Where can I go to see the official record? I would like to see an hour by hour time line.
The hour-by-hour timelines are summaries of official reports. E.g., the Moday 8:14 AM report from the NOLA branch of the NWS can be obtained from them, etc.
Construction of a timeline is gruntwork, and most timelines have an underlying theme. There are levee timelines, bus timelines, official reports timelines, Superdome timelines, Convention Center timelines, etc. I have no quick index to any of them - just general recollection of researching some of them myself.
Not the official record, but I've liked this article covering the myths and realities of Katrina, along with recommendations on what to do now, from Popular Mechanics
Now What? The Lessons of Katrina There's a good discussion of it on FR here.
And CNN has a good timeline, though it's not hour by hour, at their special Katrina interactive web site