Travelogue: Gazette Story on Trip to Rwanda

Katsey Long, one of the therapists of our team, prepares to attend the Healing Mass where 5,000 people showed up.  Some people walked 15 miles to get the Mass, which lasted 4.5 hours.

I went to Rwanda in November to accompany my pastor, Fr. Ken Schmidt, and his parish associate, Sharon Froom, a therapist, as they gave trauma recovery workshops to 123 priests and human service professionals who are counseling people who survived the genocide of 1994.  One million people were killed during the 100 days that the genocide lasted and 100 percent of country is traumatized by this event.  

We stayed in Cyangugu, Rwanda, which is located in the southwestern part of the country.

Here is a link to a story I published in my home newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette on Saturday, December 11.

During the trip I kept a daily blog of our activities and you can see it on Trauma Recovery Associates in Rwanda.



I'm currently writing more articles and will post them on this blog as they are published.

Travelogue: Into Africa

I will be traveling to Rwanda and Kenya October 27 through November 16 with my pastor, Father Ken Schmidt, and his associate Sharon Froom, a licensed therapist.  They have developed a worldwide reputation for their work in trauma recovery and were invited by the Rwandan Catholic Church to provide workshops for priests, educators, and health care workers who work with survivors of the 1994 genocide.

My role on this trip is to document their work.  This will be my first trip to Africa and my first gig as a "foreign correspondent."  I am keeping a separate blog called:  Trauma Recovery Associates in Rwanda, taking photos and videos, and writing stories that will be published subsequent to our trip.


Wish us a bon voyage.  We leave for our two-day journey to Africa on Wednesday.

Travelogue: Passenger Trains--Our Hope for a More Sustainable Future

President Obama's proposal to spend $50 billion on transportation infrastructure—including 4,000 miles of rail lines—couldn't be a better expenditure of our federal tax dollars.

After spending two days on the Empire Builder, the long-haul Amtrak line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I quickly realized that our investment in trains should be readily and heartily embraced.  And, if more Americans were to take such trips, I’m sure they, too, would choose trains as an alternative mode of travel.

Amtrak staff was courteous and responsive to passengers, a bit quirky as train people can be, but absolutely delightful while we all traveled the miles and hours together across the country. Riding the train, especially on an overnight, was romantic and adventurous and we kept to our schedule despite the numerous times we had to yield to freight trains.

Actually, it’s a miracle that Amtrak has lasted these past 40 years since President Richard Nixon deliberately designed it for failure.  Different administrations—both Democratic and Republican—have either ignored passenger rail or, like President George W. Bush, actively sought to scuttle it.

James McCommons, author of Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service (2009) tells the story about Amtrak and America’s relationship with trains along with some great travelogues of his year-long train trips around the country.

He points out that most legislators who vote on appropriations for passenger trains have never ridden a train, which severely works against Amtrak. Others have been adamant that Amtrak make a profit.

Truth is, there is no public transportation system in the world that earns a profit.

What is clear is that train networks serve as a means to an end, namely, they contribute to an area’s economic development, an idea that is capturing the attention of more and more mayors across the country, especially in this weak economy.

Actually, highways and airports are not money-makers either and the federal government subsidizes them to the tune of $180 billion per year. Amtrak only gets $1 billion. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t realize that a transportation network is one of the benefits of their taxes.

The reason that Amtrak has been short-sheeted is that passenger rail has simply not been a government priority.

After 100 years of moving people within our cities and around the country, trains lost favor because people were sick of the rapacious and corrupt conduct of the railroad corporations. The vehicles were dirty and staff was rude or mean. Ridership had been steadily declining since 1920. After World War II, the nation made a dramatic switch to invest in highways because our roads were poor and lacked connectivity and, well, people liked driving their cars. It didn’t help that the automobile, oil and tire companies conspired—or at least lobbied—against the public transportation system for their own interests as depicted in the 1996 PBS film, “Taken for a Ride” and its 2008 Part II version. 

Promoted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 required citizens to finance the Interstates by paying 15 to 20 percent of the price of a gallon of gas. The 46,876-mile Interstate system took 35 years to complete and cost $128.9 billion.  The feds paid 90 percent of the cost or about $114 billion—$425 billion in 2006 dollars— even though the Interstates were under the control of the states.  Governors and mayors signed onto this massive public works plan without hesitation because they saw it as an economic development tool for their cities. They would be proved wrong within a couple decades.

