Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
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And I'm Steve Ember. Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Floodwalls around New Orleans, Louisiana, failed. Soon, eighty percent of the city was underwater.
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Today New Orleans is making progress. But it still faces major problems as people work to rebuild their homes and their lives.
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RAY NAGIN: "Our city was totally devastated after Katrina. And after two years we are still trying to recover. But our citizens, they continue to suffer."
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That was New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, speaking this month at a congressional hearing in Washington.
Mayor Nagin continues to meet with federal and state officials about ways to rebuild his city and help its citizens. He has expressed dissatisfaction with levels of financial help for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.
RAY NAGIN: "I implore, I ask, I beg this committee to really do something to help us.
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Congress has already approved tens of billions of dollars in Gulf Coast aid.
That includes seven billion dollars for the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the city's flood protection system. Last week federal officials described proposals for an additional seven and a half billion dollars of improvements by 2011.
They say the plan would sharply reduce the chances of a repeat of what happened after Katrina.
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Hurricane Katrina hit land three times in the final days of August of 2005. Its third landfall, on August twenty-ninth, was the one that caused the most damage by breaking through the flood barriers.
Katrina was blamed for almost 1,700 deaths. Most of the deaths happened in Louisiana.
It was the most costly hurricane in American history with estimates of at least eighty-one billion dollars in property damage. Whole communities were destroyed.
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The floodwaters in New Orleans tore through areas including some of the poorest in the city, such as the Lower Ninth Ward.
Local resident Glen Madison expresses his dissatisfaction with the way officials are dealing with the problems in the Lower Ninth Ward.
GLEN MADISON: "Instead of sending all that money over there -- more troops. What about us? Because most of the damage was right here. The Lower, Lower Ninth Ward. Had more damage than anybody. And this is the last place they dealing with when it should have been the first."
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Rebuilding has begun. But workers have yet to clear away many of the homes and other buildings wrecked by the storm.
Thousands of people are still living in trailers provided as emergency housing by the government. But there are concerns that the trailers may be making some people sick.
The people have reported headaches, nosebleeds and other problems. Officials have been investigati
