Katrina and the Gulf Coast: One Year Later

On Monday, 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina careened into the Gulf Coast, putting 80% of New Orleans under water and bashing the Mississippi coast like it was built of matchsticks. The nation's most costly natural disaster, it killed more than 1,600 people ... destroyed 200,000 Gulf Coast homes ... displaced about 1 million people. News reports place insured property damage at $25.3 billion in 1.7 million insurance claims -- 975,000 of them in Louisiana.

One year later, rebuilding and services are spotty, despite $110 billion in federal monies. Only 60 percent of the homes in the New Orleans area have electricity, only 17 percent of buses and streetcars are working.

Political fallout from the storm and government response is captured in an off-the-cuff remark from President Bush on 2 September 2005: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." Michael Brown, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) -- part of the Department of Homeland Security, became the expedient public scapegoat for an Administration seemingly unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude. Never mind that such a disaster had been predicted by experts for years.

What has happened in the intervening year? How are New Orleans and the Gulf Coast recovering? Full story

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