Katrina: American Catastrophe

A special that interweaves the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with New Orleans' history.

Learn how the city, built precariously below sea level and between two bodies of water, came to be.

What engineering feats made it survive for as long as it did, how did it survive other dire storms? Why did the various systems fail this time? How did so much of the nation's oil and gas repositories come to be in this environmentally fragile area? Was there anything that could have averted the disaster, given that the meteorology predictions of Katrina's path were quite accurate?

Hear stories of shame and heroism that have etched this devastation into US history forever. This special mixes news footage, personal video, historical archive, and expert and witness interviews into a compelling look at this disaster from a technology and historical perspective.