As more and more people needed and bought cars, they found themselves stuck in more traffic jams and having to contend with endless road repair. Operating an automobile amounted to $6,000 to $7,000 per year (outside its purchase) and the accident and death rates related to cars—at least 40,000 deaths per year—were overwhelming.

Building the Interstates in the cities also drastically changed urban life, something Eisenhower never intended and experts never foresaw. Neighborhoods were torn up to make way for the highways. Social stratification and racial discrimination intensified as middle class white people migrated to the suburbs and left poor people and minority groups behind in the cities. Downtowns that were designed for pedestrians became congested places and the influx of cars made them frustrating to navigate. Old buildings were demolished to create surface parking, which then created gaping, ugly holes in the cityscape.  People felt unsafe and increasingly reluctant to go downtown. Retail moved out to the suburbs and the companies eventually followed. Of course, all of this out-migration ended up depleting the tax base and making ghost towns out of our once vibrant and prosperous downtowns.

By the late 1990s transportation engineers and analysts began questioning the Interstate’s “externalities” as they costed out pollution, energy waste, land disruption, accidents, time wasted in traffic jams.  They also learned that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to add highway lanes and interchanges didn’t relieve congestion.

The airlines tried to make up for their operational costs with reduced legroom, poorer air quality and overcrowding. Greater demand for air travel also necessitated building or expanding airports, which all takes up a lot of tax dollars.

With the 1990s came new attitudes toward cities and toward the environment. Young people and empty nesters found cities a “hip” place to live and began moving back. They reduced their car usage and demanded more public transportation options. People started a movement to restore historic buildings and revitalize their downtowns.

Meanwhile, rail advocates were keeping Amtrak alive, albeit by a thread. Among them was Gil Carmichael, a former highway lobbyist, owner of five car dealerships and an airport charter service. He later founded the Intermodal Transportation Institute at the University of Denver where he advocates for what he calls Interstate II.

Interstate II involves double- or triple-tracking 20,000 to 30,000 miles of mainline freight railroads, establishing corridors for high-speed trains and eventually electrifying the trains to replace diesel engines. Carmichael estimates this could all be done in 20 years for two cents on the motor fuel tax.

“We have this incredible railroad network that goes out all over this land from city center to city center. That's what is so amazing. It's already there,” said Carmichael (in McCommons).

Another idea train advocates promote is the re-establishment of a combined freight and passenger rail system through private-public partnerships that work with state transportation departments.  Dedicated passenger lines have a multiplier effect that can relieve traffic congestion, reduce freight bottlenecks, diminish flight delays, reduce this country's carbon footprint and accommodate people without cars or the means or desire to fly.

When Amtrak was created, politicians, lobbyists and fiscal conservatives really wanted to deep-six passenger rail altogether within two years. It was only through political wrangling and arm-twisting that train advocates were able to save passenger rail by separating it from freight and calling it Amtrak, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. That did not mean, however, that it would be efficient, well-funded or make a profit despite Nixon’s caveat that the new railroad be off the government dole as soon as possible.

The United States has never had a vision for an integrated railroad network nor has it adequately funded one, says John Gibson, vice president of Operations Research and Planning at CSX (quoted in McCommons).  Instead, passenger rail has been a hit and miss enterprise as Amtrak has tried to put its trains on networks owned and managed by the freight companies.

Could there be a renaissance in trains? Yes, says McCommons, because as the nation’s population increases, as more people decide to lead urban lives and as cities increase in density, it makes sense to use rail—especially with energy costs expected to climb.

“In terms of efficiency—fuel savings, lower carbon outputs, smaller footprint on the landscape—the advantage is really rail,” said Armando Carbonell of the Lincoln institute of Land Policy in Cambridge (quoted in McCommons). “It has been significantly underinvested in and disadvantaged against the other modes. We once had good train service in this country. We need to recover that capacity.”

The Obama administration clearly sees the possibilities of rail and so it gave Amtrak $8 billion in the stimulus package and another $1.3 billion for car rehabilitation and infrastructure repair on the Northeast Corridor. Vice President Joe Biden, a well-known train buff and consistent passenger during his senatorial days, obviously had a lot to do with this boost for Amtrak. 

This is all a good start but we still have a long way to go.

So, ride the train if you haven’t already, and encourage others to ride also, including your congressional representatives. It's a great way to get this country back on track!

