Today is the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster here in New Orleans.

Katrina was a category 5 hurricane, the sixth-strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the third-strongest hurricane ever to reach US soil. It caused damage overall totalling $81.2 billion (in 2005 money).

Whilst a lot of progress has been made in restoring the city’s housing and other facilities only around 67% of the population has returned to date (and even here nearly 3,000 families still live in emergency accommodation today) and there’s still more work to be done.

So on a day like this you might expect to see a photo of us standing at the memorial to the nearly 2,000 people who died in the disaster. Sadly, there isn’t one. Not yet at least. Despite a site being donated by the Louisiana State University (Charity Hospital Cemetery, shown above with Patsy Dupart, the daughter of the Rev. Lonnie Garrison who died in the aftermath of Katrina) the plans have not yet been implemented. Its not clear why not.

So all we can do today is give our thoughts to the lost people of New Orleans. For all those who died here’s an extract from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon:

        They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

        Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

        At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

        We will remember them.