Mayor of the city was Bill White and Houston unveiled the first Mahatma Gandhi statue in the state of Texas at Hermann Park. Houston's Indian American Community were cheerful after 10 years, in 2010, when the Hillcroft and Harwin area were renamed Mahatma Gandhi District in honor of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as that area is the center of Indian commerce. In the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, about 200,000 New Orleans residents resettled in Houston. Soon following Katrina was Hurricane Rita, a category 5 hurricane which caused 2.5 million Houstonians to evacuate the city, the largest urban evacuation in the history of the U.S. Six Flags AstroWorld, Houston's only large theme park, closed in 2005. By 2008, the widening of I-10 was taking place, and eventually incorporated toll lanes. Also, Discovery Green park was created. In January 2010, Annise Parker became the first openly gay mayor of a large American city upon her inauguration as Houston's mayor. Memorial Day storms in 2015 brought flash flooding to the city as some areas received 11 inches or more of rain overnight, exacerbated by already full bayous. At least three people died and more than 1,000 cars were stranded on highways and overpasses. In April 2016, historic flooding came to Houston which has killed 5 people. In August 2017, Houston experienced record flooding as a result of Hurricane Harvey. It caused $125 billion dollars in damage, making it one of three tropical cyclones to cause over $100 billion in damages, along with Ian and Katrina. See also Allen Ranch, occupied much of modern Houston and was an early driver of city's growth History of the Mexican-Americans in Houston List of mayors of Houston Timeline of Houston History of African Americans in Houston Citations References Digital reproduction from the Woodson Research Center at Rice University. Further reading - Hosted at the University of North Texas Dietzel, Charles, et al. "Diffusion and coalescence of the Houston Metropolitan Area: evidence supporting a new urban theory." Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 32.2 (2005): 231–246. online McCleskey, Clifton, and Dan Nimmo. "Differences between potential, registered and actual voters: The Houston metropolitan area in 1964." Social Science Quarterly (1968): 103–114. online McIntosh, Molly Fifer. "Measuring the labor market impacts of Hurricane Katrina migration: Evidence from Houston, Texas." American Economic Review 98.2 (2008): 54–57. online Nimmo, Dan, and Clifton McCleskey. "Impact of the poll tax on voter