Travelogue: Detroit Tigers Baseball with the Portage Senior Center

Four of my neighbors (Anita Lawson with Dick, Dean and Sarah Hauck) and I joined the members of the Portage Senior Center fora Tiger baseball game against the Chicago White Sox. to watch pitcher Rick "the Kid" Porcello, 21, achieve his fourth win in a row. The right-hander (9-11) gave up three runs, four hits and no walks in eight innings Thursday at Commerica Park in Downtown Detroit. He threw 105 pitches, 67 for strikes. In his four-game winning streak, he has a 2.48 ERA over 29 innings and has allowed 15 hits.

The game was fun, especially since the Tigers won. But what was really stunning was the Center's excellent organization of the trip by Trudy and Roger, our guide/escorts. We stopped at McDonald's in Jackson for a breakfast break halfway to Detroit and then at Culver's on the way home we had dinner, a first time for me. They gave us a seek-and-find puzzle on major league home run hitters--with a prize, of course--and then had us give the hitters' first names. Trudy also told baseball jokes, which were pretty corny but turned out to be funny because of the way she told them. Trudy and Roger really know how to make the time pass on a bus trip!

I was equally impressed with the people on the trip. It's a rare experience these days to be a part of a group where members are respectful of each other by boarding the bus on time, friendly, and while on the bus, knew how to talk in person-to-person tones sans electronic noise.

We arrived at the ballpark about an hour before the game was to start so we got our complimentary hot dog and soft drink and had our lunch. We also had time to ride the Tiger carousel. It's been a long time since I've done that--and we it was fun!

Although I never want to be labeled a senior citizen--no matter what my age--I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to join a trip with the Portage Senior Citizens!

Travelogue: How I Became a “Rail Fan”

This article appeared in the Huffington Post on Monday, November 28, 2011

The first time I ever took a train was with the girl scouts when our leaders, Mrs. Belko and Mrs. Rieburger, planned a Saturday day trip to the Holland Tulip Festival. About 15 young girls with a couple mother-sponsors rode the rails from Detroit to Grand Rapids and then took a bus to Holland.

This was a memorable trip for me, mostly for its long distance from home, the back and forth swaying of the train that made walking difficult, the toilets that emptied their contents onto the track, and the conical paper cups that held water from the push-button dispenser.

Today, trains have more significance for me than the curiosities of my youth. They are a "green" way to travel and a key component of our public transportation system. They avoid the hassles of freeway driving and the expense of auto parking or the long waits and delays of the airport. And, they are just plain fun to ride.

After discovering the Empire Builder, the long-haul line from Chicago to Seattle/Portland, I decided the adventure of “eating up” all those miles was just too good to miss. Fortunately, a friend of mine who lives in western Montana provided me with the perfect excuse to go cross-country by train. And, after spending 31 hours and one night, I quickly realized I had a lot more reasons to enjoy this wonderful form of travel.

As a writer, I need time and space to allow ideas to flow more easily through me. Starring out the window of a train that rocks back and forth as it moves forward provides both the rhythm and the environment for solitude. The low-toned rumble of metal on metal is more soothing than the high-pitched muscle of jet engines or the droning of an auto motor. I can scribble down notes for an article I'm working on, read, reflect on my encounters with fellow passengers or just be alone in my thoughts. I can also be inspired by the passing landscape, small towns, big cities and the diversity of people that trains seem to attract like the 90-year-old woman traveling alone to see her sister; the legions of Amish who picked up the train at different stops to attend a family funeral; the young man with no legs who ordered lunch in the snack car; the cowboy with his hat, jeans and boots who sat by himself all the way from Montana to Milwaukee; and the big, hulking Native American who kissed his wife for 30 to 40 minutes before he boarded.

In truth, trains are one of the last public spaces left in our society and they also demand a different kind of behavior than we are accustomed in today's fast-paced, impersonal, high-security, privatized society. You can interact with other passengers you don't know, feel safe with them, and be with people who are largely respectful toward their fellow travelers. On a long haul train people seem to want—and conductors seem to care about ensuring—an environment that is quiet and absent the omnipresent cacophony of electronic devices, boisterous talking, and rowdiness. Of course, the Lounge Car is available for those who prefer more spirited interaction.

