“I got lost trying to find my way just six blocks from here,” says the 81-year-old jazz musician, gazing across the wrecked street. “That’s 52 years I’ve been here and I don’t know my own neighbourhood any more.”

As New Orleans prepares to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the flood that swallowed 80 per cent of the city, fewer than half the 450,000 people who lived in its core have returned. Many have found new homes, jobs and schools in Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, and are unable or unwilling to face the logistical, financial and emotional hurdles of trying to rebuild lives and homes here.

For those who have come back, the route has been paved with stress, confusion and frustration. In some areas new homes are sprouting and life has returned, but in others progress remains elusive.

The Lower Ninth Ward, a majority black neighbourhood of New Orleans where Mr Badie’s bungalow was submerged for weeks and is now condemned, has the air of an abandoned Wild West town.

There are houses still full of rotten debris and river sludge, rusting vehicles with grass growing through their radiator grilles, pylons leaning at odd angles, mud-stained sofas, clothes and toys still lying wherever the flood washed them.

There are no electricity, mains water, telephone service or schools. The only sound is the buzz of crickets and the occasional crunch of debris being cleared by contractors. The only green shoots of recovery are the weeds that have snaked their way through the skeletal remains of this formerly energetic community.

Across the city, Lake View — a more affluent, mainly white-owned neighbourhood that suffered similar flooding — is also still devastated. But there are pockets of recovery; new houses have sprung up, fronted by lawns and beds of flowers. Roofs are being fixed, debris is hauled away.

“Oh yes, Lake View is back isn’t it?” shouts Mr Badie, who used to play bass with music greats including Dizzy Gillespie and Sam Cooke. “Money’s got a lot to do with it, but you can put race in there too. I see no progress here, none whatsoever. I didn’t sleep well before Katrina, but now I barely sleep at all.”

With whole buildings swept away and streets left disfigured, teams with global positioning satellite technology were drafted in to the Lower Ninth Ward to identify plots and restore addresses to empty foundation slabs.

Postman Calvin Diaz follows the numbers spray-painted on the ground to make his deliveries. Out of 8,000 or so homes once on his route, he can only deliver to 300 that remain occupied, or at least still visited by their owners.

His own house was ruined and he and his wife moved to San Antonio, Texas, but he had to return to New Orleans to clock up another six months’ service to earn his pension. “After that, you can keep this place. I’ve had enough,” says Mr Diaz, who is lodging with friends and will rejoin his wife in Texas in the new year.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent $5.1 billion (£2.7 billion) on recovery in Louisiana and the insurance industry has paid $15.5 billion (£8.2 billion) to homeowners there and in Mississippi. Lawyers are working frantically on behalf of thousands of residents to file lawsuits against intransigent insurance companies by Tuesday — the first anniversary of Katrina, when the statute of limitations expires.

“People have been given the impression all along by their insurance companies that things would be resolved, but they didn’t come through, so now people are scrambling to protect their rights,” John Paul Massicot, a lawyer, said. “I hate to say this, but my gut feeling is that the insurers are counting on a large percentage of people giving up out of frustration and exhaustion.”

The suicide rate has tripled since Katrina and doctors report an epidemic of depression and anxiety-related illnesses. “For the people of New Orleans, there’s no ‘post’ in post-traumatic stress disorder,” says Father Jim Deshotels, a Jesuit priest.

Elmore Rigamer, medical director of Catholic Charities of New Orleans, is head of Lousiana Spirit, a crisis counselling programme. “The acute phase — the panic and high anxiety — may have abated, but now there’s this chronic level of tension and depression,” he said. “There’s underlying despair and hopelessness, there’s lack of confidence in leadership, there’s the worry that the levees aren’t ready to handle another big hurricane. It’s hard on everybody.

“We tell them: This was a horrendous thing, you are not going crazy if you are frightened or despondent. Know that it’s a normal reaction. Know you are going to get through it. Know that there is a road home.”

STORM TOLL

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