I'm emailing from Australia where many people would like to know just what has been done by the U.S. government for the people affected by Katrina. It seems New Orleans has dropped out of the world news well and truly....what about its people?? How are they coping or have they been forgotten??

Some of these photos bring joy and some bring grief. I guess that;s life is'nt it?

Well, I feel better now. This slide show clearly demonstrates that New Orleans has been almost totally rebuilt. I was worried that nothing was being done. Thanks, MSNBC, for setting me straight.

Although it is great to see progress, and much has been made, we must be sure not to give a false view of what still needs to be done in BSL. The few pictures shown might lead those who have not been there, to believe that it is rebuilt and "finished" and no more help is needed. It will take years to bring back this area. So all you with volunteer groups, keep on coming. There is still a long way to go. On this year anniversary of the destruction of so many peoples lives, we remember you all and pray for your recovery. Hang in there, BSL and Waveland, you are the best.....

When do we decide to take matters into our own hands and build homes and communities that can either withstand the types of natural disasters a given area is prone to or move to areas less threatening? What, are we Neanderthals that we can’t figure “Gee, this is a hurricane zone, maybe I should build a home stronger than what my local codes call for.” Or, “Gee, this is a fault line, maybe I should look at the property two counties over.” Is that so unreasonable? Living below sea-level was bad enough without being in one of the most active hurricane regions in the world. And what of Miami right on the tip of FL? Don’t people care to feel safe? What is all this talk of national security when we will likely die from our own stupidity long before any terrorist has had a chance to blow us up.

Instead of trying to out-class our neighbors with extravagant formal living areas (that are hardly ever used), and fancy/decorative exteriors (with things like dormers, staggered rooflines, and garage extensions), we need features that will help us cope during times of hardship and disaster. Homes should have:

A more basic, efficient, and less wind-resistant ‘square’ shape. Decorative exterior features really only provide more places for the roof to leak, more surface area for heat to escape, and a greater potential for severe damage to occur.

A bunk bed visitors’ room sized for four bunk beds to help during mass evacuations.

All bedrooms should be more equally sized for adults to use. This gives close family members and friends a much more permanent and comfortable place to stay if their home was destroyed or if they were let go from their job or got a divorce.

Kitchen, dining, and living areas should all be walled off to prevent a damaged wall or window in one area from adversely affecting the entire home. This is also more efficient, prevents the rapid spread of fire and smoke, and lowers noise levels!

The garage should be sized to protect AND support the service repair vans that many builders and contractors privately own.

Garage closets are needed to help keep valuable equipment secure (in case the garage door is blown out) and to help eliminate the absolutely horrific amount of garage clutter we see today.

There should also be an attic greenhouse to supplement food provisions and rainwater holding tanks to provide fresh drinking water… and so on!

Chris Eldridge
Author of Preparing for a Super-Disaster (www.trafford.com/04-2708)

why did you show the scenes where most of the work has been done? what about the areas where nothing is being done? I saw no pictures of New Orleans. WHY is that???

WOW Chris,
That was a great recommendation, when do you plan tos end crews, architects, and other contractors down to start on this great plan. Everyone has a verbal and written plan, to date no one has any action to carry it out. Talk is cheap. As a resident of Waveland, MS the photos are showing progress in action. We have been working on our home since day one...ALONE. Every now and then we do get some volunteers, most days we are alone. Please keep that in mind when responding so quickly to these articles. Thanks

I am so sorry for the distruction in New Orleans, LA, but what about Pass Christian, MS? So little coverage has been done on the city that I think suffered the most damage on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I am a pre Katrina resident of Pass Christian, and I would like to know about the progress there so that I can prepare to return to my hometown.

Pat from Elk Grove; because this is a website about Bay St Louis and Waveland. New Orleans is light years behind Mississippi in the recovery effort. There's more coverage about New Orleans at the "Beyond Katrina" website, and many others. This one is dedicated to the communities of Bay St Louis and Waveland.