As with any public space, trains beckon you to explore them in a number of ways. You can walk around to stretch your legs or use the restroom. You can go to the Lounge Car to play cards, read, observe the scenery or get a snack. You can also go to the Dining Car for a delicious meal at a table complete with a tablecloth, cloth napkins, real silverware and friendly servers. Because space is limited, the maitre d’uses every seat, so if you are traveling alone or in a group with less than four, you will sit with other travelers.

Wearing some kind of identifying mark like a Chicago Cubs cap, a Lady Gaga t-shirt, or a place-oriented jacket as I did, provides you with a handy conversation starter. Several young people stopped me to ask if I knew their friends when they saw my Kalamazoo College jacket.

Train personnel are generally more interactive than those you find on airplanes. And on a long haul line, they're with you for the entire trip, so you get to know them because you both are on train time where the time boundaries are much broader and the pace more leisurely. Isn’t that what life should be about anyway?

All of these opportunities for encounters enhance your travel experience because they are energizing and engaging compared to other more hurried, confined, and oppressive forms of travel where you want to get out of the vehicle as soon as you can.

Traveling in a long haul train also allows you to feel the expanse of the country. An overnight ride is exciting to fathom when you realize that you go to sleep in one place and wake up hundreds of miles away in another. Air travel, of course, provides a similar experience except that your focus is on the hours you must sit in your cramped little seat. Flying, though fast, is more surreal because you cannot see the space you traverse since you are at least a mile high over the ground with much of it blocked by cloud cover.

Car travel allows you to traverse the miles at your own pace and convenience, but you must be vigilant to the road and, like air travel, you are confined to a small space. And although you travel on public roads, you tend to treat your car more like private space.

My ride to Whitefish, Montana (what a funky name for a town!) covered 1620 miles of the northern-most parts of the United States. I crossed the mighty Mississippi River and saw the “spacious skies” and “amber waves of grain” gradually give way to the “purple mountain majesties.” I felt both pride and blessedness in my country as we passed by industrious large cities, quaint small towns, colorful farms, and magnificent landscapes of forests, rivers and plains that have each created unique cultures and lifestyles sensitive to place. One surprising effect of this long ride was that I came out of it feeling as though I had just witnessed Walt Whitman's America.

Sleeping comfortably on a train can be a challenge but it's certainly not as bad as trying to sleep in an airplane. If you travel by coach, you might be lucky enough to have two seats to yourself, which then provides you with a couple options: you can curl up across the seats or you can sit up and use the foot rest or leg rest. I found it comfortable to stretch my small body diagonally across two seats with my head wedged in my traveler's pillow at the window and my feet on the leg rest of the other seat. Since you are primarily traveling through the countryside, there is virtually no light coming in from outside. Meanwhile, the low blue ceiling lights in the aisle help guide your way should you need to get up during the night. People seem to quiet down around ten and the motion of the train soon rocks you to sleep. I got eight hours each night while on the train, more than I usually get at home, and felt refreshed in the morning as the sun rose on the Dakota prairie.

If you want to sleep on a bed or have more privacy, you can purchase a roomette or a first class cabin. This more costly option also includes your dining car meals, a wine tasting party at 3 p.m. and certain privileges at train stations. It is a means of travel reminiscent of the days when only the wealthy could afford such luxury on trains.

The summer-long Rails to Trails Program, a special collaboration between Amtrak and the National Park Service, also offers travelers the opportunity to learn more about the countryside and its historical and geographical significance from volunteers who enthusiastically research and prepare scripts of useful information about the places you are seeing out your window. You will find them in the Lounge Car.

As a result of my trip on the Empire Builder, I have come to believe that trains facilitate your ability to be a “real traveler” because you can meet a variety of people, learn about their lives, discuss their ideas, and really see the country. This trip has inspired me to take more long haul train journeys with the goal of seeing the entire country by rail as long as I have the time and money to do so. Trains take a little longer than other modes of transportation but the experience they provide enriches you even before you arrive at your destination. Go Amtrak!

Hurricane Katrina: The Spirit of New Orleans

No other story about New Orleans matches the efforts of citizens who took the initiative to clean up the mess left by the Hurricane Katrina and begin rebuilding their city. Likewise, people’s determination to return home turned out to be the driving force toward recovery—even amid heartache, suffering, psychological trauma and incredible inconvenience.

But this wasn’t easy. Within a month after Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf coast, questions arose in other parts of the country about whether New Orleans could or should endure.

