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Hurricane Katrina was the storm of the 21st century. It devastated an area the size of Great Britain. More than 1,800 Americans died. Three hundred thousand homes were destroyed. There was $96 billion in property damage. I served on the Louisiana Recovery Authority. I saw Congress write one big check and then skip town.

A good two years after Hurricane Katrina I remember feeling so devastated and so ignorant that there was so much damage still left. I felt like here I was an American and this is an American city and the government hasn't done enough and people haven't given back enough. Everyone forgot and the city was lying in waste.

Hurricane Katrina this past week was certainly the worst episode in what has become an all-too-familiar and tragic cycle, and our nation is now faced with a set of unprecedented challenges.

I also believe that Hurricane Katrina did reveal a weakness in our energy supply systems, highlighting the reliance this country has on the gulf coast for our energy resources.

The Katrina matter was terrible.

The reality of Katrina didn't really strike me until the first time I flew up in a helicopter and saw areas of the city that I had ridden my bicycle as a youth being fully flooded.

Eighty-five percent of us in this country, by the way, live in coastal areas, so again, Katrina and Rita were not just about New Orleans. There were a lot of lessons that the nation can learn from us if they just pay attention to the things that are going on down here.

What happened after Katrina is that people were stirred to action; there were an enormous number of contributions by people trying to make a difference. But then we forget. We've forgotten Katrina victims, we've forgotten the face of poverty.

Nearly two weeks have passed since Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast, and while we are still dealing with the tremendous devastation - and will be for quite some time - we are also seeing increased signs of recovery and help in our region.

Thousands of people may have been killed by hurricane Katrina and many more could die in its aftermath because of the President's refusal to heed the calls of governors for help in repairing the infrastructure in their states.