All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Katie Couric is on assignment. I’m Seth Doane.

It's been four years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans and parts of Mississippi - killing 16 hundred people and causing more than 40 billion dollars worth of damage.

Homes and lives were washed away and the nation watched in helpless horror as faces soaked in tears and flood waters pleaded for rescue.

Still today, 62-thousand homes and buildings remain uninhabitable and vacant, and 17-hundred families are living in temporary housing. Though the waters have receded, many residents have yet to land on solid ground.

But there is some good news to share.

New Orleans, as President Obama stated this weekend, is the fastest growing city in America. Nearly three quarters of its pre-Katrina population has returned, and the unemployment rate is about 2 points below the national average.

The voyage to recovery has been long and hard for the city known as the Big Easy, but there are signs of hope on horizon.

I'm Seth Doane, CBS News.

They're cramped and some badly need repairs, but for at least 4,000 people who lost everything to Hurricanes Katrina or Rita, FEMA trailers are still home almost four years later. Just not for much longer.

The temporary housing program was supposed to end two years ago. But now the government says there will be no more deadline extensions. Anyone in these trailers must be out by the end of the month. Many are elderly or disabled and say they have nowhere else to go. Most of them were homeowners who have started to rebuild, but delays in aid money and a sour economy have stalled progress.

FEMA promises to help those being kicked out find someplace else. The agency is under pressure from local communities that want to move on, and worry trailers will keep property values from rising.

Now as for the trailers, they'll just be scrapped, or sold at a loss, and thousands of residents may once again be looking for a place to call home.

That's a page from my notebook.


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This post was written by CBS News' Hari Sreenivasan, who reported from Texas on Hurricane Ike and now looks at how recovery efforts have progressed.

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This week, almost three months after Hurricane Ike battered Texas, it was clear that the rebuilding and repair is happening far slower than the rest of the country imagines it to be. David Stall, the Shoreacres city manager we spoke with had a poignant observation in our piece when he mentioned that it seems like when the lights came back on in Houston, people just began to think that everything was all better. The facts are that for his community, and several others along the Texas coast, life is far from normal.

The human costs are chronicled in both our pieces on the Evening News as well as The Early Show through the eyes of the Brown family. Michelle Brown didn't want to speak with us about things when we met her on her driveway. After a few minutes of conversation it became apparent why. I'm certainly not a psychologist but it doesn't take one to realize that she and her family are still in states of shock, grief and trauma over what has happened - not just to their house, but their home.

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Two years ago this week, the country was battered by its worst natural disaster in modern history: Hurricane Katrina. Nearly 2,000 people were killed, and 800,000 left homeless. The Gulf Coast is still struggling to recover. This week on the CBS Evening News, we’ll be looking at how the region is coping.

But today, we kick things off by posing our 10 Questions to a writer who knows the area well: Lolis Eric Elie, metro columnist for the New Orleans’ leading newspaper, the Times-Picayune.

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1. It's been two years since Katrina hit. What's the mood like in New Orleans now?

We're numb. Those of us who are back are happy to be home, but we're confronted with set backs and uncertainty on a daily basis. Insurance costs are skyrocketing at the same time that insurance companies are finagling their way out of paying for insured losses. Property taxes are going up while the quality and quantity of city services is low.

2. By now it's common knowledge that the federal government handled Katrina abominably. How have they done since?

The federal government's performance has barely improved. The destruction of New Orleans was caused by the failure of the levees that the federal government designed and built. Yet, rather than accept this responsibility and compensate property owners accordingly, the government acts as if it is doing us a favor by paying pennies on the dollar for the damages caused by the negligence and incompetence of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

The levees that failed were supposed to protect us from a category 3 storm. There is no commitment from Washington to provide protection from a category 5 storm, and recent climactic conditions indicate that such storms are more likely than ever now.

Louisiana is home to 40% of the nation's coastal wetlands and 80% of the nation's coastal wetland loss. The federal government has still not committed to fully funding efforts to reverse that loss.

While it may seem that after two years, Louisianans in the post-Katrina diaspora should have re-constructed their lives, the truth is that many of them continue to face difficulties finding jobs, finding mental health counseling and finding decent housing. The federal government has added to stress of this difficulty by repeatedly threatening to cut off assistance to those people...

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Steve Hartman previews his story for tonight's Evening News, with a First Look at a young man in New Orleans helping his neighborhood rebuilt after Katrina, one blade at a time.

Click the image for more.

Byron Pitts is National Correspondent for CBS News.

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After Hurricane Katrina, it's become sport to criticize FEMA and other federal agencies for what DOES NOT get done immediately after a disaster and the months that follow. Trust me, much of the criticism has been fair, but not enough attention has been paid to those who are actually doing the bulk of the heavy lighting: Faith based groups. And so that's what we attempt to do in tonight's "American Spirit" on The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Spend anytime in the Gulf Coast or any of those places hit recently by deadly tornadoes and you'll see what we saw in Lake Mack, Fl. There are countless faith-based groups around the country doing "God's work." We profiled one.

A.C.T.S. (which stands for Active Community Team Services) is a Christian non-profit organization that responds to disasters around the country. David Canther founded ACTS three years ago in Florida. He's a former pastor who decided to leave the pulpit and continue his 'faith walk' where people are in need. ACTS has about 12-thousand volunteers nationwide. Most are students from private and Christian high schools and colleges. They volunteer their time. All receive training in "disaster response."

Hours after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, ACTS hit the ground. "There were trees all over the main highways and we cut our way in," says David Canther. "Man we were determined. It was all thought the night. It took us five hours to go five miles."

"Five hours" turned into nine months. In that time ACTS served nearly 500,000 hot meals and distributed more than $23 million in donated goods.

Canther believes it's important to feed survivors' emotional needs, as well as their physical needs. His teams also brings in tents and concert stages, so people have a place to gather. A place to eat, and and share fellowship and, if need be, grieve. ACTS took note that often-times after a natural disaster (tornado, hurricane, etc) communities are left days and sometimes weeks without electricity. So kids can't listen to music or watch TV for example. ACTS brings in live music and provides games. In places where churches and houses of worship have been destroyed, ACTS puts up tents and allows for religious services...