8.14am New Orleans Industrial Canal breached, flooding the Lower Ninth Ward instantly.
9am Two holes open in Superdome's roof.
10.30am George Bush declares emergency in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
5pm 1,000 survivors are taken to the New Orleans convention center and left with no food or water. Up to 20,000 gather there overnight.
Tuesday Aug. 30
7am President Bush decides to end his six-week vacation early.
10am Looting across New Orleans.
Wednesday Aug. 31
2pm First evacuation begins, from the Superdome, where the crowd has reached 26,000, with a similar number in the convention center. Another 4,000 gather on the I-10 motorway flyover.
7pm Martial law in New Orleans.
Thursday Sept. 1
2am First evacuees arrive in Houston, Texas.
6.12am Bush tells ABC television: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
Friday Sept. 2
9am National guard takes control of the convention center and fans out around the streets to stop looting.
Saturday Sept.3
Noon Evacuation of convention center begins.
5.47pm Evacuation of Superdome is completed
9.50pm Convention center emptied
The Figures
- 1,900 people died, 1,600 of these in Louisiana
- US$81bn worth of damage caused, the costliest natural disaster in US history
- 1,000,000 people were displaced across the south; more than a quarter of a million people have still not returned to New Orleans
- 200 is the estimated current population of the Lower Ninth Ward. Before Katrina it was 14,400
Source: The Guardian
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