Images of Katrina's Destruction from 12/31/05

Here is picture outside the Robert E. Smith library in the Lakeview neighborhood. All their shelves were disassembled and rusting. The neighborhood looked to have taken 3-6 feet of water. Only three libraries in the city's system of 14 are now operating.

Check out this page to see what it looked like inside this location when librarians first came upon the scene.

Many spray-painted notes throughout the city demonstrated a sardonic humor in spite of bleak circumstances.

This is a house in the middle of the road that has been knocked from its foundation from the surge of water that broke through the 17th Street Levy. This area was particularly devastated.

This was the scene in the ninth ward, the site of the other levy breech. It looked like a bomb had gone off. It is impossible to show the scope of the destruction, but take this photo and multiply it by a hundred and you may be getting close. Cars were mixed in with rubble that was piled higher than the height of a person. It was dumbfounding.

See more pictures from our trip.

(The School of Information Recovery Project, aka SIRP, was partially funded by Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning)