August 29th, 2005:

America suffers its most destructive natural disaster.

Hurricane Katrina --- a Category Three storm --- blows ashore in southeast Louisiana, forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate.

Katrina kills 18-hundred people across the Gulf Coast, destroying or severely damaging homes from Alabama and Mississippi... to New Orleans.

Eighty-percent of the Big Easy is swamped when the city's levees break after the storm strikes.

Hundreds of thousands of residents --- and about a million others in surrounding areas --- are forced to flee.

But Katrina's howling winds also drive thousands to the Superdome and to the New Orleans convention center for shelter.

Most of them, the poorest of the poor --- unwilling, or unable, to heed the evacuation orders.

Looting and violence later break out in the city, where the initial sluggish response to Katrina only adds to the misery...

Government officials --- federal, state and local --- all face sharp criticism for their handling of the catastrophe...from President George W. Bush, and Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown, to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Despite some progress in rebuilding after Katrina, recovery for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remains a long, hard road - while debate over the disaster goes on.

Today in History, August 29th --- ___ ___, The Associated Press.