I wanted to be back in New Orleans Wednesday, standing with its citizens as they observed the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I never visited the area before the storm and the flooding. I saw it for the first time last October after making my way by car along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and onward to New Orleans. I needed to see for myself what nature and human incompetence and indifference had wrought. Three months later I made an unplanned return trip to the city with a group of Portland volunteers to help gut flooded homes.

Hurricane Katrina hit me just as hard as 9/11. If 9/11 stole my feelings of security as an American citizen, Katrina filled me with anger and frustration. It’s been nearly six years since the Twin Towers fell, and only two since the levees broke. That may explain why I still feel more raw emotions in the aftermath of the hurricane. Or maybe it’s because our nation’s responses to the two catastrophes were so starkly different. One heroic. The other shameful. Americans came together after 9/11. We stared dumbfounded into our TV sets after 8/29, unable to find our greatness.

Two years removed, our country continues to fail the people of New Orleans and surrounding parishes. As reporters in the city observed Wednesday, with the prodding of President Bush, there are signs of progress to be sure,

“But vast stretches of the city show little or no recovery. A housing shortage and high rents have hampered business growth. The homeless population has almost doubled since the storm, and many of those squat in an estimated 80,000 vacant dwellings. Violent crime is also on the rise, and the National Guard and state troopers still supplement a diminished local police force.”

And that’s to say nothing about the city’s decimated educational and health care systems. The people of New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast are suffering. Deeply. Still. And we can still help. For starters, check out US Sen. Mary Landrieu’s page on volunteering in New Orleans. Maybe we can give the victims of Katrina a reason to celebrate when the third anniversary comes around.