Which U.S. city was most devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005?

The U.S. city most devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was New Orleans. Although Katrina struck the Louisiana coast near Buras, the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans became the disaster’s defining urban impact.

Katrina made landfall on August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 hurricane after reaching Category 5 strength over the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans lies largely below sea level and depended on levees and floodwalls for protection. After the storm, failures in the hurricane-protection system allowed water to pour into large parts of the city; more than 80% of New Orleans was flooded.

The storm caused more than 1,800 deaths across the affected region and displaced hundreds of thousands of people. The flooding also damaged homes, hospitals, roads and public utilities, producing a long recovery and a major population decline. Houston and other Gulf Coast cities were affected by Katrina, but New Orleans is the canonical answer because of the scale of its flooding, loss of life, displacement and infrastructure failure.