US: One year on from the floods, people are beginning to absorb into their culture their survival, writes Peter Whoriskey in Biloxi, Mississippi
He doesn't seem the type to rattle easily. A gravel-voiced retired seaman with piratical swagger, Jim DeSilvey survived Katrina's 7.6m (25ft) storm surge by tying one end of an electrical cord around his waist and the other around a telephone pole.
But these days when light winds begin to blow around his Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) trailer, he springs to the window.
"I just want to make sure the water isn't coming up," he says.
He seems embarrassed.
"You would, too, if you'd been through what I've been through," he adds.
As people on the Gulf Coast marked the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina yesterday, there were public memorial ceremonies and stoic promises to rebuild.
President George Bush toured neighbourhoods on Monday. But many say any remembrances of that day - many of the reasons for which remain appallingly clear - still largely instil private flashes of nervousness, guilt or depression.
For the tens of thousands of people who are still displaced by the storm, moreover, the possibilities of getting back home might now seem more remote than ever.
Less than 5 per cent of the thousands of destroyed homes are being rebuilt, local officials say. Most of the affected homeowners in Mississippi and Louisiana have yet to see any of the billions in federal money approved to help them get back home.
"For the people who've been able to get back to their homes, there's a sigh of relief," says Biloxi City Council member Bill Stallworth. "But for those who haven't - and that's the vast majority here - there's a real panic.
"People recognise that it's been a year and they're still where they were the day after the storm," he says. "Now the volunteer groups are drying up. The money to assist families is drying up. People don't know what they're going to do."
Across a roughly 65km- (40-mile) stretch of the Mississippi Gulf coast from Waveland to Biloxi, the storm pushed ashore a wall of water six metres (20ft) or higher, according to Mississippi state researchers.
Along that portion of the Gulf, the fast-moving water "slabbed" countless homes - that is, it left nothing but the slab behind.
Unlike the devastation of New Orleans, which resulted from the failure of man-made flood walls and levees, the devastation here is viewed more purely as a natural disaster.
So while in New Orleans many vilify the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies responsible for flood control, many here simply blame themselves for not evacuating.
Counsellors at relief organisations say they have dealt with parents who feel guilt for not having evacuated children or other loved ones. The anniversary is dredging up recollections.
"It's unsettling," says Julian Blunt, the executive director of an arts group here. "You're just remembering everything that happened." Blunt had persuaded his wife not to evacuate from their home just a few blocks from the Gulf, telling her everything would be fine.
Then, at the height of the storm, the columns on the front of their Biloxi home fell.
"I thought we were done for," he says. "I told my wife, 'Baby get your shoes on', because I thought we had to go under the house.
"She looked up at me, and I'll never forget her face. She said, 'I thought you said we would be all right'."
The event and its effects are just now finding a place in the local culture and in the things disaster tourists buy here.
Bay St Louis artist Nicki Violet has put together a book on sale locally of photos of the wreckage with punning captions. A wrecked movie theatre is titled "Box Office Hit", while fridges beside the side of the road are "White Trash".
Another resident, Solveig Wells (62), who is retired, has put together quilts made from fabric that was washed out of her home and which she found on the beach months later, faded and marred by Katrina.
They are on display at the library.
"There's lots of people who feel there are bits and pieces of their lives floating around all over the place," she says.
Whether or not the experience of Katrina will better prepare everyone for the next storm is unclear. Stallworth says many people are rebuilding homes at the same elevation - beating the deadline under new flood insurance guidelines - to save money. He says they cannot afford to raise their homes a dozen feet in the air, as is required in parts.
Others, even those who narrowly avoided drowning, say they might not evacuate next time. Some say the searing experience had no lasting effects.
Doug Niolet (55) survived the storm by swimming to a towering live oak, climbing up and saying the rosary. Stoically he says: "People ask do I have nightmares, but it never really affected me." His wife, Vicky, disagrees: "He goes to church a lot more."