lets not forget "911"......how do we repair that?

I totally agree with Jack from Scottsdale, if you don't have Inc. behind your name you can forget it.

Thanks for another fine post--my heart goes out to Steven Smith. I'm glad he made it back to New Orleans and I wish him every bit of luck in finding a good, affordable home in his old neighborhood.

I'm also grateful to Missy for her outstanding report from "on the scene" in New Orleans--I'd like to add to what she said about Mississippi being hit by only 1 hurricane while Louisiana was hit by 2 the fact that when Katrina hit Mississippi, she blew right through and moved on, leaving residents there free to begin the arduous task of cleaning up.

As for Louisiana, I know there are some people who would say New Orleans wasn't directly hit and the flooding that destroyed 80% of New Orleans was a manmade disaster due to breaches in levees that were going to occur sooner or later due to how poorly they had been maintained.

However, the wind and waves from Katrina that did hit Louisiana provided the "tipping point" that brought about the levee failure--so in my view, New Orleans'
flood damage, as well as being viewed as a manmade disaster, should also be considered as due to Katrina.

Then, because the flooded areas of New Orleans are below sea level and couldn't drain naturally, it took about a month to pump the floodwaters out of New Orleans' "bowl." And by the time those waters had been pumped out, Rita hit and besides totally destroying lots of towns along Louisiana's southwest coast, caused some new flooding in New Orleans.

So clean-up couldn't begin until after that--hence Mississippi's "head start.

Also, Louisiana has a much more difficult job of rebuilding because New Orleans is such a large city and her infrastructure is still in very bad shape with water, electricity, and sewerage being unreliable to non-existent even in the relatively undamaged areas--which hampers the rebuilding effort. These need to be fixed before recovery can start proceeding smoothly. There are also bureaucratic hassles regarding getting rebuilding money to homeowners that they don't have in Mississippi.

The rebuilding of a major city destroyed by a natural disaster is clearly a project for the government. Remember the WPA during the depression, that provided jobs and helped build the nation's infrastructure?

Too bad we now have people in power who don't believe the government should do anything to help people - unless those people are heading corporations (Halliburton, Blackwater, etc.) that can make a killing off no-bid government contracts and keep donating to the GOP.

Sadly enough this is what New Orleans residents in the lower ninth ward and East New Orleans and other parts of the city are coming back to. (also along Mississippi coast) NOTHING!!. Yes, there has been progress however small it is. It seems to be a crawl instead of a boom. People don't realize that there are parts of town that are still filled with storm debris and many buildings are still left vacate after the storm. Watching local news last night NBC broke the story of a local bank, vacate since Katrina, that collapsed. I wonder how many others have or will. I hear reports of a city of over 400,000 people prior to Hurricane Katrina, now less than 250,000. My observation of this is that most of those in the city aren't natives. The sad fact is most of them can't afford to come back. Steven Smith said it is difficult to find affordable housing in other cities. I tell you its hard to find affordable housing here. Our rentals have went up 55% and our real estate for home buyers has went up 45%. I find it almost comical when I see reports on some of the cable networks that say real estate is now a buyer's market. They undoubtly are not doing their numbers from this area.

I have read all of the "Faces on the Gulf" Series and I would like to make a comment on a subject that I see popping up. There is a great comparison between the response of locals, federal and state officials between Mississippi and Louisiana and the recovery since. I would like to remind readers that Mississippi's destruction was due to one hurricane, Louisiana's destruction was due to two. Three weeks after Katrina we were hit by Rita. (Sadly, I dont remember the 6 hurricanes in between. Could have been lack of electricity.)Louisiana had more homes destroyed and also a more wide spread area. I never heard the Fema director says he didn't know of victims in the Mississippi. He claimed he never knew about the people in convention center in New Orleans. I want to remind people of the bodies that laid in both of our states streets for DAYS with no one coming to pick them up.

I wonder how many bloggers have actually been to my state or Mississippi and saw the damage to either. Because what you see on television shows only a section of destruction that last for miles upon miles it seems. We are suppose to live in the richest country of the world. It is hard to imagine that one year after Katrina that I can drive down the road and see (in places, not all) no change from the days and weeks after Katrina. Fema trailers still line many of our communities. Many people are still waiting for Fema trailers a year later. I still see gutted homes. I still miss my friends that had no choice but to move their families. My children ask me when will things get back to normal. I don't have an answer for them. Do any of you?

I recently went back to NOLA and saw my old home in Lakeview. Just like this man, an empty lot of a burned out building. Just the structure. It was devestating and this is America? Why can't we fix what is wrong here before we go about fixing the rest of world? I just honestly don't get why our current administration refuses to help its own, yet keep others out. We were in Indonesia within days. And a year later - nothing. New Orleans needs our help.