The United Nations this week characterized the cataclysmic storm as one of the world's worst natural disasters in terms of property damage, even outstripping the December tsunami in Asia that killed 180,000 people and caused $10 billion in destruction.

"This is one of the most destructive natural disasters ever measured in the amount of homes destroyed, people affected, people displaced," said Jan Egeland, the United Nations' undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

While Katrina certainly has earned her deadly reputation, the storm's destructive catwalk through America's underbelly is not the first time the unfettered fury of nature -- or even mankind's own doings -- has drowned, burned or buried people in their own homes, schools and workplaces, or spawned legions of refugees desperately seeking rescue, shelter or a drink of water.