My reunion with a survivor ten years on from Hurricane Katrina

A decade ago, we watched Katrina make landfall. It was a monster storm, but we judged that America's vulnerable and low-lying Gulf Coast had dodged a bullet.

We believed that although there had been massive damage overnight, New Orleans' vital flood defences had held.

We breathed a sigh of relief. One of America's great cities would emerge intact.

It was only later - after the hurricane hit, but while the storm surge was still rising - that it dawned on us how wrong we were.

The levees had not held. The city was not intact.

Disastrously, 80% of New Orleans was underwater.

But much more shockingly, there was no cavalry coming to the rescue.

The city would descend into anarchy and we would be the witnesses, but the Bush Administration was a spectator.

To this day, I do not understand why George W Bush didn't instantly move the whole White House operation to Louisiana to take control. Why was the US military not deployed on a massive, unprecedented scale?

I mean, ultimately what is the Pentagon for?

It was crystal clear that the problem was not nature's ferocity.

The problem was very human. It was the utter absence of leadership.

A few days after the storm made landfall, the US military took me on a chopper ride around the city to see the destruction from above. We did not expect to find survivors. But then we spotted her - a woman waving at us, clearly distressed.

Suzette Walker was hoisted to safety and she collapsed, sobbing, into my arms.

Over the years, I have stayed in touch with her. This week she gave me the warmest hug - wrongly, Suzette still credits me with saving her life (it was, of course, the helicopter crew who rescued her).

She has never returned to New Orleans to live. She relocated to Virginia and has a new life there.

Suzette is just one person whose life was changed forever by Katrina that August night in 2005.

She left New Orleans, never to return. But New Orleans did not leave her.

I asked her this week, "Where's home?"

She didn't miss a heart beat. "New Orleans," she replied, tears in her eyes.

Read more: George W Bush returns to New Orleans to mark 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina