Dear ________,

On August 28th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast of the United
States with devastating effect. It was reported that more then 1,800 people lost there
lives, and more then $81 billion dollars in damages occurred.

Your donation is helping these poor people rebuild their lives slowly, but efficiently.
Even though this event occurred just five years ago,

I appreciate your donation. It was helped in many ways… It is helping out the citizens of
New Orleans in their long journey of rebuilding their city. I am currently residing in ___
doing _______. It is a very rewarding task and I feel ___ to be doing ______.

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the costliest natural
disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States.

At least 1,836 people lost their lives in the actual hurricane and in the subsequent floods,
making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; total
property damage was estimated at $81 billion.

Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern
Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there
before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm weakened before making
its second landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29 in
southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central
Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most severe loss of life occurred
in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in
many cases hours after the storm had moved inland.[4] Eventually 80% of the city and
large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for
weeks.[4] However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as all
Mississippi beachfront towns, which were flooded over 90% in hours, as boats and casino
barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching 6–
12 miles (10–19 km) from the beach.

In the City of New Orleans, the storm surge caused more than 50 breaches in drainage
canal levees and also in navigational canal levees and precipitated the worst engineering
disaster in the history of the United States.[3]

By August 31, 2005, 80% of New Orleans was flooded, with some parts under 15 feet
(4.5 m) of water. The famous French Quarter dodged the massive flooding experienced in
other levee areas. Most of the city's levees designed and built by the United States Army
Corps of Engineers broke somewhere, including the 17th Street Canal levee, the
Industrial Canal levee, and the London Avenue Canal floodwall. These breaches were
responsible for most of the flooding, according to a June 2007 report by the American
Society of Civil Engineers.[4] Oil refining stopped so the price of petrol increased all over
the world.
Ninety percent of the residents of southeast Louisiana were evacuated in the most
successful evacuation of a major urban area in the nation's history. Despite this, many
remained (mainly the elderly and poor). The Louisiana Superdome was used for those
who remained in the city. The city flooded due to the failure of the federally built levee
system.[5] Many who remained in their homes had to swim for their lives, wade through
deep water, or remain trapped in their attics or on their rooftops.

The disaster had major implications for a large segment of the population, economy, and
politics of the entire United States. It has prompted a Congressional review of the Corps
of Engineers and the failure of portions of the federally built flood protection system
which experts agree should have protected the city's inhabitants from Katrina's surge.
Katrina has also stimulated significant research in the academic community into urban
planning, real estate finance, and economic issues in the wake of a natural disaster.[6]
Thank you for your support

Love always, Lia