New Orleans Then and Now

Five years after Hurricane Katrina, INSIDE EDITION looks back at the devastation that occurred and the recovery that's still ongoing in New Orleans.  

A nursing home, the Louisiana Superdome, and a field brimming with abandoned refrigerators are only some of the unforgettable images from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina 5 years ago.

Back then, it seemed as if the city would never come back.

INSIDE EDITION waded through the wreckage at St. Rita's Nursing Home, where 34 people died.

It was the same story of death and destruction at the Lafon Nursing Home.

Today, the Lafon Nursing Home is back in operation.

Just outside New Orleans, a landfill brimming with a quarter of a million refrigerators rendered useless by the flood was a striking scene.

Perhaps no one place symbolized the crisis quite as fittingly as the Louisiana Superdome, a place that became a temporary refuge for 30,000 people.

Today, the Superdome is back to its original purpose, the home stadium of the world champion New Orleans Saints, and a symbol of the rebirth of a much-wounded city.

More than 1,800 people were killed from Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent $14 billion redoing the levee system to protect the city. That work should be done next year.