Katy Reckdahl is a staff reporter for The Times-Picayune. She has covered New Orleans since 1999. Her stories have tackled topics from homelessness and HIV-positive women to Mardi Gras Indians and jazz musicians. She has won numerous awards, including a Casey Journalism Center Medal, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and the Press Club of New Orleans's Alex Waller Memorial Award for best print entry for three years running. On August 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina struck, Reckdahl gave birth to her son, Hector, in a New Orleans hospital. She left the city two days after the storm, then lived as an evacuee in Phoenix before returning to New Orleans in July 2005.