Hurricane Katrina

U.S. President Barack Obama will visit New Orleans, Louisiana, Sunday to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm that flooded much of the city and devastated the region.

Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005. The storm and the flooding it caused killed more than 1,800 people and forced more than a million residents from their homes.

The states of Louisiana and Mississippi bore the brunt of Katrina's fury. Eighty percent of the city of New Orleans was covered by floodwater after its protective levees were breached.

As the crisis unfolded, some residents of New Orleans were stranded on the rooftops of flooded homes for days. Thousands of residents sought shelter at the city's indoor sports arena, the Superdome, but ended up going for days with little food or water.

While much of the region has been rebuilt, parts of New Orleans remain scarred by the storm. Many who fled their homes in 2005 have not returned.

The federal response to the disaster was widely criticized as slow and mismanaged, with critics blaming then-President George W. Bush and the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the United States suffered more economic losses from Hurricane Katrina than from any other storm in history. The agency says damages and costs from the storm totaled some $125 billion.