DAILY DOZEN: 5 YEARS AFTER KATRINA

Five years ago this weekend, the Hurricane Katrina entered the Gulf of Mexico and began taking its aim at New Orleans on the Gulf Coast region. What happened a few days later will remain in my memory for a lifetime. During the past five years, the Gulf Coast of the United States has slowly started to come back (the comeback was delayed recently by the BP oil spill).

While watching some of the five year anniversary coverage MSNBC was providing today, I heard a community leader say the following: "Katrina was the worst thing to happen to New Orleans and Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans. The recovery has forced us to look at everything that was failing before the storm hit." So, there is a dual recovery taking place in the Big Easy.

Here's a little bit about what happened, where we are now and where we are headed in the recovery efforts from the hurricane of our lifetime - and possibly of all time.

1. Website providing assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. [Katrina.com]
2. Hurricane Katrina — Most destructive hurricane ever to strike the U.S. [NOAA]

3. New Orleans after Katrina. [Los Angeles Times]
4. Mayor Mitch Landrieu: On 1-10 scale, NOLA recovery is a 6. [CBS News]

5. Five years later: How Katrina changed New Orleans and the way I think about my hometown. [Slate]
6. Even Katrina has a silver lining. [FOX News]

7. 5 years later, Mississippi still feels Katrina. [CBS News]
8. The second coming of the Big Easy. [The Globe And Mail]

9. A tale of two recoveries (Article). [The Washington Post]
10. After Katrina: A tale of two recoveries (Slide Show). [The Washington Post]

11. Evaluating Katrina’s impact. [Nature.com]
12. 5 years on, Katrina dampens coverage . [The New York Times]