New Orleans, Louisiana:

The effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were shattering and long-lasting. As the center of Katrina passed east of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, winds downtown were in the Category 3 range with frequent intense gusts and tidal surge. Though the most severe portion of Katrina missed the city, hitting nearby St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, the storm surge caused more than 50 breaches in drainage canal levees and also in navigational canal levees and precipitated the worst engineering disaster in the history of the United States.
By August 31, 2005, eighty percent of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet (4.5 m) of water. Most of the city's levees designed and built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers broke somewhere, including the 17th Street Canal levee, the Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal floodwall. These breaches were responsible for most of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Oil refining stopped so the price of petrol increased all over the world.
Ninety percent of the residents of southeast Louisiana were evacuated in the most successful evacuation of a major urban area in the nation's history. Despite this, many remained (mainly the elderly and poor). The Louisiana Superdome was used as a designated "refuge of last resort" for those who remained in the city. The city flooded due primarily to the failure of the federally built levee system. Many who remained in their homes had to swim for their lives, wade through deep water, or remain trapped in their attics or on their rooftops.
The disaster had major implications for a large segment of the population, economy, and politics of the entire United States. It has prompted a Congressional review of the Corps of Engineers and the failure of portions of the federally built flood protection system which experts agree should have protected the city's inhabitants from Katrina's surge. Katrina has also stimulated significant research in the academic community into urban planning, real estate finance, and economic issues in the wake of a natural disaster.
Most of the major roads traveling into and out of the city were damaged. The only route out of the city was west on the Crescent City Connection as the I-10 Twin Span Bridge traveling east towards Slidell, Louisiana had collapsed. The 24-mile (39 km) long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway escaped unscathed but was only carrying emergency traffic. Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was closed before the storm but reported no flooding in airplane movement areas or inside of the building itself. By August 30, it was reopened to humanitarian and rescue operations. Commercial cargo flights resumed on September 10, and commercial passenger service resumed on September 13.
On August 29, at 7:40 a.m. CDT, it was reported that most of the windows on the north side of the Hyatt Regency New Orleans had been blown out, and many other high rise buildings had extensive window damage. The Hyatt was the most severely damaged hotel in the city, with beds reported to be flying out of the windows. Insulation tubes were exposed as the hotel's glass exterior was completely sheared off.
The Superdome sustained significant damage, including two sections of the roof that were compromised, and the dome's waterproof membrane had essentially been peeled off. On August 30, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco ordered the complete evacuation of the remaining people that sought shelter in the Superdome. They were then transported to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
As of mid-day Monday, August 29, the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed to the East of the City subjecting it to hurricane conditions, but sparing New Orleans the worst impact. The City seemed to have escaped most of the catastrophic wind damage and heavy rain that had been predicted. Most buildings came through well structurally.
The storm surge had severely taxed the city's inadequate levee system built by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet ("MR-GO") breached its levees in approximately 20 places flooding much of eastern New Orleans, nearly all of Saint Bernard Parish and the East Bank of Plaquemines Parish. The major levee breaches in the city included breaches at the 17th Street Canal levee, the London Avenue Canal, and the wide, navigable Industrial Canal, which left approximately 80% of the city flooded. There were three major breaches at the Industrial Canal; one on the upper side near the junction with MR-GO, and two on the lower side along the Lower Ninth Ward, between Florida Avenue and Claiborne Avenue. The 17th Street Canal levee was breached on the lower (New Orleans West End) side inland from the Old Hammond Highway Bridge, and the London Avenue Canal breached in two places, on the upper side just back from Robert E. Lee Boulevard, and on the lower side a block in from the Mirabeau Avenue Bridge. Flooding from the breaches put the majority of the city under water for days, in many places for weeks. Many roads and buildings were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
In a June 2006 report on the disaster, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted that faulty design specifications, incomplete sections, and substandard construction of levee segments, contributed to the damage done to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. A report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers in June 2007 concluded that two-thirds of the flooding in the city could have been avoided if the levees had held.
The failure of the Hurricane Protection Project of New Orleans has prompted many government officials to call for hearings, committees and investigations, including a call for an 8/29 Commission to investigate both the engineering and decision-making behind the collapse of a flood protection system that should have held against Katrina's storm surge.
Later studies have determined that most of New Orleans' Katrina dead were old, and lived near levee breaches in the 9th Ward and Lakeview.
A U.S. Coast Guard aircrew searches for survivors in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Final reports indicate that the official death toll, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, was 1,464 people. The first deaths were reported shortly before midnight on August 28, 2005, as three nursing home patients died during an evacuation to Baton Rouge.
On September 4, Mayor Nagin speculated that the death toll could rise as high as ten thousand after the clean-up was completed. Some survivors and evacuees reported seeing dead bodies lying in city streets and floating in still-flooded sections, especially in the east of the city. The advanced state of decomposition of many corpses, some of which were left in the water or sun for days before being collected, hindered efforts by coroners to identify many of the dead.
There were six deaths confirmed at the Superdome. Four of these were from natural causes, one was the result of a drug overdose, and one was a suicide. At the Convention Center, four bodies were recovered. One of these four is believed to be the result of a homicide. Body collection throughout the city began on approximately September 9. Prior to that date, the locations of corpses were recorded, but most were not retrieved.

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