bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

New Orleans remembered the dead and celebrated its painstaking comeback from disaster, a decade after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the “Big Easy” leaving devastation and chaos in its wake.
City leaders placed wreaths at a memorial to Katrina’s scores of unknown victims, marking the hour that the Category 5 storm struck with catastrophic force, overwhelming the Louisiana port’s system of levees.
More than 1,800 people were killed across the US Gulf Coast when Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005. A million people were displaced and the financial toll topped US$150 billion.
Read more: IN PICTURES: Hurricane Katrina 10 years on

New Orleans was plunged into a nightmarish scene of death and looting after Katrina barrelled her way through and government help was painfully slow to come, something which still rankles in the city.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu, at a solemn ceremony attended by about 400 people on the lawn of Charity Hospital in the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward, struck a defiant tone.
“New Orleans will be unbowed and unbroken. We’re still standing after 10 years,” he declared.
“We have risen and we will rise again, but we can only do it if we hold each other up and we don’t leave anybody behind.”
The memorial to the unclaimed Katrina victims holds the remains of bodies which were never identified or claimed.

“We know that even as New Orleans is rebuilding, there are those who are grieving the deaths of their mothers, their fathers, their sisters. I want those families to know that our thoughts are with them,” Governor Bobby Jindal said.
The wreath ceremony gave way to parades, marches and partying, capping a week of remembrance that included a visit from President Barack Obama.
Barbeque smoke and music filled the stifling New Orleans air, as brass bands and revelers celebrated the recovery of a city synonymous with Dixieland jazz and the raucous Mardi Gras.
Gwen Truhill, a local from the Ninth Ward, said: “We’ve come a long way, but yet still so far to go.
“It’s good to see everybody come together and remember what happened, to see that people are still in good spirits. It’s still kind of bittersweet.”
Neighbourhoods and cultural centres were due to hold parties and parades before former president Bill Clinton was due to speak at an evening commemoration, with performances by a number of Grammy-winning musicians.
Some 80 per cent of New Orleans was swallowed up by floods which rose as high as six meters after the low-lying coastal city’s poorly built levee system burst from the pressure of a massive storm surge.
The water came up so fast that some people drowned in their homes. Hundreds more were stranded on their rooftops.
The few dry spots in the city descended into anarchy as tens of thousands of increasingly desperate people with little food or clean water waited for help to finally reach them.
“All of us who are old enough to remember will never forget the images of our fellow Americans amid a sea of misery and ruin,” former president George W. Bush said in a visit to a New Orleans school on Friday.
Bush, who faced intense criticism for his handling of the crisis, said he was moved by the city’s determination to “rebuild better than before.”
Ten years on, colorful homes on stilts have replaced many of the rotten hulks left behind by the stagnant and effluent-tainted flood waters.
Music and the smell of gumbo – a spicy stew – once again waft through the bustling streets of the French Quarter.
The tourism industry is booming once again, with nine million visitors last year and the city has managed to attract a growing number new businesses.
Crime – while still high – is improving, with the murder rate hitting a 43-year low in 2014 and the population in city jails down by two-thirds.
Some of the city’s 385,000 residents say its Creole and Afro-Caribbean identity has been altered indelibly by the storm.
A large portion of the population never came back and New Orleans now has 100,000 fewer people than it did before Katrina, and many are newcomers.
The black population has also fallen, from 68 percent of residents in 2000 to 60 percent in 2013, latest census figures show.
But plenty of white New Orleans residents also found the emotional and financial cost of rebuilding to be too high, though their numbers are harder to measure.
"A lot of things have changed, but sometimes change is for the better,” city resident Elisianne Coco said.
“It’s not the same New Orleans that it was when I was growing up, but as long as they get the best of it, that’s all that matters.”


'We have risen': New Orleans mourns dead and celebrates life 10 years after Hurricane Katrina 

Former US President Bill Clinton speaks during a Hurricane Katrina 10th anniversary event at the Smoothie King Centre. Photo: AFP

This top image was taken on August 27, 2015 in New Orleans, Louisiana and can be compared to the same view on September 11 2005. Photo: AFP

The Original Big 7 Junior Steppers parade through the Central Business District in a second line parade to mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Photo: AFP

IN PICTURES: Hurricane Katrina 10 years on

Resident Michael Rehage squats on the roof of his car on September 12, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina struck.

Tyler Teal cleans up his home on September 14, 2005, after the devastating hurricane. 

Joshua Creek looks up at the height the floodwaters reached at his house on September 13, 2005.

Errol Morning sits on his boat while behind him his entire street is flooded.

The print shows a woman arriving with her dog at a collection point for victims of the hurricane in September 2005. 

Coffins are removed from tombs after floods hit the area. More than 1,800 people were killed across the US Gulf Coast when Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005.

Another view of Errol Morning on his boat on a flooded street.  Some 80 per cent of New Orleans was swallowed up by floods. 

Joshua Creek sitting on the porch of his house reflecting on the disaster after Hurricane Katrina struck. 

A general view of the Memorial Medical Centre on September 13, 2005 which played a key role in the disaster recovery. 

‘New Orleans West’: Why Houston’s Hurricane Katrina evacuees never went home

Chevelle Washington, right, sits in the hospital room of her sister, Chelette Price, in Houston. They were among New Orleans residents who fled to Texas in the wake of Hurricane Katrina but never returned. Photo: AP

Storm troupers: Obama lauds 'inspirational’ New Orleans, a decade after Katrina

US President Barack Obama breaks for lunch at Willie Mae’s Scotch House in New Orleans on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

News

World

'We have risen': New Orleans mourns dead and celebrates life 10 years after Hurricane Katrina

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}.css-jfmysa{display:inline;word-break:break-word;}.css-1ankfgb{cursor:pointer;display:inline;word-break:break-word;}Read more: IN PICTURES: Hurricane Katrina 10 years on

Read more: IN PICTURES: Hurricane Katrina 10 years on