Overview

• New Orleans and Mississippi held wreath-layings, Lower Ninth Ward tributes and second-line parades, with speakers recalling the delayed government response and honoring victims and survivors.
• NOAA still lists Katrina as the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, with damage approaching $200 billion and a confirmed death toll of 1,392 reported by the National Hurricane Center.
• Post-storm assessments cite New Orleans’ levee and pump failures, Mississippi’s extreme storm surge and a broad wind field for most of the destruction, flooding about 80% of the city.
• Meteorological analyses highlight two rapid-intensification bursts over the Gulf and a peak near 175 mph before landfalls in Louisiana and along the Louisiana–Mississippi border.
• Long-term studies document mass displacement and uneven return patterns shaped by race and flood depth, with New Orleans’ population still well below its pre-2005 level.