Slightly more than one year ago the indelible images of the United States' worst natural disaster were forever seared into this nation's history.

Horrific clips of people clinging to floating debris, left stranded by a chaotic cocktail of floodwater on the tops of their homes and newly isolated stretches of highway recall the first days after the storms. Memories of the improvised messages of distress from those perches still haunt Gulf Coast residents at the one-year anniversary.

As President Bush cites progress in his recent visit to the Gulf Coast, residents of New Orleans are concerned about if and how they will experience a full recovery from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and the subsequent flooding.

And they wonder who exactly gets to define progress, what FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are doing to help, and if the American people remember them.

Hillary Strobel didn’t forget, and she has a plan to help communities in New Orleans: plant free trees.

Strobel, 29, a recent graduate of SF State’s master’s program in Social Science and Interdisciplinary Studies, started Replant New Orleans.

The non-profit organization aims to provide volunteers, education and supplies to help residents in New Orleans plant trees and clean highly toxic soils in yards and parks left after last year’s storms with a goal to use environmentally-friendly methods.

One such method is bioremediation, a process of transforming toxins such as arsenic, mold and heavy metals, into carbon dioxide by extracting nutrient-rich microbes from compost and compost worm bins and then injecting them into the soil. This process will accelerate natural biodegrading, according to Strobel.

“New Orleans, one year later, is obviously a real disappointment to see how much needs to be done,” Strobel said at a recent fundraiser for Replant New Orleans at San Francisco’s Garden for the Environment.

In a city where more than half of the pre-storm population is still gone and half of its public schools are still closed, Strobel says she wants to help the people and their children to be able to play outside.

“They [the Federal, State, and Local Government] ask people with no resources to fix and clean their property. We see ourselves as the ones to come in and help neighborhood associations do just that,” Strobel said.

Louisianan Rick Callaway remains shocked at the government response a year after the storms and floods nearly obliterated his native St. Bernard Parish, just southeast of New Orleans.

He said that many still must travel 10-20 miles just to buy a loaf of bread, and he still regularly drives by FEMA mobile home parks with hundreds of trailers that are uninhabitable due to a lack of water, electricity, and gas.

“There are literally thousands of homeless people begging for a FEMA trailer, tens of thousands of people without gas, electricity, clean water, or phone service. I’d tell people not to come back here till the infrastructure is fixed,” he said recently in a telephone interview from his Metairie, La. home.

Callaway, a construction worker turned freelance videographer who runs a Web site documenting post-Katrina New Orleans, said he is sure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has not adequately repaired the now infamous levee system because each time it rains the streets of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish are knee-deep in flood water.

“I think there’s an illusion when the rest of the country sees the Superdome, Mardi Gras, Jazz Festival, or the French Quarter on TV, but just two blocks away it’s a disaster. The reality is that most ‘ma’ and ‘pa’ businesses are goin’ under while the corporations like McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell leave their rotten meat and still have no problem stayin’ afloat,” said Callaway, 42.

He said the morale of his family and friends is no better than one week after the storms.

“There is no hope or trust down here, the suicide rate is out of control and it seems every day people call us corrupt,” Callaway said. “Maybe we are, but the whole nation is. It's the federal government that built the faulty levees.”

After Callaway pondered his next post-Katrina rent increase, which went from $350 a month to today’s $2000, he determinedly said, “It’s not over, don’t forget about us.”

Replant New Orleans: www.replantneworleans.org
Callaway Video: www.callawayvideo.com/