Twenty years after Katrina, New Orleans' Preservation Hall is thriving
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, the landmark musical venue of Preservation Hall is once again the center of the city's lively community of musicians. Ben Jaffe, its creative director, shared his story of resilience and hope with USA TODAY National Correspondent Rick Jervis.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.co. |
| 0:05.4 | That's audible.co.ukesl-wondery. What's in a name? |
| 0:26.6 | If it's Preservation Hall, it means honor, resilience, restoration. |
| 0:33.6 | Names have meaning. |
| 0:44.9 | Hello, and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. |
| 0:45.9 | I'm Dana Taylor. |
| 0:49.3 | Today is Sunday, August 31, 2025. |
| 1:01.5 | On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana in Plagamonds Parish, |
| 1:08.9 | roughly 50 miles southeast of New Orleans. A catastrophic storm surge followed that led to breached levees, deadly flooding, and unimaginable devastation. |
| 1:14.3 | This is a flash flood warning for Orleans Parish. |
| 1:17.1 | A flash flood warning for Orleans Parish. |
| 1:18.5 | What has happened is a levy breach has occurred along the industrial canal at Tennessee Street. |
| 1:24.6 | So I'm going to die. |
| 1:26.7 | The water is that it rises in the attic, man. |
| 1:30.5 | I'm a trial in the attic. |
| 1:32.8 | Over the next 24 hours, |
| 1:35.1 | it's hard to know precisely what we're going to find |
| 1:39.2 | tomorrow night when we talk to you again. |
| 1:51.3 | Yeah. we talk to you again. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, |
| 1:54.3 | residents of New Orleans were left asking the question |
| 1:57.3 | that so many survivors of catastrophic events ask, what now? |
| 2:04.1 | There's like this scar, this like thing that never quite heals on your soul, your heart. |
... |
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