[Cooper:] It's so strange being back in New Orleans, nearly six months after Katrina because just about any street you go down has some association with the storm. Some memory comes flooding back. We're in the Ninth Ward right now and I remember being on this exact spot nearly six months ago. At first I couldn't tell because it was all flooded with water and we were traveling in a boat. But then I remembered this stop sign. [voice-over]: Charlie, my producer had to hang on to that stop sign to keep our boat from tipping over. A Coast Guard helicopter was overhead, trying to rescue some people stranded in their home. [on camera]: I don't know if you can see that, but right there, look up there on the porch. There they go. He's going down again. The rescuer is going down. We believe there may be at least two more people in the house. He reenters the water and then washes the house, wraps a protective binding around the people and then hoists them up. It is remarkable to see. [voice-over]: Around the corner there was a man's body, badly decomposed on the roof of a car. It was a shocking sight. He had been left out, abandoned for more than a week. [on camera]: This is the exact where nearly six months ago we saw that man's body sprawled out on top of the car. It's so strange. It's there's no memorial of it. There's no mark or there's nothing to indicate the horror that happened here. People just drive by. They weren't here then, they would never know what happened here. And that's the concern of a lot of people in New Orleans. They don't want the memories, the images to just be forgotten, to be swept up and cleaned up and bulldozed away. If it's forgotten, some people here will tell you, it very easily could happen again. Well, some who survived Katrina count their losses. Others count their blessings. But probably most people are counting both. CNN's John King found some of them in the once and future hamlet of Pearlington, Mississippi.
[Reverend, Katrina Survivor:] Oh she is gone, you know, I had a pretty vulnerable spot, but I just wanted to see.
[John King, Cnn Correspondent:] Eight hours, clinging to a tree and praying your grandson doesn't lose his grip, is a memory that doesn't fade with time.
[Burton:] I said now, son, still hold my hand. I said, don't fight the water. I said, that water is going to rise. All right.
[King:] Over the years, many hurricanes, and Reverend Samuel Burton had stayed for all. But as Katrina approached it felt different, dangerous. He left his house, made for the safety of the trees.
[Burton:] And you're running and that water and is jumping
[King:] Now, six months later, there's new life here in tiny Pearlington. Nine new precocious puppies for the reverend's dog. And yet, Pearlington also seems a forgotten place as if it were frozen in the days after Katrina. Rebuilding remains a distant dream. Just 40 percent of the debris cleared, compared to 90 percent statewide. Electricity and other basics only now coming back on line. The one grocery store still closed. And what was once a school, still serves as Pearlington's lifeline for food, clothing, the bleach vital to fight the toxic molds, the spray to fight the swarming gnats.
[Unidentified Female:] Oh, yes, we've always been left out in this town. We were called the twilight zone.
[King:] A place forgotten, the locals say, even after a storm whose mark was so unforgettable.
[Unidentified Male:] A lot of concentration, I personally feel, is going to the larger areas. And Pearlington is a small town of about 1,400 people. It's 15 miles from everywhere. It's actually 30 miles when you go round trip to get a tank of gas.
[King:] Deputy State Emergency Management Director Mike Womack concedes bigger communities tend to get help faster than hamlets like Pearlington, but says it's not all the government's fault.
[Mike Womack, Director, Deputy, State Emergency Management:] It just has to do with where the storm came in. As we know, this was pretty much ground zero.
[King:] Everyone here is mindful the calendar is working against them. Federal housing grants at least two months from arriving. The next hurricane season just three months away.
[Womack:] 18 to 24 months is going to be the earliest that we can expect to get any type of large number of houses built down here.
[King:] As for the 78-year-old Burton, he won't leave because this is home. Won't wait for the bureaucracy to decide whether or when he can rebuild it.
[Burton:] Put that board over there.
[Unidentified Male:] Over there?
[King:] So, like so many around here, he relies on volunteers, like these high school seniors from New Jersey. Their work is grimy, with the occasional breaks to enjoy the puppies... ... and the stories and songs of a man who nearly lost everything he owned... ... but not his faith or his voice. John King, CNN, Pearlington, Mississippi
[Cooper:] I love the way, how he carries around a puppy in each hand and sort of points with the puppies. Quite a unique character. As you've watched Katrina coverage these many months, you've probably wondered, where is all the money going? We certainly have. How much has been spent and how much more will it take to get things back to a so-called normal, if that's ever even possible. All of those are good questions and one we put to those in the know. Here's CNN's Tom Foreman, keeping them honest.
[Tom Foreman, Cnn Correspondent:] In the outpouring of donations after Katrina, charities took in $3,600,000,000. But more than half has been spent on just meeting the basic needs of a population set adrift. Not even starting the rebuilding. That, according to Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. Gene Tempel is the executive director.
[Eugene Tempel, Executive Director, Indiana University Center On Philanthropy:] Food, shelter, clothing, medical care, those kinds of things, that will be consumed by the family and there's nothing left to show for it except a family that might be better off than it were if that money hadn't been there.
[Foreman:] So far, about $25 billion federal tax dollars have been spent. Again, largely on immediate concerns. Housing, medical care, debris removal, disaster loans and payouts under the National Flood Insurance Program. All that spending has given some in the Gulf reason to celebrate. Property values in many areas are soaring above pre-storm levels as residents return much faster than anticipated.
[Amy Liu, Brookings Institution:] Well, I think at the six-month anniversary, there are some promising signs that families are really eager to come back to this region. But there are also troubling signs that rebuilding is really stalled.
[Foreman:] That's the catch. Analysts say for long-term success, many billions more are needed to move along levee rebuilding, to complete the cleanup and encourage housing reconstruction. Only some schools, hospitals and shops are open. The tax base is a shambles, that's one reason Mardi Gras matters.
[Unidentified Male:] The city's been losing since the Katrina about $15 million a day in the tourist industry and they needed to show that this is still a big tourist town.
[Foreman:] Simply put, a new phase of fundraising and tax spending is starting, focused on long-term commitments, especially for the hardest hit places.
[Unidentified Male:] It may be 10 years, it may be 20 years before we fully get these communities back to the state that they were in formally.
[Foreman:] For six months, though it may not seem that way for storm victims, the money has been flowing like water on the Gulf. And if there appears to be little to show for it, that is a measure of how many more years the money may have to flow. Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
[Cooper:] Tom Foreman, keeping them honest tonight. Also tonight, how Katrina changed some children's lives in a very unexpected way. What happened when two schools in Mississippi became one. That story coming up on 360.