Yesterday, I met artist Zita Waller, who lives in Bay St. Louis. I was thrilled to find a fellow oil painter and asked if she would be interested in painting with me one day. “I’m sorry”, Zita said, “but I don’t paint outside since Katrina. I loved to paint the piers and I also painted most of the mansions and other historic houses along the shore. But it is so different now that they are all gone.”

Zita said that over 700 trees have been planted – but like most things here – there’s so much more to do – arborists are needed to prune and cut out dead trees as well as plant new ones.

The broken, damaged and dead trees are a constant reminder of what Katrina stole from the Gulf Coast residents.