NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A group of elected officials and leaders In New Orleans said they gathered to mark the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and to press for rebuilding.
"In the past eight decades, Louisiana has lost 1,880 square miles of coastal marshes or an area about the size of Manhattan," Norma Jean Sabiston of the Climate Action Committee Louisiana told the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. "It is land that Louisiana and our nation cannot afford to lose," she said.
The public also viewed the brand new Ground Zero Hurricane Museum in Waveland, Miss., for Thursday's anniversary, and people across the United States commemorated the lives of the 1,800 people who died in the storm, USA Today reported.
The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center issued a snapshot of post-Katrina statistics Thursday for the anniversary, The Times-Picayune reported.
The city's population has dropped from 484,674 from 2000 to 369,250 in 2012, the statistics indicate.
But the population has grown in recent years, and the area has weathered the economic downturn impressively, The Times-Picayune reported.
As of 2012, the area had recovered all its job losses, and the area has also experienced growth in knowledge-based industries.
As of July 2012, zero families are living in FEMA trailers, down from more than 70,000 in August 2006.
