{Photo: Residents of eastern New Orleans hold hands during a prayer at a candlelight vigil with 1600 candles to commemorate those who lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina.}In Commemoration: Hurricane Katrina
Aug 29, 2006
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Bells tolled in this shattered city Tuesday morning, marking the moment one year earlier when New Orleans' levees buckled and unleashed a torrent of water that ripped homes from their foundations and sent half the city into an uncertain exile.As the bells rang, survivors of the storm gathered outside City Hall."I felt like I needed to be here. It's like a funeral, and life goes on after today," said Gayla Dunn, 33, of New Orleans.Mayor Ray Nagin told the crowd the anniversary was a difficult day for everyone, including himself."Trust me. We will get through it. We will get through it together," he said.As Nagin spoke at City Hall, President Bush and first lady Laura Bush sang a hymn inside St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter, which survived Katrina's cyclonic winds and was untouched by the flooding.Hurricane Katrina made landfall 65 miles south of the city in the tiny fishing village of Buras. Within hours, New Orleans' protective levees collapses, causing one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history which killed over 1,800 people.One year later, the Gulf Coast commemorated the storm that brought the region to its breaking point.In pockmarked neighborhoods choked with weeds, in church pews and in gutted community centers, residents held public and private vigils. At each of the city's broken levees, they tossed wreaths of flowers, sending them bobbing into calm, black water.Under an equally calm sky in Gulfport, Miss., the community remembered 14 residents lost to the storm."I'm hoping this is a step forward," said Carolyn Bozzetti, 60, whose 83-year-old father drowned in the his home during the storm. "I've been crying for a year. I'm tired of crying." Continue Story
Read how Katrina survivors are dealing with the emotional and financial blows dealt to them by the devastating storm. Rebuilding Lives
Click Photo Above to View Video: Katrina-One Year later
Fact Sheet: One Year Later: Katrina Facts