Known as the “Great Footprint Debate,” three options emerged regarding the fate of the flooded city: (1) abandon everything; (2) maintain everything in favor of the social and economic assets of the city despite its geological truths; (3) concede the risks and rebuild the city on higher ground.

“Topography does matter,” said Richard Campanella, associate director of Tulane University's Center for Bioenvironmental Research and a research professor with Tulane's Department of Earth and Environmental Science. He pointed out that sea levels have increased by four inches during the 20th century and predicted that in another 100 years they will rise another 41 inches. He spoke recently at the annual American Planners Association conference.

But, five years after Katrina, New Orleans and its people have endured. The question now is: how did they do it?

Tom Piazza wrote a wonderful, intimate book shortly after Katrina titled Why New Orleans Matters in an attempt to answer this question.

The spirit of New Orleans, he suggests, arises from people’s view of mortality and their utter connection to the place where they live. What it boils down to is a philosophy that espouses gratitude for another day since no one knows what tomorrow may bring. It is not a fatalistic or Pollyanna view of life but rather one that is present-oriented and open to all possibilities, something very difficult for most Americans to understand because of our rushed, busy and controlled lives.

This Weltanschauung has its roots in Caribbean and African nature religions that believe creation generously gives of its abundance so that human beings can respond to the Creator with expressions of thanks and by extending their generosity to others in imitation of Nature. Such a view is different from the New Englander’s Calvinism of judgment and renunciation or the fundamentalist’s notions that God selects a chosen few and then rids the world of sinners. Orleanians consciously give thanks for a new day, a deep friendship, a neighborhood picnic, a spontaneous parade or just simply being alive.

Nothing illustrates this view better than the famous jazz funeral. As strange as it may seem, there is a profound soulfulness that begins the procession in a slow, solemn dirge as the grieving family leaves the church and heads to the cemetery. “Second liners” join in and eventually the music turns to lively jazz with dancing and strutting.

This is not silliness, says Piazza, but rather “the triumph over the pain, the recognition of life's brevity.” And the message is that everyone attending the funeral has escaped death today so let’s celebrate that.

Katrina left Orleanians with incredible hardships that make daily living extremely stressful, especially for the poor. There isn’t enough public transportation, and neighborhood stores are sometimes two and three miles away. Roads are still in disrepair and the recognizable landscape has been drastically altered as commercial and residential buildings were destroyed and removed. Many shopping centers remain vacant. This is all emotionally and psychologically draining and disorienting; depression and suicide rates have jumped since Katrina. So when a store re-opens, people indulge in a great celebration amid their grief, anger, joy, worry and hope, according to city officials.

“Even in its most desperate precincts [New Orleans] is a city of deep and powerful humanity, of endurance, resilience, humor and affirmation in the face of adversity,” says Piazza.


The HBO series, “Treme,” which takes place in the aftermath of Katrina in the famous neighborhood of the same name, also illustrates this soulfulness. In the first episode people are feeling sad, tired and devastated, so they take up their musical instruments and start a parade. Such a reaction is not an escape or a reluctance to face grim realities. Rather, it’s a spiritual response that comes out of the Black gospel tradition of “No cross, no crown.” In other words, you can’t appreciate the good if you don’t know the bad. So you are obliged to accept your burden, finiteness, and suffering and then connect to the people around you. Actually, this is one major reason why neighborhoods have been so strong in New Orleans and why so many people have strived to return home.

Vera Triplett, a professor of counseling at Our Lady of Holy Cross College, who is a “proud resident of the Gentilly Neighborhood responded to the footprint debate with comparisons to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco and 9/11 in New York City:

“I’ve never heard anyone ask whether their city would come back,” she said. “I take that as an insult….This is my home. I have every right to come back to it. And I’ll come back no matter how many times it floods.”

But Triplett isn’t just talk. She is one of many local individuals from a number of different projects that stepped forward to lead in the recovery of her neighborhood. After starting the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association, which aims to give residents a voice in the rebuilding their neighborhoods, she later represented Gentilly in the Rebuilding New Orleans Initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The initiative developed the United New Orleans Plan (UNOP), which was accepted by the city council and adopted as the city’s master plan in 2007.

UNOP addresses specific actions necessary to facilitate the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans through input from local citizens instead of just the technicians, politicians and wealthy landowners.

