Katrina

News Resources:

Comprehensive Wikipedia article on Hurricane Katrina that struck the states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Alabama in the USA. Subsequent to the damage from the storm, the protective levee system of New Orleans breached resulting in severe flooding and the evacuation of the city.
Thousands are believed to have been killed.

The Guardian Newsblog has a number of informative links, including one to the list of posts from New Orleans Livejournal bloggers - Katrinacane - giving first-hand accounts of bloggers who stayed in the disaster zone. A regular poster is Interdictor, working at the offices of Directnic, keeping the servers running. I suggest you read the posts - harrowing stuff. Hope they're staying safe.
(Also mentioned in this Times article.)

Reports on the devastation are also looking at the wider implications and impacts on issues such as global warming, oil reserves, and economics - Mark Tran, here.

Pictures of the levee break from Kathryn Cramer's site, here.