5-years ago this Sunday one of the worst disasters in world history hit the Mississippi and Louisiana gulf coast with all of it's fury. Hurricane Katrina became the most costly natural catastrophe on American soil.

Many people forget that just a few days earlier, the hurricane was forecast to hit the Florida panhandle. Although Katrina missed us we're still feeling the after-effects of the storm.

In the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina reaching land, it seemed the Florida panhandle was in serious danger. A late turn to the west sent Katrina ripping into the Mississippi coastline, but New Orleans arguably received the worst damage, when levees gave-way flooding the city which is already 10-feet below sea-level.

With nothing to hold them there, people like David Elingson evacuated to Panama City Beach and never went back. Instead he brought a piece of New Orleans with him, snow balls.

"Just to go out the door, down the block, around the corner and you have a snow ball from somebody you've known making them since you were a kid and then you go someplace and you can't get one...its like macaroni and cheese. Its a comfort food," Elingson said.

Others, forced to leave Louisiana, make the trip to Elingson's shop from as much as an hour away.

“Drove all the way down here gets a love it sized snow ball. I thought he was gonna hug me,” Elingson said.

After the storm forced people to relocate, bay county sheriff's officials noticed an increase in crime, gang activity and registered felons moving into the area.

"Sometimes kids don't have a choice but to join gangs to survive in New Orleans, so of course if they come from New Orleans with a gang mentality they're gonna bring that mentality with them," Sgt. Myron Guilford of the Bay County Sheriff’s Department said.

While he admits area law enforcement agencies saw a sharp increase in gang activity in the weeks and months after Katrina, Guilford says most of those displaced gang members have gone back to New Orleans.

The spike in crime can't be completely attributed to New Orleans newcomers. A lot of other factors like the economy, also contributed.