Bvlbancha Liberation Radio: 20 Years after Hurricane Katrina

 

Monique Verdin, Houma Nation, said she's broadcasting from her grandmother's kitchen on Friday. "Tune in! We are live all day, down the road in the Terre Gaillarde!"

Bvlbancha Liberation Radio: 20 Years after Hurricane Katrina

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, August 29, 2025

Bvlbancha Liberation Radio was live with 'Swamp City Girl,' Monique Verdin, Houma Nation, on Friday, as Govinda and the team sets up grassroots disaster relief radio. Monique began the live broadcast focused on the Mound Culture, as the Gulf Coast region remembers Hurricane Katrina 20 years later.

Monique shared what it was like after Hurricane Katrina hit, and how the community responded in Ville Platte, where she sheltered in a community center, with community members opening up their freezers and sharing wild game.

"It was really the people in the community showing up."

With the sounds, poetry, and rich writing of New Orleans, and the Gulf, Monique shared the stories of youth writers, "Born After the Storm."

Teenagers born after the storm share how their grandparents survived the flood waters, and how parents displaced moved home from distant cities for the deep piano and horn sounds of New Orleans, the smell of seafood boiling, and the community they loved.

Amari Walton shares the story of her grandmother for 'Born After the Storm.' The stories of 15 high school students will be a curriculum for middle school. Photo WWNO

Rising and rebuilding, Monique Verdin helped them understand the difference between a 'house' and a 'home.' It was often the loss of family photos that hurt the most, after the storm.

"Even though we are just kids -- we have the power to change the world."

Monique talked with A Studio in the Woods, and shared the sounds of the artists in residence, inspiring creativity and protecting endangered forests. She shared the sounds of Dr. Michael White and his traditional New Orleans jazz.

Dr. Michael White

Dr. White shared the harsh reality of Hurricane Katrina, when people drowned and he helped his father restore their home that had been underwater. Photographs, recordings, tapes were lost.

"It was like the lost years," Dr. White said. Family members died in the years that followed. "There was no recovery, life as we knew it had ended."

At A Studio in the Woods, he recovered from the trauma and began writing songs again.

Monique spoke of the magic and healing at A Studio in the Woods.

A Studio in the Woods is located on eight forested acres on the Mississippi River, in Bulbancha/New Orleans, and is dedicated to forest preservation, science-inspired art engagement. It's a peaceful retreat for artists and scholars.

About Monique Verdin

Monique Verdin is an artist and storyteller, citizen of the Houma Nation and Bvlbancha Liberation Radio collaborator. She supports the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, network of Indigenous gardeners, as the Women's Earth and Climate Action Networks Gulf South food sovereignty coordinator.

Monique is the primary steward of the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, facilitating community-built record-making, experiential education, research, and site activations celebrating the diversity of coastal communities and native ecologies present in the wetlands, swamps, and prairies of south Louisiana.

Monique co-stewards the Nanih Bvlbancha earthen mound in New Orleans, she is a Gulf South Open School collaborator, and a part of the autonomous and alternative communication mutual aid project, SwampNet.

Watch Monique's documentary, 'My Louisiana Love'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoHYQCNvlAg

Katrina 20 Week of Action

The Katrina 20 Week of Action (August 24–31, 2025) is a Gulf South–wide series of cultural, educational, and healing gatherings across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama marking two decades since Hurricane Katrina.

Organized by the K20 Local Planning Committee, the week centers those most impacted and is guided by the principles of honoring, offering, change, healing, preparation, release, cleansing, and protection.

With over 100 events along the Gulf South, we anticipate reaching over 50,000 people, K20 commemorates the past, uplifts our communities in the present, and builds momentum for a liberated, resilient future—because together, #We Are the Storm. To view the week of events click the button below.
https://www.katrina20.org/

LISTEN LIVE

Click on arrow at bottom of page to listen live http://cast6.asurahosting.com:7236/index.html?sid=1

https://www.bvlbancharadio.net/

Govinda, with Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', in September of 2023 installing solar at Bvlbancha Liberation Radio. Govinda has set up Indigenous grassroots radio stations throughout North America.

Article copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News