When we visited Gulfport immediately after Hurricane Katrina, the damage was still fresh and much was still unknown.
Three weeks later, we returned to find Gulfport inching back toward normalcy. The blue roof coverings that FEMA provides had become ubiquitous, there weren't ridiculously long lines at the gas stations (although you still had to wait sometimes), the traffic lights were nearly all working, and there was so much free food and water available that some of it went begging for takers.
But in Pass Christian and Waveland, the other towns where our friends and relatives lived, things hadn't improved much. And how could they? Just recovering the bodies and clearing the streets was a superhuman accomplishment in many cases, and those devastated areas will likely take decades to return to their previous condition, if they ever do.
Click here to take a tour of the pictures from this trip and read about the experiences of some of the survivors we met, or click any of the links below to go straight to a specific image.