“People came in with questions and concerns,” said Triplett in an interview with American City magazine on the UNOP process. “That’s when I first began to see some of the pain and distress, frustration and sheer exhaustion. Not a lot of people understood what the people of New Orleans were going through….We provided practical things like public transportation, childcare and two full meals….The other integral thing was that there were entertainment breaks. Little personal dance breaks to make people feel better.”

Many other good things have occurred over the past five years, which have made Orleanians proud and outsiders amazed, according to city officials. Various independent political entities (the city, parishes, neighborhoods and the state) are now working together toward recovery. The city's newspaper has improved its coverage and transparency. Unemployment is only five to six percent due to the vast amount of rebuilding and thanks to the billions of federal dollars that have come in for roads, housing and other reconstruction projects—although much more is needed.

City Park, a 1300-acre urban park, the seventh largest in the country and bigger than New York's Central Park suffered $43 million worth of damage. Katrina took down 1,000 trees including many live oaks. Piles of debris, some measuring 30 to 40 feet high, were collected in the park and later hauled away. The park's executive director, Bob Beck, almost single-handedly raised millions of dollars to rebuild the park and has succeeded in bringing much of it back to its former splendor.

Piazza does not shirk from acknowledging New Orleans’ many problems, many of which were there before Katrina: crime, corruption, bad schools, extreme poverty, racism and the stark mismanagement of the city as well as the threat of violent weather and the loss of wetlands. Things are definitely turning around for the city although city planners admit that recovery will probably take 20 years. Then came the oil spill and its threat to fishing, tourism and the loss of wildlife in the Gulf and the bayous.

Clearly, a loss of New Orleans would be a tragedy so I pray that Orleanians—and people in the entire Gulf region—get through this latest dreadful crisis. I suspect they’ll do it through deliberate citizen action and participation and in the spirit of New Orleans that defiantly declares: “I’m here, I’m still alive and I’m willing to take whatever comes.” What a model of recovery from disaster for all Americans!

Hurricane Katrina: How Music Helped Save New Orleans

No other American city values music the way New Orleans does. Heck, one of its airports is named after legendary musician Louis Armstrong!

Music is not something that is tangible, linear or measurable, said Nick Spitzer, producer and host of the National Public Radio show “American Routes,” but it is one of the things people value.

Even in the midst of their own gloom over Hurricane Katrina’s destruction where homes and neighborhoods were crushed and where there was little infrastructure and not much support from state or federal government, music helped many evacuees rebuild their lives with a strong hope in the future and a deep connection to a place they loved.

“That's what life's about,” said Spitzer, “creating space for creativity.”

Spitzer and several jazz musicians spoke at the annual conference of the American Planning Association held recently in New Orleans where many sessions discussed the recovery effort after Hurricane Katrina.

Before the storm hit, Benny "Big Benny" Pete, tuba player and leader of the Hot 8 Brass Band, headed to Atlanta with his family. Only two of his band members were there while the rest were scattered all over the country. One day he received a phone call to reunite the band in Baton Rouge to perform for the evacuees living there. He jumped at the chance—despite the fact that neither he nor any of the band members had their instruments. Students from Louisiana State University and local high schools loaned them their band instruments just to hear a concert.

Pete said that all he cared about was playing music again but he soon realized how important it was for the evacuees who were homesick and traumatized by Katrina to hear their music.

“We found out the power of our music, said Pete, quite surprised. “We didn't understand that before but it was music that pulled us all together. It showed us the value and power of our culture.”

The music Hot 8 performed that day hearkened back to the social aid and pleasure clubs, said Pete, where a well-dressed band led a parade down the street, forming the “first line,” while onlookers joined them to form the “second line” with strutting, jumping and high-stepping underneath their decorated parasols as they blew whistles and waved feathered fans.

These clubs, called benevolent societies, developed in New Orleans during the mid- to late-1800s to help poor African Americans, and later other ethnic groups, defray health care costs, funeral expenses, and other financial hardships. The presence of these societies gradually fostered a sense of community among the people as they provided charitable works and hosted social events. The benevolent societies were also responsible for the “jazz funerals” where bands play somber, processional music from the church to the cemetery. On the way back, the music became more upbeat and joyous as mourners celebrated the deceased’s life with tears and joy.

The evacuees living in Baton Rouge recognized their culture and joined in the “second line,” said Pete. Once they returned to the city to pick up the pieces of their lives, they often held similar parades in order to obtain some relief, even though the familiar stores and landmarks of their streetscape were missing because of the storm.

