Three years later: after the devastation of Katrina, Gulf-state lawmakers are optimistic but sobered by the work that remains.

• Author: Boulard, Garry

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John Alario is an optimist.

Surrounded by large swaths of the New Orleans metro area that remain abandoned, garbage-strewn and scarred by boarded up and crumbling houses, the Louisiana senator is convinced life has gotten significantly better in the three years since Hurricane Katrina.

"You have to think about where we were in the immediate aftermath of that storm," says Alario, whose Westwego district, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, was largely under water in Katrina's wake.

"Essentially we were confronted with the challenge of rebuilding New Orleans--and a large part of the state of Louisiana--practically from the ground up," he says. "Katrina's impact on our infrastructure was nearly complete roads, drainage, sewer and water systems and even school buildings were virtually wiped out in some communities. Everything had to be rebuilt."

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New Orleans just missed another direct hit from a hurricane in late summer. Despite that lucky break, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama still have much work to do before they can put the devastation of Katrina--and, to a lesser extent, Rita and Wilma--behind them. Although lawmakers across these three Gulf states are upbeat about the progress that has been made--everything from casinos to new homes to strengthened levees in the New Orleans area--they acknowledge the recovery is far from complete.

In all, Louisiana suffered nearly $100 billion in damages from a storm that also killed more than 1,000 people. It was the worst natural disaster in the state's history. Next door, in Mississippi, more than 200 people died and property damages exceeded $125 billion. In Alabama, Katrina killed two dozen people and caused more than $50 billion in property damages.

The devastation left by the storm presented lawmakers in the three states with the challenge of rebuilding. The task was made easier in Alabama because it suffered the least damage and more efficient in Mississippi because of an early decision to rally around a core set of recovery goals. Louisiana lawmakers faced extensive damage to the state's infrastructure and an immediate population loss of roughly half a million people.

Not all the changes wrought by the hurricanes along the Gulf coast are visible. The population in New Orleans and areas of Mississippi and Alabama may never return to pre-storm levels as residents deal with problems from insurance to employment. There also is the matter of what might have been. Lawmakers have put initiatives and projects on the back burner as they've grappled with the core issues of recovery.

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PROGRESS UNDENIABLE

"It is almost impossible to describe how much had been taken away by Katrina in New Orleans, and then Hurricane Rita, which came right after it and really hit hard in the southern part of the state," says Louisiana Representative Nell Abramson.

With a district that includes parts of wealthy uptown New Orleans that suffered sporadic flooding, he says that "at some point it seemed like the only thing left standing after these storms was the resiliency of our people. There was just a general feeling that, even though everyone felt overwhelmed by what had happened, their goal was still to rebuild and return to a pre-Katrina life as quickly as possible."

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