Ten years ago the devastating Hurricane Katrina tore through the U.S Gulf coast. New Orleans was particularly badly hit thanks to a woefully maintained flood defence system.

In the weeks that followed I visited the city with the US Army Corps of Engineers to report on the dewatering efforts for UK engineering magazine New Civil Engineer.

Below are some of the photos I took one week after the flood, and in a follow-up trip one year later.

One week after Katrina

Dick Cheney inspects dewatering efforts

Pumping out the water

Trucks from across the US delivering sandbags

Chinook lifting sandbags to plug flood wall breaches

A dead fish on a dried-out street

One year after Katrina

Building new flood gates

Repairing the roof of the New Orleans Superdome