Gulf Watch

May 15, 2007 - After Hurricane Katrina struck 20 months ago, it took nearly a year before federal and state lawmakers even created a program to help homeowners displaced by the storm.

May 11, 2007 - I'm just back from my second trip to New Orleans in the last month, and even though we've been covering Katrina since October 2005, the devastation is still eye-opening. It's especially shocking that so little has been done to help those most in need, 20 months after Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast.

May 7, 2007 - With hurricane season less than a month away, experts from the United States and the Netherlands say flaws in New Orleans' repaired levee system could leave the region vulnerable to another disastrous breach like the one that occurred after Hurricane Katrina, which was the largest civil engineering disaster in U.S. history.

May 1, 2007 - When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for new drainage pumps in New Orleans, it copied the specifications from the catalog of the politically well-connected manufacturer that eventually won the $32 million contract, according to a review of documents by the Associated Press.

April 30, 2007 - While hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents suffered in desperate conditions following Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration turned down assistance offered by other countries.

April 28, 2007 - The Bush administration yesterday announced that it would extend temporary housing assistance to survivors of Hurricane Katrina for another 18 months, until March 1, 2009. The program, which had already been extended, was set to expire on Aug. 31. About 80,000 Gulf Coast residents are still living in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers.

April 25, 2007 - The U.S. House of Representatives last month passed H.R. 1227, a measure that would reopen minimally damaged New Orleans public housing units closed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The bill has now moved to the Senate, but Louisiana's Sens.

April 25, 2007 - An audit conducted by a fair housing advocacy group has documented extensive racial discrimination in the New Orleans area rental housing market.

April 18, 2007 - Nineteen months after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, New Orleans "may have turned a corner," concludes the latest Katrina Index from the Greater New Orleans Data Center in collaboration with the Brookings Institution.

April 11, 2007 - The company's ads boast, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there."Æ But apparently the nation's largest insurer didn't want engineers who were actually neighbors of Hurricane Katrina victims to inspect storm-damaged properties, arguing that they were "too emotionally involved."