WAVELAND

85 mins.

It was being called 'The Storm of the Century' before it had even arrived.

In late August 2005, TV screens in the United States began to fill with news reports of an ominous Category-5 hurricane barreling toward its coastline. Satellite images showed a gargantuan spiraling storm that spanned the entire Gulf of Mexico. It was feared New Orleans was directly in its path. But in the final hours before making landfall, the hurricane took an unexpected turn to the east, taking aim at a small coastal town in Mississippi.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore in Waveland with the largest storm surge in Gulf Coast history, reaching a record height of 28 feet. One resident who survived the storm in the water by clinging to the top of a tree, described what he saw as "a giant wave." The northeast eyewall—the most violent quadrant of the hurricane—passed directly over the town.

In the following hours, days, and weeks, as the world's attention turned to the destruction caused by the failing levees in New Orleans, the overlooked residents of Waveland emerged and returned to find their town no longer standing. 95% of the structures were destroyed or damaged, and the lives of 45 residents had been lost. 

Waveland is the story of the town America lost in the storm.