NEW ORLEANS — Twelve years ago today, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and Houston welcomed evacuees with open arms.
As New Orleans remembers the storm that forever changed the city, Tropical Storm Harvey is still wreaking havoc on Houston and Southeast Texas, while also bringing heavy rainfall to South Louisiana.
The annual wreath-laying ceremony and prayer service at the Katrina Memorial in Mid-City has been postponed. The city has not announced a new date. It was supposed to start at 8:29 a.m.
The Katrina second line and march that was supposed to happen this morning also has been postponed. It has been rescheduled for Sunday, Sept. 3 at 10 a.m. It will start at the corner of Jourdan Avenue and Galvez Street.
On this day in 2005, Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 storm between Grand Isle and the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Roughly 80 percent of New Orleans flooded, mainly because of levee system failures. Orleans and St. Bernard parishes were hit the hardest.
More than 1,800 people died in Louisiana and Mississippi, and more than 1,500 of those deaths were in Louisiana.
So far, Harvey has claimed the lives of at least nine people in Texas, though Fox News has that number at 14.
There are flash flood watches — and some warnings — in effect for the New Orleans metro area through Thursday.