Looking back at Katrina and the havoc she brought

Published 10:00 am Friday, August 1, 2025

Between Friends with BobAnn Breland

We are in the midst of the annual hurricane season. Many are looking back to when a vicious storm named Katrina swept through the parish on August 29, 2005. It was like nothing I had ever experienced, although I remember several pretty strong storms of the past.

The Daily News crew in the newsroom took turns on Saturday night putting out the Sunday newspaper. It was my turn on the weekend before Katrina came on Monday. I finished up the pages by adding additional news, including that from the Associated Press about a hurricane named Katrina.

Katrina didn’t seem to a be a huge threat for us, but was not too far away. As I finished up Page 2A, I added photos of its location along with the story. Sending the pages to the press was my last thing for the night, as the pressmen were waiting to print the Sunday, Aug. 28 edition.

Just in case the storm’s direction should change, a couple of us did cover up all the computers and other equipment. I left for home as I heard the press start up. That was the last printed daily issue of the newspaper.

Unfortunately, on Monday, the storm did come our way and did a lot of damage to The Daily News building. It would be awhile before the newspaper could be printed there again.

It gradually was left with only three newspapers a week, instead of six, printed every day except Saturday. It never regained its daily status. Now, 20 years later, a weekly newspaper is printed.

On Wednesday, Sept 7, those staff members who were near enough to Bogalusa, gathered to try to put out a paper after the storm. I wish I could remember all the names, but that was too long ago.

John Walker had just assumed the managing editor’s position and came to Louisiana at a very unusual time. He got us all together and we did the best we could to get things going with very little to work with for a time.

A few of us rode all over the place, gathering news and taking photos. There were few telephones and no computers to type what news we found. We went to Covington to our newspaper there to get the pages filled and ready to print.

The pages, once put together, were transported to another newspaper with presses, to get printed. Then there was the problem of getting papers out to the subscribers. Mostly, the first ones were left places for people to pick up at random.

It was a long process of getting newspapers together and getting them printed over time. As employees were gradually able to come back to work, things began to pick up.

Meanwhile the building damage at the Bogalusa paper was being repaired as workers could get to it. So much damage was done in the city and across the parish that it was a good while before things worked normally again.

Daily News employees were busy with damages at their own homes and with their families. Some had ventured out of parish for a safer place and hadn’t returned. So it was not easy returning to anything near normal.

People were busy with all kinds of personal needs from property damage to medical situations. It is a long and terrible local story and many could be written.

I wrote my personal journal after the storm about my own family experiences. It is six single-space type-written pages and doesn’t include everything.

Reading back, it was an awful time. I pray I never experience another Katrina.