The actor’s family home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and, 11 years on, his Baton Rouge house has been wrecked by floods

Does bad luck follow The Wire’s Wendell Pierce? Eleven years to the month since Pierce’s family home became one of the thousands ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the actor who played cigar-chomping cop Bunk Moreland has again seen disaster strike – this time at his home in Baton Rouge.

Earlier this year, Pierce spoke about visiting his childhood home after the hurricane and finding “everything was totally destroyed and covered in gray and green”. Pierce – who also starred in the HBO drama Treme, set in post-Katrina New Orleans – has set up a local corporation to rebuild destroyed homes, and started a supermarket business to tackle a lack of access to healthy food in the city.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Wendell Pierce as Bunk Moreland in The Wire. Photograph: HBO/Everett/Rex Features

Now Pierce has been affected again by the latest disaster to hit Louisiana, with his home and neighbourhood underwater after the unexpected flood; 20,000 people have had to be rescued. But while Pierce’s luck may sound bad, it is not unusual.

Many Hurricane Katrina survivors now live in Baton Rouge – which has historically been less susceptible to floods and hurricanes – and have found themselves in the same awful predicament.

Margaret Teague, 61, told a local paper she had only recently moved back to Louisiana after her New Orleans home was destroyed. Now she is once more staying in a temporary shelter. Jeannique Branche, 34, spent years reeling after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. She thought she was better off after moving to a second-floor apartment in an area that had never flooded, she told the Times-Picayune. “I felt safe,” she said. “Then I woke up [on] Saturday morning, and everything changed … Now I’ve lost everything again.”

Other Katrina survivors have vowed to help Baton Rouge, to pay back the city for the help they once received. Volunteer Brittani Gillis said she had immediately starting collecting clothes, food and toiletries when she heard about the floods, telling a local paper: “We’ve been through it, and we know what it’s like.”