There is no conventional residential construction method (including concrete and steel from which our home was built) that will withstand a Katrina. No disrespect to Chris Eldridge but most of that will make no difference. Hotels, condo towers, etc. can be build to survive and be rapidly re-inhabitable.
The isolated house shown above does not represent Waveland and/or Bay St. Louis. It stands as an isolated island in a sea of still astounding devastation. Local politicians, activists are preventing reconstruction. Massive amounts of aid have disappeared in a quagmire of incompetence and corruption! Yes, real improvements have been made mostly by a few determined individuals and volunteers, but governmental incompetence/corruption, activists who oppose everything, etc. are far more prevalent.

Is this a bad situation... by all means! However, those who have lived in these so called "Hurricane Alleys" and really understand what it is like to weather a storm will tell you it is simply one of the costs of living in paradise. People have lived in Florida, California, Texas, Cuba, and the rest of the Carribean for hundreds of years, and that will not change. For most residents of these area's, Hurricane's flattening their homes is about as common as a Tornado doing the same in the midwest. It happens, but its part of life, you thank god you are safe, you rebuild, and you move on!

I grew up in S. Florida, and I remember Andrew being compared to a nuclear blast, and nearly bancrupting the insurance industry. However, Miami survived, and so will the big easy.

Finally, instead of moving out of these area's (especially N.O.), and moving up the chain of evolution, why don't we focus our efforts on improving the safty and contigency plans in place. To suggest that living below sea level is a bad idea, is not that far off base. However, it can be done, efficently, and safely... The dutch have been doing it longer, safer and better, than any one else. Our gov't agencies should be better prepared and equipped to handle these disasters.

In closing, no place is safe from a natural disaster. Floods, Hurricanes, Tornados, Fires, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Blizzards's occur. And as we have since the dawn of time, we will weather this, we will rebuild, we will move on... It's in our nature

TO THE CONFUSED!
This site is about Waveland and Bay St Louis, also called "ground zero", where the eye hit. There are many people still leaving in FEMA trailers not sure if they will ever be in a home again due to the insurance debate that is causing them to NOT receive monies due. Some have money to build and repair but are on a long list waiting for contractors. The volunteers are now back with their lives so they are gone mostly.
We have no city bldgs left, one store for groceries, nothing for teenagers or young children to do for entertainment. NOTHING (one skate park - that is it).

It is the same as always, you need to see it to believe it, to understand it.

How many refugees (numbers and percentage of population of former city) are still not back in thier homes in New Orleans. This may be the true measure of the "rebuilding efforts".

To what extent, if any, has the most serioucly low lying redidential land been expropriate and removed from the residential zoning, with or without replacement on higher less flooding prone land?

I do not understand why New Orleans is such a focal point for Katrina, You know Mississippi was hit has had and has damage that was worst then NO, what about Florida where I live we get damage nearly every year and yet we rebuild with or with out Fed help. It's very hard for us in Florida to feel sorry for the residents of New Orleans, if they would take some responsiblity and actions I would be more likely to feel for them until then please stop crying.

Thank You Bay Waveland Citizen for posting a comment. What readerd don't seem to understand is that the media has the ability to spin a story in any format in which they please. If it had been desired to convey a city torn and ruined they would have visited areas where little rebuilding had been done.

Fellow readers, please do not for a second believe that cities are "mostly" rebuilt and that people's lives are back to normal. You can always do some investigating of your own if you want to know the TRUTH. My prayers go out to Hurricane Katrina victims, because "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" is becoming the statement which best reflects the state of so many storm battered towns.

Hope is not loss, but as long as we continue to believe WHATEVER we find on a website that makes us sleep better at night hope will be sleeping in the distance.

why is it that the upper class areas are being rebuilt but the lower income areaa arent. These people are still living without,why? I sadens me and upsets me that there are many still that dont have anything!! Their homes havent been rebuilt,neighborhoods are ruined,seems to me that the upperclass citizens,have there lives back on track,in the mean time others seem to be forgotton about,like just b/c these poverty areas,there is not a concern. I couldnt imagine what these people's lives have been like since Aug 29th,the Government and FEMA haven't done what they should have done!!! My heart goes out to all that have endured this,who are still without,it is a shame,may GOD bless you all,my prayers go out to you all

I admit that I have never thought kindly of the United States government, but see the so called "progress" of the re-building of New Orleans disgusts me. Why is it, a year later, people still cannot return to their homes? Why is the Superdome scheduled to re-open September 25, yet students are still in portable classrooms? Nice to see the government has their priorities straight.
Debris in the streets, toxic land and water,and what appears to be a general lack of interest from your government, the future of New Orleans and its citizens looks grim.

