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September 25, 2006

Big game in the Big Easy

The New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons take the field at the Superdome in front of a crowd of 68,000. Credit: APOn Sept. 25, 2006, the New Orleans Saints played their first game in the Louisiana Superdome since Katrina struck.
• Story
• Photos
• Coverage from WWL-TV

September 16, 2006

A year after the heartbreak

Follow the path of Hurricane Katrina - from the first gust to hit shore to the painful recovery, rescue and evacuation effort - through the eyes of The Dallas Morning News staffers who covered it:

• A Year After the Heartbreak

September 15, 2006

Bush: 'This great city will rise again'

On Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005, in a speech broadcast from New Orleans, President Bush promised federal aid, tax breaks and guaranteed loans to help rebuild the city. He also told the nation that the response to Hurricane Katrina was inadequate.

"The system, at every level of government, was not well-coordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days," he said. "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, "and this great city will rise again."

September 13, 2006

Ways and means for public servant

On Sept. 13, 2005, ABC News reported that Rep. William Jefferson, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, used National Guard troops to check on his property and recover his personal belongings.

In 2006, the congressman was later implicated in a bribery scandal.

September 12, 2006

Brown resigns as FEMA director

On Sept. 12, 2005, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, FEMA director Michael Brown resigns.

September 11, 2006

Nearly 50,000 rescued

On Sept. 11, 2005, the Department of Homeland Security released the following statistics:

• $758 million had been provided by FEMA to 364,000 households
• At least 49,700 people had been rescued
• Nearly 75,000 active military, National Guard and U.S. Coast Guard personnel were helping with recovery efforts throughout the Gulf Coast.

More

September 10, 2006

The high cost of helping

On Sept. 10, 2005, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck, many areas of New Orleans still looked like this. Credit: SMILEY POOL/The Dallas Morning News
On Sept. 10, 2005, as cleanup, recovery and relocation crews continued to assist survivors across the Gulf Coast, the estimated cost of those efforts was put at above $300 billion.

September 09, 2006

Exit Michael Brown

A sign where the municipal building once stood in Waveland, Miss., honors the efforts to rebuild the community after Hurricane Camille in 1969. Credit: MICHAEL MULVEY/DMN

On Friday, Sept. 9, 2005, the Bush administration stripped Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, of duties overseeing relief efforts. He was replaced with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen.

September 08, 2006

1 evacuee's story

Toni Miller, 58, shed tears in front of her home before she was forced to evacuate New Orleans on Sept. 8, 2005. Credit: BARBARA DAVIDSON/DMN

On Thursday, Sept. 8, 2005, New Orleans resident Toni Miller joined the thousands of residents who evacuated the city. Her story was told in a series of photos.

• Sept. 8 also marked the anniversary of the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston (audiovisual presentation features narration from newspaper accounts and video clips shot by the Thomas Edison Co.)
Multimedia: A Year After the Heartbreak

September 07, 2006

Deconstructing a disaster

On Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005, a bipartisan joint congressional committee was announced to investigate the response to Hurricane Katrina. The panel was officially created on Sept. 15, 2005 and began taking testimony on Sept. 22. The resulting report, A Failure of Initiative: The Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, found failures at all levels of government
• Official 362-page report released to the public on Feb. 15, 2006 (PDF, 6MB)
• Full account of committee's work, including witness statements, appendices and supplements (html)

• Story: Katrina alters journalists' objectivity

September 06, 2006

1 small dog, 1 huge controversy

A small oil-slickened dog was found wandering along Judge Perez Drive in Chalmette, La., as cleanup crews worked to recover oil from a ruptured refinery tank on Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005. Credit: TOM FOX/The Dallas Morning NewsIn the blur of Katrina photos, this one stood out: a shaggy dog covered in oil in flood-wrecked Chalmette, La.

On Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005, as cleanup efforts were just getting off the ground, Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox took this photo but was unable to retrieve the dog.

Later that week, he returned and alerted rescue workers, who picked up a dog and took it to an animal shelter. He also took a picture of that dog, but readers from around the world noticed some differences.

• Fox's account of what happened


• The image became a symbol of the plight that many pets faced in the hurricane-stricken areas and inspired countless Web sites, blog posts, poems, a postage stamp and even a song.

The same dog, renamed Orli, in December 2005 after being adopted by a couple in Irving, Texas.• A happy ending

September 05, 2006

Water begins flowing out of New Orleans

New Orleans residents, including these two women being rescued by a U.S. Navy helicopter, were still being pulled from high water and rooftops on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005, a full week after Katrina hit. Credit: SMILEY N. POOL/The Dallas Morning NewsOn Monday, Sept. 5, 2005, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers repaired the levee breach on the 17th Street Canal and began to pump water from the city.

September 04, 2006

Heartache continues

Theresa Comeaux of St. Tammany Parish, Slidell, La., sits exhausted outside the Dallas Convention Center. She arrived alone at 5 a.m. on a Greyhound bus from Atlanta on Sept. 04, 2005, after living for five days at a bus station in Atlanta, where all her belongings were stolen, and being separated from her son. Credit: MELANIE BURFORD/The Dallas Morning News
On Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005, President Bush issued a proclamation ordering the American flag to be flown at half-staff at all federal buildings until Sept. 20 in honor of Hurrricane Katrina victims.


September 03, 2006

More troops deployed to region

On Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005, President Bush announced that additional active-duty forces would be deployed to the Gulf Coast. More than 10,000 troops would be sent in the next 72 hours, adding to the 21,000 National Guard troops already in the region.

September 02, 2006

'Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job'

The body of Ethel Freeman, center in wheelchair, and another body lie covered outside an entrance to the New Orelans Convention Center, where thousands of people awaited evacuation to higher ground on Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. Credit: ERIC GAY/Associated Press
On Friday, Sept. 2, 2005, President Bush visited the hurricane-stricken area. At a nationally televised news conference in Alabama, he praised Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." One group later named this Bush's most memorable phrase of 2005.
Stories: 'A desperate SOS'| Texas-size relief effort at Reunion Arena
Photos

September 01, 2006

Stranded at the Superdome

Residents awaited buses outside the Superdome that would take them to safety on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005. Credit: The Dallas Morning News
On Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, as many as 45,000 survivors are trapped in and around the Superdome and convention center. The first buses arrive at the Superdome to take evacuees to the Astrodome in Houston, 355 miles away.

Photos
Stories

• In a radio interview, Mayor Ray Nagin criticizes the response and assistance that New Orleans has received.
Transcript | Audio

Memorial Medical Center nurse Mary Jo D'amico fans a patient waiting in the hospital's parking garage for helicopter transport from New Orleans on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005. Credit: BRAD LOPER/The Dallas Morning News