Holiday blues

A still-devastated New Orleans celebrates Mardi Gras as residents try to salvage wrecked neighborhoods | Jamie Dean

NEW ORLEANS— Angelo Peltier drove nearly 400 miles from his apartment in Houston just to make the first of two weekends of Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans leading up to Fat Tuesday. Sporting a strand of gold beads, Mr. Peltier leaned against a black pickup truck with two friends, waiting for an afternoon parade to begin in the streets of St. Bernard Parish. As the elaborate floats began to roll and beads began to fly, Mr. Peltier talked about the home he lost to Hurricane Katrina nearly six months ago: It was sitting gutted and largely ruined less than two miles away. "We lost everything," he said.

Mr. Peltier isn't alone. Miles of modest homes in St. Bernard Parish—just east of New Orleans across the Industrial Canal—were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last August when levees failed and allowed a massive wall of water into the community. Six months later the water is gone, but St. Bernard Parish, along with large swaths of New Orleans, looks largely the same: Homes lie flattened in piles, streets remain littered with ruined cars and debris, and snapped power lines swing from battered poles.