I for one will certainly think twice about who I donate money to if another horrible catastrophe such as this strikes my neighbors to the south.
I wish mayor Ray Nagin and the citizens of Louisiana the best of luck and a speedier "recovery"

Wow. I never knew how much damage the hurricane did in Mississippi. And Bay St. Louis was a good-sized town! Praise God that they are starting to thrive, and people still have hope!

Although our Gulfport, MS, home was not completely destroyed by Katrina, it was basically uninhabitable within just a few hours of Katrina's landfall. We stayed four months after Katrina but finally made the extremely difficult decision to start over in a new location. We are still devastated by the losses of so many along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Leaving solves some problems, but creates others. Unless you were there, you cannot fathom it. Actually, we WERE there and cannot fathom it! Only the grace of God sustains us. We pray for all affected by this storm and for the physical & emotional recovery of all. We help when we can, but I can tell you from living in a new area, most people don't realize how much help is still needed. The churches have been the most pro-active in helping with real-world needs. Bravo!

I am pleased to see continued photos and updates on Katrina and it's victims. Unfortunately, I have to agree with some of the others here that things are in no way back to normal. My family in Ocean Springs, MS has been battling contractor after contractor trying to get work completed on their home. They say it still looks like a bomb hit down there and it is very depressing. My sister cries everytime she drives onto hiway 90 in Biloxi. Strange plants/weeds have started taking over where once was beautiful landscaped beach area. They have nothing to do there, and are too sickly/old to rebuild themselves. Thank God for all the volunteers, especially the different church groups from all denominations who have helped people try to get their lives back.

I lived in Gulfport and was stupid enough to stay in our apartment during the hurricane. Recently, I moved back to Indiana, but I still feel very much attached to the coast. It angers me when I watch the news and there is any coverage at all about Katrina. The only place that gets mentioned is New Orleans. Why does the whole nation act as if New Orleans is the only place that got hit?

You people just crave failure. Complaining that there is one story out there to show some success???? You want stories of failure? Well, you can find more on the web about NO than you can of any other place.

You want to know why there is "nothing being done in new Orleans"? I can tell you why. In New Orleans you have a city with generations of welfare babies. they know nothing of doing for themselves. they sit and wait for the government to bail them out of another problem. that's all they know. They have a mayor who does nothing to help the situation. they sit and wait for FEMA. FEMA is not a rebuilding agency! They are for disaster response.

The people need to take it on their own to rebuild their lives. I have lots of family in the MS and LA area, and I'll tell you that the response between in MS and LA is night and day. In places like waveland you have people doing for themselves and their neighbors. They are not waiting for someone to do it for them. YOu can watch the news interview with Ray Nagen and see that that is not the case in NO. The longer they wait on the feds, the longer they are going to live in hell.

All this carrying on about rebuilding any of the affected areas must beg the question, should they be rebuilt? It's a seemingly valiant thing to say that New Orleans will be rebuilt, but what of the cost? What about the next hurricane to dunder near this sub-sea town? Should we be paying to rebuild something that WILL inevitably be destroyed yet again? And, why should folks sensible enough to live out of harms imminent way pay for the damage to places ultimately and obviously challenged by the very regions they inhabit?

Just to clarify my previous comments, they were meant in sarcasm towards this photo-essay which does not prove demonstrative progress. I also realize that the photos are from MS and not New Orleans, however, I think not enough is being done in either region of the Gulf Coast. The title should be "See the Lack of Progress for Yourself".

I honestly feel for all of you out there that have lost everything! I couldn't imagine having to start all over with nothing and i hope i never have too. Just one question...What about your mayor and govenor? I dont ever hear anyone blaming them or complaining that they are never helping, its always everyone else. I think you guys need to rally together and DEMAND your local government do someting about it! God bless you all and i hope you all can get back to somewhat of a normal life and move on!