St Bernard Parish (county) is the Parish due east of the New Orleans Parish and one of the most hard hit by Katrina. The Parish covers well over 800 sq miles and it has just two public schools open now, just opened the second one a few months back, and the infastructure of all of the small towns there was thouroughly taxed by the storms onslaught. This was a middle class working mans suburban area with a lot of people in the fishing industry along with shrimping and oyster harvesting along with the normal trades of any middle class american suburb. Homes ranged from the high teens up to million dollar ranges while apartments were reasonable before the storm with a moderate 2 bedroom going for $450-$475 a month now going for over $800 a month if it can even be found. The area was hit by broken levees and storm surges so vast areas of this Parish were under up to 14 ft of water for several weeks and some areas being hit by the storm surge (tidal like waves) of up to 25 ft high which structurally weakened many many buildings such that they will have to be demolished. There are over 3,000 buildings that will have to be demolished in the county not counting a lot of homes that are not included in that count. (Yellow signs with Red Exes are now being placed on those buildings).

After FEMA left and stopped doing debri pick up the county has not been able to take that task on so people are setting with debri piles in front of their houses for months at a time, either they have to find a way to haul it off themselves or some have taken to burning the safely burnable materials in their own neighborhoods.
Update July 17, 2007
Head of FEMA testafies before Congress that they have only done environmental testing on ONE FEMA trailer to check for high levels of formaldahyde and other chemicals, not even counting high levels of mold in installed trailers that were improperly constructed and allowed water in the walls of the units. Also it has come out that many of the contractors that worked in the various Parish's (other than the New Orleans Parrish who had let the ACE {Army Corp of Engineers} do the administration of contracts between contractors the State and FEMA) have not been paid for their work for jobs done right after the storm (up to 21+months before) up to the current time. In reguards to St Bernard Parish it turns out that most of the sewage from the system has to be picked up by vaccum trucks from various sumps in the neighborhoods and hauled out since the system has not been fixed to operate normally and the primary contractor says he is owed over $100 Million for that work and other work that he has performed. Folks this is a real mess.

In fact most of the Parrish's along and near New Orleans are in dire straits themselves from lack of revenue and taxes since less than half of the population has returned to them and many businesses have yet to reopen. There are still huge contracts to rebuild the infastructure of these areas: roads, sewage systems, police and fire stations, libraries, other public works and many contractors won't even attempt to bid on the projects because of the ongoing FEMA fiasco. One Congressman today in total disgust said that this should not be happening in AMERICA!