AP PHOTOS: Before and after images of areas hit by Katrina

Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 3, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show downtown New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina, and the same area a decade later. The storm went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Dec. 16, 2005 and July 28, 2015 photos shows debris in front of the Church of God damaged by Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood of New Orleans, and a decade later, an empty lot where it once stood. Before Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward was a working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhood just outside the city's historic center. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 1, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show buses parked in a lot flooded by Hurricane Katrina in downtown New Orleans, and the same area a decade later. The storm went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest - nearly 2,000 died. (AP Photo/Phil Coale, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Aug. 30, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos shows downtown New Orleans and the Superdome flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Katrina's powerful winds and driving rain bore down on Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida while powering a storm surge that breached the system of levees that were built to protect New Orleans from flooding. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 3, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show the 17th Street Canal flood wall breach and the Lakeview section of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Katrina's powerful winds and driving rain bore down on Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida while powering a storm surge that breached the system of levees that were built to protect New Orleans from flooding. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 11, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Before Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward was a working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhood just outside the city's historic center. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Aug. 30, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos show the Mid City and Palmetto areas of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. The storm went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest - nearly 2,000 died. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Aug. 30, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos shows the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Before Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward was a working-class and predominantly African-American neighborhood just outside the city's historic center. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Dec. 10, 2005 and July 28, 2015 photos show Valerie Thomas, of New Orleans, left, and her nieces Shante Fletcher, 6, and Sarine Fletcher, 11, right, looking at the destruction of Valerie's brother's home in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans after returning to it for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, and empty lots in the same area a decade later. The storm went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest - nearly 2,000 died. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 4, 2005 and July 30, 2015 photos show a makeshift tomb at a New Orleans street corner, concealing a body that had been lying on the sidewalk for days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the same site a decade later with an artist's memorial to the woman known as Vera. Nearly 2,000 people died because of the storm, mostly in New Orleans, 80 percent of which was flooded for weeks. One million people were displaced. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Oct. 10, 2005 and Aug. 4, 2015 photos shows a tangle of fishing boats blocking the lanes of Highway 23 in Empire, La. after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the region, and the same site a decade later. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 2, 2005 and Aug. 14, 2015 photos shows damage to a railroad track in Waveland, Miss., from Hurricane Katrina, and the same site a decade later which is undergoing repairs to drainage pipes underneath the track which were washed out in the historic storm. Katrina went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 2, 2005 and Friday, Aug. 14, 2015 photos shows the steeple from the Main Street Methodist Church blown down during Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and the restored church a decade later. The storm went down in history as the costliest natural disaster to strike the U.S., with $150 billion in damages to homes and other property. It was also one of the deadliest. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 2, 2005 and Aug. 14, 2015 photos shows the playing field of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans littered with debris after serving as a shelter for victims from Hurricane Katrina, and a decade later, the renamed Mercedes-Benz Superdome. (AP Photo/Bill Haber, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 1, 2005 and Aug. 14, 2015 photos shows flood victims in a pickup truck as hundreds of others wait for evacuation at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the same site a decade later. Nearly 2,000 people died because of the storm, mostly in New Orleans, 80 percent of which was flooded for weeks. One million people were displaced. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Sept. 1, 2005 and July 29, 2015 photos show Harry and Silvia Pulizzano walking across debris from Hurricane Katrina in search of Silvia's brother's home in Waveland, Miss., and the same site a decade later. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, Gerald Herbert)
Katrina Then And Now Photo Gallery This combination of Aug, 31, 2005 and July 31, 2015 photos shows a man pushing his bicycle through flood waters near the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina left much of the city under water, and a cyclist outside the renamed Mercedes-Benz Superdome a decade later. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Gerald Herbert)
Odell Harville This combination of Aug. 30, 2005 and Aug. 14, 2015 photos shows Odell Harville walking past debris from Hurricane Katrina on Lameuse St. in Biloxi, Miss., and the same site a decade later. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves, Gerald Herbert)
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WASHINGTON When Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast 10 years ago, it left a mammoth trail of damage in its wake.

Storm surge and winds ripped the top off a church steeple in Mississippi, left a tangle of fishing boats sitting in the middle of a Louisiana highway, and ripped holes into the New Orleans Superdome’s roof.

Flooding caused by breached levees in New Orleans stranded tens of thousands of people in horrific conditions at the football stadium and convention center, flooded houses in Lakeview to the eaves and left a parking lot full of waterlogged school buses.

This is a collection of photos by Associated Press photographers of many of those locations showing how they looked in the days after the storm and how they look now.

Copyright © 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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