Effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans got the response, "Go to hell, it's every man for himself." Also, one-third of New Orleans police officers deserted the city in the days before the storm, many of them escaping in their department-owned patrol cars. This added to the chaos by stretching law enforcement thin. Additionally, several NOPD officers were arrested weeks after Katrina for suspicion of vehicle theft. The City of Gretna on the West Bank of the Mississippi River received considerable press coverage when, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (late August 2005), displaced and dehydrated survivors who attempted to escape from New Orleans by walking over
1915 New Orleans hurricane seas produced by the hurricane along the Louisiana coast arrived shortly before the storm made landfall. Evacuees departing the coast as late as September 28 reported no abnormal tides along the shore. However, sea levels began to rise at abnormally rapid rates on the morning of September 29 as the hurricane neared. By the afternoon hours, low-lying lands south of New Orleans and east towards Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, as well as areas adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain, were inundated by the quickly rising storm surge. Levee overtopping along Lake Pontchartrain resulted in the flooding of much of western New Orleans.