By Rupert Cornwell in New Orleans
It was the storm that laid waste to an area along the US Gulf Coast about the size of England, in the process wreaking havoc on one of America's legendary cities. It also changed the perception of a presidency, perhaps forever.
Today George Bush returns to New Orleans, exactly a year after Hurricane Katrina, on his 13th visit since the storm, for an anniversary that has been designated a national day of remembrance. Katrina was not only the most expensive national disaster in US history, leaving an insurance bill for the devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama of some $60bn £32bn). The total cost human and emotional as well as economic has been far higher still.
Some 1,600 deaths are now attributed to the storm. Some Gulf Coast communities were virtually wiped off the map. In New Orleans itself, half of the 500,000 inhabitants pre-Katrina have yet to return and many of them surely never will. Ray Nagin, the mayor, says population recovery will take five years, but that may be optimistic.
In some parts of New Orleans life has returned. The French Quarter is again aglitter with neon and sanitised sin, with signs proclaiming " Happy Hour, All Day, All Night."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1222344.ece