Of the dozens of building contractors punished by the state of Mississippi for preying on victims of Hurricane Katrina, one stands out from the crowd of mostly small-time, fly-by-night operators: Call Henry, a Florida-based firm with hundreds of employees that...

Donna Armstrong of Diamondhead may be President Bush's biggest fan in Hancock County, Miss. On Wednesday, she waited for more than an hour in blazing heat for a glimpse of the president's motorcade.

In a ceremony marking the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, elected officials in Hancock County, Miss., praise the area’s emergency workers, volunteers and the “strong, resilient, self-reliant, caring people” of Mississippi.

While many who were dealt blows by Hurricane Katrina are recovered, thousands of hurricane refugees are still living in FEMA trailers without the resources to regain the small shreds of independence they enjoyed before the storm. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey has their story.

At the end of a one-lane road just northwest of Waveland, Miss., stands a house that Katrina built, a literal gift of the hurricane's flood tide. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey reports.

Leave it to an artist to come up with one of the most creative contributions to Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey has the story.

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have flocked to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, earning the undying gratitude of a community that was brought to its knees by Hurricane Katrina. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey profles one couple whose faith found a new outlet in the disaster zone.

A Hurricane Katrina hero who runs a low-power FM station that broadcast search and rescue information during the storm says he’s running out of money to stay in business. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey has the story.

Two years after Hurricane Katrina decimated the coastal Mississippi communities of Bay St. Louis and Waveland, MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey finds a new sense of optimism has taken seed.

A brain condition added injury to devastation for Denny Holmberg. But new friends are trying to help him re-establish his swamp tour business. MSNBC.com's Mike Stuckey reports

For J.E. Loiacano, a former high school and Mississippi State football coach who has owned the Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Waveland for two decades, cutting off stray branches in whatever the weather throws at him is strictly routine.

Hoping for a smoother 2006, the devastated Gulf Coast towns of Bay St. Louis and Waveland quietly welcomed in the New Year.

The Heritage Conservation Network is in a race against time on the Gulf Coast.

"It’s another of our great bumps," is how Charles Gray, director of the Hancock County Historical Society, describes Hurricane Katrina’s horrific impact on Bay St. Louis, Waveland and the surrounding Mississippi Gulf Coast.

If you feel the urge to buy Artillery Shells, Warhawk Missiles, B-29 Bombers or even an 8-Shot Hurricane at 3 a.m., you need look no further than “Crazy Carl’s” fireworks stand off Highway 90.

Despite the brave comments of some Katrina survivors that material possessions can be replaced, some of them cannot.

Among the many signs that this town will return to better times in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is a shiny new playground in the heart of downtown.

Christmas came clear and sunny across this hurricane zone, a glorious Gulf Coast day for Katrina’s survivors to draw together in their houses of worship and around their dinner tables to count their blessings.

With Christmas nigh, Hancock County is taking a breather.

"I’ve never written one of these holiday letters before so it’s a bit hard to begin. And awkward, seeing as how I have some confessions that I didn’t think I’d make while still working as a journalist."

An ambitious plan to replace some of the thousands of homes lost to Hurricane Katrina is quickly taking shape on computer screens, drawing boards and back roads here in Hancock County.

Like a patient coming out of major surgery, the hospital serving this and neighboring towns is slowly recovering.

Big Gil Bleau is home for the holidays and he and his family want you to know one thing for sure: “If it wasn’t for FEMA, I wouldn’t be here.”

A FEMA contract to house Katrina evacuees on cruise ships, roundly blasted as exorbitant government spending, is currently costing U.S. taxpayers substantially more per person than some of its harshest critics estimated -- nearly $250 per person per night, according to figures obtained by MSNBC.com.

If pictures of the wholesale devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast are what the American public remembers most about this disaster, then the bright white, 35-foot aluminum breadbox known as a "FEMA trailer" is a close second for Katrina's most iconic image.

From oak-lined Waveland Avenue to the quaint cottages of St. Charles Street in Bay St. Louis, the Katrina-wrought equivalents of the proverbial $600 toilet seat, courtesy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, are everywhere to be seen.

Marco Giardino is on the bubble. Hurricane Katrina left him with $1,525 monthly payments for a $400,000 home that is now little more than a shredded shell. "I'm thinking of walking away from it," he says.

At the Business Assistance Center, two rows of chairs set up in a makeshift waiting area sit empty.  Two employees of the Mississippi Department of Employment Services sit at a folding table that doubles as a desk, in front of a big "Employer's Assistance" sign, with only each other for company.

In a sense, Jose Luis and Maria Martinez created this situation themselves by moving to the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina with their four children, no place to stay and no job guarantee in pursuit of what so many want: The American Dream.

There are more than 6,600 people still missing as a result of Hurricane Katrina, according to the National Center for Missing Adults, a group working with the Justice Department on the issue. The missing are out there, somewhere. Alive or dead or … just plain gone with the wind.