Katrina Hurricane

In the days since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown has come under withering attack, with critics charging that his lack of prior experience in dealing with natural disasters contributed to his agency's poor performance. But Brown is just one of at least five senior FEMA officials appointed under President Bush whose backgrounds showed few qualifications in disaster relief.

The Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged Thursday that design defects in the levees protecting New Orleans caused the majority of flooding during Hurricane Katrina and that the disaster would almost certainly trigger reforms in how the federal government protected the American public.

Even with much of the city still covered by tainted waters and its population dispersed, even with the power still out, the communication systems in shambles and soldiers and police officers posted on seemingly every corner, a precaution against looters and potshot artists, the work began. So monumental was the task ahead that those who would rebuild New Orleans could not wait until the last drop of the floodwater unleashed by Hurricane Katrina was pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain.

Newly released e-mails show former FEMA director Michael D. Brown discussing his wardrobe during the Hurricane Katrina crisis. A House panel has released 23 pages of internal e-mails offering additional evidence of a confused and distracted government response to Katrina, particularly from Brown, the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, at crucial moments after the storm hit.

Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane. The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter.

A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. The Louisiana Superdome, once a mighty testament to architecture and ingenuity, became the biggest storm shelter in New Orleans the day before Katrina's arrival Monday. About 16,000 people eventually settled in. By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror.

Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes, postal records show. A Times analysis of address changes after the hurricane also highlights the metropolitan area's sharp distinctions of class and race. Poor blacks from the city were more likely to land farther away in places much different from home.

Amid the destruction and dislocation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the American Red Cross has undertaken a relief effort unlike any in its history. So far, the charity has spent $811 million on emergency cash aid and $110 million on food and shelter. The results have been mixed. Despite the ambition of the charity's efforts and the money spent, evacuees in several states complained in interviews last week that Red Cross aid had been slow and unreliable.

Brian Watkins initially thought that Hurricane Katrina had done him a favor. It forced him to flee to southwestern Louisiana, where he planned to make a fresh start and kick his heroin and methadone habit. But then Hurricane Rita tore through that corner of the state, and Watkins was chased back to New Orleans. "At first I thought I could just go out and socialize," said Watkins, 23, who had been on probation for a narcotics offense before the storms. "But everybody was drugging.

Most customers walk into the Old Coffee Pot restaurant in the French Quarter, read the menu and burst out laughing. The restaurant on cobblestoned St. Peter Street has served up platters of sweet lost bread and savory jambalaya for more than a century. After Hurricane Katrina, the staff added an entree: "M.R.E.: A hurricane Katrina favorite. Please order early. FEMA needs 4-7 days to ship. $782.90."

After the clock ticked off the game's final seconds, a Saints fan named Charlie Brown used his flat palm to beat out a rhythm on a wall of the Georgia Dome. To fans of the Atlanta Falcons, it may have been mere noise. But to the throngs of Saints fans here, it was recognizable as the Second Line -- the THUM pum, pa PUM pum that has driven every parade since John Philip Sousa was remixed by the West African genius of the New Orleans streets. The beat was a territorial marking, and a call to party: The once-lowly New Orleans Saints were 13-0 after defeating the Falcons in a 26-23 squeaker, keeping alive the possibility of an undefeated regular season and a first-ever appearance in the Super Bowl.

Barack Obama's first presidential appearance in New Orleans today is set to be short and tightly scripted, with a visit to a Lower 9th Ward charter school and a town hall meeting at the University of New Orleans. If the president has a chance to look out the window of his limo, he will probably get a firsthand glimpse of the massive logistical headache he has inherited: More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, 91,000 homes remain blighted in the city and in two nearby parishes, according to August figures compiled by the Brookings Institution.

Three years ago, Hurricane Katrina and its chaotic aftermath produced a collage of indelible images. Among them was a photo of President Bush, viewing the devastation from the comfort of Air Force One as he jetted to Washington. Now, some of Bush's closest advisors say his administration's response to the disaster marked a turning point in what has become the most unpopular presidency in modern history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to act for at least a year on warnings that trailers housing refugees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita contained dangerous levels of formaldehyde, according to a House subcommittee report released Monday. Instead, the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry demoted the scientist who questioned its initial assessment that the trailers were safe as long as residents opened a window or another vent, the report said.

Josh NEUFELD is the writer and artist of "A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge," a 15-part nonfiction graphic novel for SMITH Magazine about six New Orleans residents before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. It now stands as one of the most compelling achievements in the still-nascent medium of Web comics. "A.D." was the brainchild of Neufeld and Larry Smith, the founder of SMITH, who accompanied the artist into the disaster zone. Times staff writer and Hero Complex blogger Geoff Boucher invited Neufeld to reflect on the project, which will be published next year by Pantheon in a print edition: "I volunteered with the Red Cross soon after Katrina [working in Biloxi, Miss.

While other protesters carried signs demonstrating against U.S. involvement in Iraq or conditions at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, Derrick Evans arrived from Gulfport, Miss., hauling an old Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer bearing messages with a different sort of theme. One, in blue tape on the side of the trailer, read: "Where did $129 billion for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery go?"

Mississippi Atty. Gen. Jim Hood said that his office had settled its dispute with State Farm Insurance Cos. over how the insurer handled Hurricane Katrina damage claims in Mississippi. State Farm has complied with a January 2007 agreement with the state by reopening some claims and agreeing to pay an additional $74 million to Gulf Coast policyholders whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Katrina's storm surge, Hood said. Hood said the insurer also agreed to notify nearly 150 State Farm policyholders who haven't sued or settled their claims that they could still have their cases reevaluated.

. -- Some people in this tiny Katrina-ravaged town talk of Harry Hull's modest, vinyl-clad home as if a spaceship had landed on the bayou. It stands out not because it is built on land only 5 feet above sea level -- scores of people have rebuilt on low land -- but because it looms 18 feet above ground. It is raised so high on wooden pilings that Hull, 70, must climb 26 steps to get to his front door.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that it would accelerate efforts to get victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita out of government-supplied trailers after tests showed that the temporary residences contain unhealthy levels of toxic formaldehyde. Tests in a statistically sampled selection of 519 trailers showed that formaldehyde levels averaged five times higher than levels in new housing, and in some cases much higher than that.

Hundreds of people in Chalmette braved the dreary weather to welcome home the Krewe of Gladiators -- and mark a modest new milestone in this region's recovery from Hurricane Katrina. The krewe paraded through the New Orleans suburb of St. Bernard Parish for the first time since Hurricane Katrina ruined many of the houses and businesses along its traditional route nearly 2 1/2 years ago. This isn't the same community or same krewe. "It's been a booger trying to get back," krewe captain William Egan said several hours before the afternoon parade.