JLP - In the News

Tampa Photographer Jessica Leigh shares unpublished photos and stories from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in a special blog series this week.

All this week on her Tampa photography blog, former newspaper photographer Jessica Leigh shares some of her unpublished photos and excerpts from her personal journal that captured the human spirit and stories in and around New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina.

Five years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina, one of the most deadly hurricanes on record, barreled across the state of Florida as a moderate Category 1 storm but quickly strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane. In its aftermath, the city of New Orleans was left in ruins, the state of Louisiana in shock and the rest of the nation glued to televisions screens to see what was left.

More than 1,800 people died as a result of Katrina. Tampa photographer Jessica Leigh stood on a barren Bourbon Street in the wake of the storm armed with two cameras, a diary and an open mind. Her never before seen pictures from the aftermath are part of a weeklong blog series by the then-Shreveport Times photographer on her website (www.jlpflorida.com).

"Events like Katrina define a journalist's career," Leigh said. "I expected it to be a big story but I never could have imagined what I saw through my camera lens that week. Going back through my archives and reading through my journal really brings the enormity of the devastation back in focus and I hope people who view my blog will get a glimpse of that."

From outside the Louisiana Superdome where armed National Guardsmen gave fellow American citizens orders to the flooded streets in and around New Orleans where roads turned into rivers and canoes careened through neighborhoods as part of rescue missions, Leigh saw the good and bad after Katrina.

"Seeing the worst brought out the best in some people. Residents wanting to help out first responders who were working 24/7," Leigh recalls. "But, you also saw the bad get really bad with looters taking anything they could and law enforcement helplessly trying to stop them."

The seven day Hurricane Katrina blog series on the photographer's website will feature daily blog entries from Leigh with details about what was going on in some of her photos at the time. It will also include some of the stories of the people in her pictures and Leigh will also share personal stories from a private journal that she used to help document her time covering the aftermath of Katrina.

"There are plenty of TV specials this week to remind people of what happened. I'm doing this blog series so people never forget. There's still a ton of work to be done and plenty of people still suffering," Leigh says.

Katrina's wrath is still present in Louisiana with residents living in FEMA housing and federal money still trying to get New Orleans back to the city it once was. The hurricane is known as the costliest storm in American history - costing more than $80 billion and counting.

Jessica Leigh moved back to Tampa shortly after her Katrina experience - partly due to what she saw and experienced during that time. For the past five years, she has run her own Tampa photography business bringing a news documentary style to family portraits, weddings and engagement sessions, social events and corporate headshots.