Could more have been done to prevent the chaos that resulted from Hurricane Katrina's collision with New Orleans? Were officials already aware that the city's flood defences couldn't withstand such savage winds? In this documentary in the This World strand, emergency planners talk candidly about who knew what. and when, while a member of the government's crisis team claims incompetent leadership is to blame. Plus, stories of the city's residents left to fend for themselves - including the young man who commandeered a bus and drove a cargo of homeless and abandoned people to safety. [web address removed]

DOCUMENTARY
The Hurricane That Shook America 9.00pm BBC2
This documentary special looks at the heartbreak brought to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Weall watched news footage of a city apparently taken completely by surprise but here we learn that there were some who knew the city could face devastation should the worst ever happen. Put simply, New Orleans's flood defences were not built to withstand such a force of nature.
Says one native of the French Quarter, Joe Salza, "I want every American to know: if it can happen in New Orleans, you better damn well sleep with one eye open, cos then it can happen anywhere." Emergency planners look back at what went wrong, and there are stories from citizens who, when faced with the worst that life could throw at them, used their emotional, intellectual and physical resources to fight back. (Alison Graham)