Irma Thomas, known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, said that storms have been a part of her life and career over the past 50 years and that she has left New Orleans three times due to hurricanes. Katrina, however, took on new meaning for her.

“Katrina gave us a look at the way we are and how vulnerable we are to weather,” she said. “It also showed us how lax and unconcerned government agencies are.”

When Katrina hit, Ms. Thomas was in Austin, Tex., on a gig. She said she saw the rooftop of her home in water on television.

“You always know where you live,” she said. “You know it.”

She and her husband lost both their home and her club, the Lions Den.

However, the tragedy didn't sink in for her until one night she sang “Back Water Blues,” a song written in the 1930s about a Louisiana storm. When she came to the line: “I went high on a hill and got no place to go,” she lost it in front of her audience.

Ms. Thomas lived in the 9th Ward. Like all evacuees who were dispersed throughout the country, she and her husband had to decide whether or not to return to New Orleans. For two years they stayed in Gonzales, 60 miles upriver, until they were able to return home “where their hearts were.”

Katrina inspired Ms. Thomas' new album, After the Rain, which won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2007.

“Music orients us to the place and provides the creative spark for ourselves and the whole city,” she said. “Music was all Orleanians had after Katrina.”

In fact, the city lost a lot of its musicians, many of whom lived in the 9th Ward. They either couldn't return home because of finances (many work for cash and don’t have a credit record) or the older ones were on tour in Europe.

Losing many of the city’s musicians created a problem for young people looking to be mentored by them. Most schools had closed and opportunities for kids to join bands and play music were severely reduced. As a result, the first Mardi Gras after Katrina had few high school marching bands playing in the parades.

“We want to let them know that they have a culture,” said Pete. “Without that [music] connection, they are lost. We needed to let them know that they have a rich culture here in New Orleans.”

“Music kept the kids out of trouble,” said Ms. Thomas. “Music teaches them discipline.” If students have bad grades, they aren't allowed to play in the band.

Since Katrina, the Tipitina's Foundation's Instruments a Comin' program has been helping students obtain musical instruments and to learn to play them.

Music has also inspired many musicians to write songs about saving the wetlands in Louisiana, which would have helped protect New Orleans from Katrina by providing buffers between land and sea.

“We're losing wetlands the size of football fields every day,” said Ms. Thomas. “If you lose New Orleans, you've lost America,” she said.

Five-time Grammy winner and singer/songwriter, pianist and guitarist Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr, known as Dr. John also expressed his concern about the wetlands as well as his love for the city.

“Thirty years ago we had a plan to build new wetlands,” he said, “but corruption in the state made the money go elsewhere.”

As a boy growing up in the bayou where people lived with the land, Dr. John learned how to hunt, fish and trap. However, 50 years later most of these wetlands are gone.

He performed his song, “Please Save Our Wetlands” on piano for conference attendees.

Dr. John now lives in New York but he retains the reputation not only as ambassador of New Orleans but as its social critic through his music.

For example, he has often railed against the influence of the oil companies whose 8,000 miles of man-made canals have played a role in Katrina's destruction.

The companies own the politicians who built the canals for “Black Gold,” the title of another song, despite the vulnerability of the coastline, he said.

Murphy Oil storage tanks spilled one million gallons of oil in St. Bernard Parish, one of the worst hit places in the city, due to Katrina's 145 mph landfall winds.

The City That Care Forgot, an album produced in 2007, won Dr. John his fifth Grammy. He said he wrote these songs because he found he couldn't live with himself if he didn't say something.

Seeing all the damage, having friends whose homes were destroyed and going to funerals was a real heart breaker for Dr. John. A post-Katrina function of the New Orleans Jazz Foundation was a great relief for people, he said. They were so glad to be there because it was a diversion from all funerals they had been attending. Now he is trying to save the city's Charity Hospital because “it has personally saved me a bunch of times.”

“Any civilization has health care,” he said as he riled against the hatred and confusion that had come out in the health care debate in Washington.

“It's simple to see what's going on. The insurance companies, chemical companies and pharmaceuticals have everyone locked in and they're making a fortune on people dying. That's not the thing to do. We all have a right to live.”

Dr. John is now working on a song about insurance companies turning their backs on Orleanians and stranding them such that they can't come home again.

“I love New Orleans and south Louisiana. It is a real sacred place.”