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*President Barack Obama will mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with a trip to New Orleans next week.
A White House official revealed to the Los Angeles Times that Obama will address “the region’s rebirth and what’s possible when citizens, city and corporate leaders all work together” to improve the economy during his visit on Aug. 27.
Hurricane Katrina is noted for being the costliest disaster in U.S. history. The storm, which made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, caused massive damage to New Orleans as the city’s’ levees failed and flooded 80% of the city. More than 1,800 people were killed from Katrina.
On the fifth anniversary of the disaster, Obama acknowledged the devastation in a 2010 speech commemorating the occasion, calling Katrina a “natural disaster, but also a man-made catastrophe — a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, and women and children abandoned and alone.”
