Katrina facts

I am just plain ol' lifting this right from Pam's House Blend to share data about the lack of progress in the Gulf Coast.

* Estimated percentage of New Orleans metro area's pre-storm population of about 460,000 that had returned as of June 30: 37

* Of the 368 buses operating in New Orleans before Katrina, number operating as of July 2006: 61

* Gallons of water the new Orleans water system loses each day due to breaks caused by Katrina and an underfunded repair budget: 85 million

* Months after Katrina that federal money for housing reconstruction was approved: 10

* Total federal funds dispersed so far to rebuild homes: 0

* Occupancy rate of livable apartments in New Orleans: 99

* Number of hospitals in Orleans Parish before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: 22

* Number as of August 2006: 11

* Approximate increase in New Orleans suicide rate since Katrina: 300%

* Percent of New Orleans small businesses destroyed by Katrina: 60

* By May 2006, percent of small businesses that had been approved for disaster loans from the Small Business Administration that had actually received them: 37

* Value of wages that contractors had not paid their workers but were eventually recovered by the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance: over $700,000

* Number of New Orleans prisoners whose trials have never been set or have been delayed, or who have never seen an attorney: about 6,000

* Amount of oil spilled in Louisiana from damaged tanks and other production facilities during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: 10.5 million gallons

* Amount spilled from 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska: 11 million gallons

* Portion of hazardous materials that authorities would be "lucky" to remove from the post-Katrina waste stream, according to an EPA official: 20 to 30 percent

* Percent of New Orleans cultural institutions that remain closed from storm damage: 75

* Of the 30 U.N. Principles guiding the handling of "Internally Displaced People," number that legal scholars believe were violated in the case of Katrina: 16

Source: One Year after Katrina, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch/Institute for Southern Studies, August 2006.