New Orleans Remembers Katrina With Style

CNN's Anderson Cooper does some taping in the doorway of a house in the Lower Ninth Ward that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina nearly one year ago in New Orleans on Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. The national and international media have come to the region for the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, however Cooper has returned to the region repeatedly.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (Alex Brandon - AP)

Cedrick Johnson, 25, wiped away sweat and tears as he talked about the death of his grandmother, a longtime resident of the neighborhood.

"Look around. Look at all these empty lots. Why us?" he said. His shirt bore his grandmother's picture and the words: "Why Geraldine. Why?"

In Mississippi, where Katrina left 231 people dead, workers and families gathered for tearful remembrances, but there was also celebration. The $800 million Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi, one of more than a dozen casinos battered by the storm, reopened with 3,800 employees _ 400 more than before Katrina.

In Gulfport, Miss., two unidentified victims of last year's storm were given symbolic names _ "Will" and "Strength" _ before their bodies were laid to rest in a city-owned cemetery.

"God knew who these people were. He knew their names," said Chris Chavers, 38, of Lucedale, Miss.

At a memorial erected outside New Orleans' convention center _ where a year ago thousands of haggard refugees waited on the pavement in the sweltering sun, begging for food and water _ relatives of the dead came bearing flowers. They laid white carnations in front of the monument, one by one, reciting the names of lost loved ones.

Joyce Brulee was there to remember her 99-year-old father, Benjamin Francois, who died in a New Orleans nursing home. "He was so looking forward to his 100th birthday," Brulee said, adding that she was not able to claim his body until January.

The reminders of the destruction _ and how far the city still has to go _ are everywhere. White trailers still line driveways in neighborhoods where debris is stacked up in piles. Only half New Orleans' population of a half-million has returned. Emergency medical care is doled out in an abandoned department store, while six of city's nine hospitals remain closed. Only 54 of 128 public schools are expected to open this fall.

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Associated Press writer Stacey Plaisance and Becky Bohrer in New Orleans, Mary Foster in Buras, La., Michelle Roberts in Chalmette, La. and Michael Kunzelman in Gulfport, Miss. contributed to this report.