When the rain started on Aug. 23, 2005, in New Orleans, many residents weren't worried. The swampy bayou was used to wet weather. However, days later, when the weather didn't let up and the storm surged from a threat to an absolute promise to ravage the Southern city, those residents were worried … and trapped. The levees broke and NOLA's own climbed to their roofs and waved their arms in the air, begging to be saved. Babies cried for formula that no one could provide. The elderly went without their medicine. The conditions were Third World.
The rest of us watched New Orleans sink beneath the weight of the water, and we mourned as reports rolled in of the still-unknown number of people who had been killed. We remain in mourning. The flooding that recently created a river out of Baton Rouge, La., is a harsh reminder that Louisiana isn't burning; it's drowning … still.
Here is New Orleans, 11 years after Katrina: