Hurricane of 1947
New Orleans, Louisiana

In 1947, a hurricane struck New Orleans, damaging many areas in and around the city.  It is an unnamed
storm, because the designation of storms by name didn't begin until a few years later.
Nancy
An aerial view of the 17th Street Canal after a breach during the 1947 hurricane.  The canal is a
dividing line for Orleans and Jefferson parishes, in this photo, the New Orleans side is on the left
and the breach occurred on the Jefferson Parish side on the right.  After Hurricane Katrina, a
failure occurred on the Orleans Parish side, in the Lakeview neighborhood, and was responsible
for flooding a large part of the city.  As you can see in this 1947 photo neither of the areas which
abutted the canal in either parish were densely populated at that time.  By 2005, when Hurricane
Katrina struck the city, that had changed.  New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood was particularly
devastated by the breach.
This photo was taken right after the 1947 hurricane.  The areas on the banks of Bayou St.
John, just about as far as can be seen in this photo, were undeveloped in 1947.  However,
they now represent thoroughly developed neighborhoods.
To see the front page of the New Orleans Item newspaper the day after
the 1947 hurricane, click on the newspaper graphic above.
Photo from New Orleans Item newspaper showing uprooted tree
on Perrier Street in the Uptown neighborhood of the city.
Seawall at Lake Pontchartrain as the storm approached.
Industrial Canal after the storm
New Basin Canal at West End after the storm.
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