Hours before sunrise on August 29, 2005, the concrete levees surrounding the most populated wards in New Orleans began to crack.

Hurricane Katrina had made landfall as a rapidly weakening Category 3 hurricane on the shores of Louisiana, a city which had weathered countless storms before.

This time, it was different.

Levees around the city crumbled, sending high levels of water well above sea level into communities.

‘I thought everyone was dead,’ Lucrece Phillips, a resident of the 8th ward region of the city, told Metro. She escaped the floodwater in her home through an attic window.

Other residents had no way to escape. As bodies floated through muddy water, others clung to roofs, trees, or desperately ran for higher ground.

It’s been 20 years since the storm of the century changed

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