Coming from Scotland, I grew up with the steady trickle of bad weather but never saw the full force of nature first-hand until I arrived in New Orleans the day after Katrina passed.
I was in New Orleans a month or so after Katrina, helping my sister recover what was worth saving from her house in the Lakeview neighborhood.
The pictures and video that you see on the news just don't adequately convey the scale of the devastation. As I was standing on the street, packing items into a trailer, I looked at the houses on the block. Each house had the orange paint markings from the military search teams. Each house on the block, although standing, was devastated and would need to be torn down. All the houses were abandoned -- there were a couple other houses on the block where homeowners were recovering what they could. Looking up the road, the same conditions existed as far as I could see to the north. Turning the other way, the same was true to the south. Although I could not see to the east and west, I knew the same conditions existed for miles in those directions as well.
The scale of destruction was difficult to comprehend and just overwhelming.