The evacuees: where are they now, and will they return?

The catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina is still palpable in the lives of its survivors with most of the thousands still displaced far from home, emotionally, psychologically and/or physically, fully one year later.

Most of the Hurricane Katrina evacuees are bravely pressing on, attempting to piece together their lives that were ripped apart by the flood and the gale-force winds that slammed the Gulf Coast area last summer.

And with another winter approaching, FEMA and other federal aid dwindling, and public sympathies beginning to fade, many of the evacuees who are still in dire straits and need public support to start new lives are hoping and praying their future holds a secure home and job. Katrina killed at least 1,300 people across the Gulf Coast--at least 1,086 in Louisiana--and displaced thousands of others. Before the storm hit New Orleans, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded the area's population at more than 1.3 million residents, making it the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Back-to-back hurricanes and floods forced millions--nearly half a million people in the city of New Orleans alone--from their homes along the Gulf Coast, and many are still displaced, living with family and friends or in temporary housing.

Many would like to return to New Orleans, but are concerned about living conditions in the city. Chief Joseph R. Matthews, director of New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness, addressed some of those concerns, saying that electric and gas services are now available to the city, except "for very limited areas nearest the 17th Street canal breach and the lower 9th Ward breach." Clean water has been a major concern, and although there are challenges with the water infrastructure, water is available and potable in all areas of the city, except "a small area located near where the levee breach occurred in the lower 9th Ward," he says. "Local, state and federal environmentalists have tested and continue to monitor the water, air and soil. The results of the tests indicate that there's nothing to pose an undue risk to the health of any current or returning residents."

One New Orleans family, the Bedou family, evacuated to Houston, but would like to return home soon. Alvin Bedou Sr. is a New Orleans police officer now on military assignment in the city. He commutes to Houston on the weekends to see his family--wife Carla, son Alvin Jr., 16, and daughter Carolyn, 6. The couple's 78-year-old aunt, Mabel Sterling, also lives with them in their Houston apartment, and they care for her 84-year-old grandmother, whom they brought to Houston. An older daughter, her husband and infant son, live in a nearby apartment. Their daughter was scheduled to be married on Sept. 3 last year in a large church wedding, but her wedding dress, flowers--everything--was lost in the flood, including the family home. "It was a hard struggle, because so many people were left and were dying," she says. Some of her family went to the Houston Astrodome, some went to Little Rock, Ark., and some went to Ft. Worth, Texas. Others ended up as far north as Michigan.

"It's terrible: You leave home one day and the next day you have nothing," she says. Their strong faith, they say, has carried them through these disasters. "I take things one day at a time and pray, and let God lead us where He wants us to be." She says the Baskin-Robbins Company put the family into an apartment and donated used furniture. "I look at it a year later, and it's looking much better now. Houston has done great things for us."

Approximately 150,000 Hurricane Katrina victims evacuated to Houston, and most remain there, according to Houston Mayor Bill White. "We are proud of the way Houstonians stepped up to help our neighbors from New Orleans," Mayor White says. "We know we have a challenge ahead, and we are concentrating on things like education, jobs and job training."

In addition, Mayor White says that the city is making sure that people are "treated with dignity and are in a position to make decisions for themselves about rebuilding their lives. We have tried neither to push people away nor to draw them here, but to help them get into position to make up their own minds about their futures."

One Gulf family who is also trying to secure their future is the Taylor family of Bay St. Louis, Miss. A photo of the family's dramatic car rescue on Highway 90 has been circulated throughout the world; however, they have not benefited from the famous photo, which shows them nearly being carried away by rising floodwaters as they tried to escape Katrina's wrath. The family is staying in two small FEMA trailers on their property, cooking in one trailer and sleeping in the other as they attempt to repair their flood-damaged house.

"We stayed in the storm because we've been on this land 14 years, and we've never taken on water," says Tanya Taylor, 38. She and her husband, David, 40, a school bus driver, and children Colby Robertson, 16, twin girls, Jordyn and Jody Taylor, and son, Ian Taylor, 7, got caught on the highway trying to escape the storm. "We were trying to get to my mother's house, and there was so much water, we took a wrong turn and the water just overtook the SUV," she says.