On Thursday, President Obama is traveling to New Orleans to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the city on Aug. 29, 2005. The president plans to mix a celebration of the ongoing revival of New Orleans, including a new community center in the decimated Lower 9th Ward, with a call for state and federal lawmakers to prepare their communities for the stronger storms that are coming with the changing climate. (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican presidential candidate and climate change skeptic, complained about Obama bringing "the divisive political agenda of liberal environmental activism" with him on his visit.)
But as former Time reporter Brian Bennett notes in the video below, the Lower 9th Ward and other parts of New Orleans haven't recovered from Katrina and probably won't for decades, if ever. And even though the hurricane made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, "the world didn't know how bad it was for a couple of days," he said. It was the flooding, not the direct storm damage, that changed the city for decades. In 2 minutes 35 seconds, Bennett and photographer Chris Usher offer a vivid snapshot of what happened in the hurricane, what went wrong, and where things stand 10 years later. You can watch below. Peter Weber
The Week
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