Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast with devastating force at daybreak on Aug. 29, 2005, pummeling a region that included the fabled city of New Orleans and heaping damage on neighboring Mississippi. In all, more than 1,700 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others displaced.
Packing 145-mile-an-hour winds as it made landfall, the category 3 storm left more than a million people in three states without power and submerged highways even hundreds of miles from its center. The hurricane's storm surge — a 29-foot wall of water pushed ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast — was the highest ever measured in the United States. Levees failed in New Orleans, resulting in political and social upheavals that continued a half decade later.
Katrina ranks as one of the most punishing hurricanes ever to hit the United States. Damage, costing billions of dollars, has made it one of the costliest storms on record. In New Orleans, floodwaters from the breached levee rose to rooftops in the poorest neighborhood, and in many areas residents were rescued from roofs of homes that became uninhabitable. The hurricane's howling winds stripped 15-foot sections off the roof of the Superdome, where as many as 10,000 evacuees had taken shelter. An exodus of hundreds of thousands left the city, many becoming refugees, finding shelter with nearby relatives or restarting their lives in states as far away as Massachusetts and Utah.
Experts who studied the disaster say the hurricane was more like four storms — at least — that battered the area in different ways. They say the flood protection system in New Orleans was flawed from the start because the model storm it was designed to stop was simplistic, and led to an inadequate network of levees, flood walls, storm gates and pumps. And experts say that understanding the failings is essential in planning the next generation of flood protection for a rebuilt New Orleans, and for systems nationwide.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael D. Brown, was stripped of his post amid fears within the Bush administration that its delayed response to the disaster could do lasting damage to both President George W. Bush's power and his legacy. But more important to some members of the administration, it dented the administration's aura of competence. In the end, the federal government's response was seen as too little and too late.
In the wake of the storm, the region's grinding poverty, longstanding corruption and political ineptitude — particularly in the Big Easy — were exposed along with the inadequacies of federal, state and local agencies. Gradually, the region stabilized as aid was meted out and its residents returned.
In November 2009, a federal judge found that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after the hurricane. The ruling was a major victory for homeowners who suffered damage in the aftermath of the storm. It was the first time that the government has been held liable for any of the flooding that inundated the New Orleans area after Aug. 29, 2005, vindicating the long-held contention of many in the region that the flooding was far more than an act of God.
But in April 2010, a new disaster — this one entirely manmade — descended on the Gulf when an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men, spilling millions of barrels of crude, destroying wildlife and crippling businesses that depend on the waters. It is unclear what the extent of the damage is, but it has already been called the biggest oil spill in history.
ARTICLES ABOUT HURRICANE KATRINA
A New Cottage in New Orleans With ‘Katrina Patina’
After Hurricane Katrina destroyed a couple’s house, they built a classic side-hall cottage that only looks old, filling it with distressed antiques.
April 7, 20112 Former Officers Sentenced in a Killing After Katrina
The two former New Orleans officers were convicted in the killing of an unarmed civilian and the burning of his body.
April 1, 2011Time Runs Out for St. Bernard Parish
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has finally intervened in an outrageous case of housing discrimination.
March 30, 2011New Orleans Hospital Settles Katrina Deaths Suit
The settlement was reached by Memorial Medical Center, where 45 patients died during the hurricane.
March 24, 2011
Dangers of Leaving No Resident Behind
As the Japanese are learning, the science behind herding thousands, sometimes millions, of people from danger to safety is uncertain at best.
March 22, 2011
Trial to Open in Lawsuit Connected to Hospital Deaths After Katrina
The suit, brought on behalf of people who were at Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina, will weigh whether the hospital’s owner should be held accountable for deaths related to the disaster.
March 21, 2011
New Orleans Shrank After Hurricane Katrina, Census Shows
The 2010 census shows that the population of New Orleans is 29 percent smaller than it was a decade earlier.
February 4, 2011Affordable Housing and the Gulf
Congress needs to extend a tax credit program to help rebuild affordable housing units in the gulf states.
February 4, 2011Pop and Rock Listings for Feb. 4-10
A selected guide to rock, metal, folk, punk, dance and other pop music in New York and the area.
February 4, 2011
New Orleans School Sows Seeds in Lower 9th Ward
A New Orleans school tests the theory that agriculture can be a way of empowering urban students.
January 16, 2011
Weathering the Storms of Voter Discontent — Political Memo
History is littered with mayors, governors and other officials who have felt the sting of Mother Nature’s impetuous strike, and in many cases never recovered from the blow.
December 31, 2010Fire at Abandoned Warehouse in New Orleans Leaves 8 Dead
Firefighters said the blaze was one of the worst in the city’s modern history, and they could not determine the sex or approximate ages of those who died.
December 29, 2010Housing for Hurricane Victims
Congress needs to extend by another year a tax-credit program that encourages companies in gulf states to invest in affordable housing.
December 22, 2010
After Oil Spill Crisis, a Protector Keeps Watch
The BP oil spill of 2010 has come and gone, mostly. But Albertine Kimble, protector of these waters, is still here.
December 21, 2010Louisiana: Maximum Sentence in Katrina Shooting
A former New Orleans police officer has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for helping to cover up the deadly shootings of two unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
December 2, 2010For Katrina Victims, Relief at Last
It took five long years, but the federal government has persuaded Mississippi to do right by Hurricane Katrina survivors. That kind of delay should never happen again.
November 17, 2010
Hurricane Katrina Victims in Mississippi Get More Money
A $133 million program will address housing problems for poor residents five years after Hurricane Katrina.
November 16, 2010
Putting Star Power Behind Good Works
Sean Penn and Brad Pitt are among celebrity driving forces behind charity organizations.
November 11, 2010Louisiana: No Excuse for Shooting in Storm’s Aftermath, Jurors Told
Hurricane Katrina offers no excuse for the actions of police officers being tried in the fatal police shooting of a man whose body was found in a car in September 2005, a federal prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.
November 11, 2010
Biloxi Bets Gehry-Designed Museum Can Compete With Casinos
A museum in Biloxi, Miss., designed by Frank Gehry, is opening years after Hurricane Katrina delayed its construction.
November 9, 2010A Plan for the Gulf
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’s strategy for restoring the Gulf of Mexico is sound. But his goals will not be met without the full commitment of Congress.
September 29, 2010
Harry Shearer Revisits Why Katrina Devastated New Orleans
In “The Big Uneasy,” Harry Shearer considers some not-so-well-known facts about Hurricane Katrina.
September 24, 2010Dance Listings
A selected guide to dance performances in the New York region.
September 24, 2010
9 Years After 9/11, Public Safety Network Still a Dream
Despite a $7 billion effort, experts say a nationwide public safety radio system may never become a reality.
September 7, 2010Katrina, Five Years Later
New Orleans is rebounding well from the devastation wrought by the hurricane and could end up on a stronger economic footing — if the city redevelops in the right way.
September 2, 2010
A Medical Team Bonded as Hurricane Katrina Hit
Dr. Ruth Berggren was among a team of nurses and doctors that stayed with patients during Hurricane Katrina.
September 2, 2010Progress Will Continue, Obama Tells New Orleans
Pres Obama seeks to assure New Orleans residents, battered by two catastrophic disasters in five years, that federal efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina will not waver even as city struggles with aftermath of BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico
August 30, 2010MEDIA DECODER; View of a Hurricane, 5 Years On
Television ratings are modest for television specials tied to fifth year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and flooding of New Orleans
August 30, 2010
On Katrina Anniversary, Obama Pledges More Progress
At Xavier University five years after Hurricane Katrina, President Obama celebrated New Orleans’s revival.
August 30, 2010MEDIA DECODER; Katrina Film Takes Aim at Army Corps of Engineers
Media Decoder column; Harry Shearer documentary film The Big Uneasy explores reasons why Hurricane Katrina was so destructive to New Orleans; photo
August 30, 2010SEARCH 2159 ARTICLES ABOUT HURRICANE KATRINA:
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NBC's Brian Williams Interviews Obama
NBC's Brian Williams and President Obama discuss New Orleans' long road to recovery, the state of the U.S. economy, the oil spill and Americans' questions about his religious faith.
Children of the Storm, 5 Years Later
The photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally recently visited two of the families she photographed for a 2006 New York Times Magazine photo essay, "Children of the Storm."
Mapping the Recovery of New Orleans
Time-lapse maps showing resettlement patterns in New Orleans.
The Changing Landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward
Since the 2005 storm that flooded the homes in New Orleans, the geography of the Lower Ninth Ward has changed substantially.
Hurricane Protection in Louisiana
Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the $15 billion upgrade to the city’s hurricane defenses is taking shape.
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