Spot News - 3rd prize
Michael Appleton
New York Daily News
New York Daily News
03 September, 2005
Ann-Veronica Recasner and her mother Mildred Foley (90) sit with others on an overpass where they spent five days without shelter.
Hurricane Katrina, the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded, hit the US Gulf Coast on 29 August causing severe destruction across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Levees protecting New Orleans were breached, flooding 80 percent of the city. Rescue efforts were delayed and disorganized. One-fifth of the population remained trapped in the city without power. Some 25,000 people made their way to the city's Superdome, which with insufficient food and water and with no air-conditioning or working toilets became increasingly uninhabitable.