Katrina, Rita and the Houma: A Nation in Recovery

[Thunderwolf, MSN, RN]

Louisiana may be best known as the home of Mardi Gras and the football Saints, as a stirring pot of jazz and blues and zesty cuisine. Thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it may forever be the memory stick for disaster, for images of broken levees and a stifling Superdome, and for tales of heroism and despair in now-familiar places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

But it is also Indian Country, land of the mostly forgotten. It is home to the United Houma Nation, nearly half of whose members were displaced up and down the bayou, their homes battered by hurricane winds or flooded by avalanches of water.

"Our people suffered a lot, and many people don't know that," said Brenda Dardar Robichaux, principal chief of the Houma Nation. "We're still recovering, and it's been a slow process."

Full article with slide show: http://www.reznetnews.org/article/feature-article/katrina%2C-rita-and-houma%3A-nation-recovery