, in some ways, of course,” Roberts said. “Nothing
stays the same, especially after something like that. But the heart
and soul of what New Orleans is? It didn't touch that.”
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