Considered the costliest natural disaster in US history and the deadliest hurricane to hit the nation since 1928, Hurricane Katrina's storm surge inundated the city of New Orleans, Louisiana and killed over 1,500 people as flood walls broke and levees failed.
Reuters photographer Carlos Barria documented the immediate aftermath of the hurricane a decade ago, and decided to return to the places he found.
Using photographs shot in 2005, Barria contrasts the devastation then with the city now as it grapples with the aftereffects of Katrina even ten years later.
See the haunting images of New Orleans' desolation and its slow renewal below, with caption info by Reuters.
In the photograph, Joshua Creek sits on the porch of his house and takes in the damage on September 13, 2005, after Hurricane Katrina struck.
Ten years ago, Creek was looking at the height that the flood waters from Hurricane Katrina reached at his house.
A decade ago this convention center acted as a collection point for victims of the hurricane, including this woman and her dog.
Here Barria holds a print showing Michael Rehage squatting on the roof of his car surrounded by wreckage and debris from the storm.
The streets of New Orleans were still flooded when Barrio captured Errol Morning sitting on his boat on September 5, 2005, when the original photograph was taken.
The streets were nearly impassable, with water levels reaching over a foot and completely flooding the roads when he came across Morning.
Here Barrio matches up a print of the waterline and damage at the Memorial Medical Center with its current state.
Coffins were dislodged from tombs by the flood waters and could be seen floating freely in city cemeteries.
In the town of Lafitte, just south of New Orleans, Barria revisits where ten years earlier he found Tyler Teal cleaning up debris from his property after the storm.
