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Hurricane Katrina: One year later

Nearly 1700 people died when Katrina hit Mississippi and Louisiana, and 153 people are still missing. Around 78,000 homes were destroyed in New Orleans and, one year later, just 200,000 of the original 455,000 inhabitants have returned.

The psychological legacy of 29 August 2005 is evident: suicide rates have trebled, with survivors twice as likely to suffer from serious mental health problems, according to a Harvard Medical School survey.

Nearly 85% of those taking part in the survey experienced significant monetary, income or housing loss as a result of the storm, Ronald Kessler and colleagues found. And about 23% said they had experienced extreme psychological stress.

The city's 7000 prisoners, many of whom were shackled during the storm, face ongoing trauma. Abandoned for days without food, drink or sanitation as the waters rose, the incarcerated were left to fend for themselves amid violent riots and fires as some prisoners tried to escape.

Deep frustration

In addition to the human lives lost, the forensic office in the New Orleans courthouse basement was destroyed, shattering hopes of reprieve for those wrongly convicted of murder or rape as vital DNA evidence was destroyed.

The additional loss of courthouse records means that those imprisoned for minor misdemeanours are still battling the authorities to be allowed out of jail, since no proof exists to confirm they have served their time or, in some cases, what their crime actually was.

On Tuesday, President George Bush visited New Orleans to attend a memorial service for the victims of Katrina. He acknowledged local people's deep frustration at the slow pace of the rebuilding, saying: "People hear about help and wonder where it is. We know that."

Calmer season

Meanwhile, a report in the New Economics Foundation warned that the Caribbean region faces a stormier future with less predictable and more extreme weather. Andrew Simms at Nef, who wrote the report with colleagues, said that global warming would produce hazardous conditions for millions of impoverished people in the region.

In contrast, this year's north Atlantic hurricane season has been a much calmer affair than its predecessor. There have been five tropical storms so far this year and only one of them has reached hurricane strength. This is less than half of the storms seen by this time in the 2005 season, which broke almost every record in the book, with 28 tropical storms and 15 hurricanes.

This season's latest tropical storm, Ernesto, briefly reached hurricane strength over the weekend, but lost strength as it dumped heavy rains on Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. The US National Hurricane Center expects Ernesto to strengthen over open water, but says it is not likely to regain hurricane strength before reaching Florida.

However, the threat posed by Ernesto has prompted NASA to roll shuttle Atlantis from the launch pad and back indoors for protection (see Looming storm forces shuttle Atlantis into hiding).



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