August 29, 2006
Reported by: Associated Press
In the dark of dawn, several hundred people bowed their heads in silence, marking the moment a year ago when the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over Buras at 6:10 a.m.
The tiny town was swept into the Gulf of Mexico and hours later, New Orleans' crucial levees were overtopped, unleashing one of the worst natural disasters in U-S history. A year later, beginning with a service of hymns inside the gutted Buras fire department, the Gulf Coast turned its attention to rituals of mourning and celebrations of life.
Later this morning, New Orleans residents will remember the dead, and plan to ring bells to mark the moment one of the city's flood walls breached and water engulfed the northern edges of the city.