New Orleans has celebrated plenty of milestones on its slow road to recovery from Hurricane Katrina, but arguably none is bigger than hosting its first Super Bowl since the 2005 storm left the city in shambles.
To see the remnants of Katrina's destruction, fans coming arriving for Sunday's game will have to stray from the French Quarter and the downtown corridor where the Superdome is located. Even in neighborhoods that bore the brunt of the storm, many of the most glaring scars have faded over time.
Billions of dollars in federal money has paid for repairing and replacing tens of thousands of homes wrecked by flooding. The city's lifeblood tourism trade has thrived despite the double-barrel blow of Katrina and BP's massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.