NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A prolonged recession and a tight credit market would cripple New Orleans' still-fragile recovery from Hurricane Katrina, delaying or eliminating road work, new construction and repairs to homes and businesses that have stood empty since 2005.
The city's infrastructure plans should stay on track, but a real estate expert calls it a "terrifying" scenario: A lack of sufficient credit would smother companies trying to start up or expand, and with them the new jobs needed to grow the area's economy. It would choke the flow of cash that developers need to build new homes and first-time homeowners need to buy them. And it would make it tough for the city to sell bonds to finance rebuilding projects on its appointed timeline.

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• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
NEW ORLEANS — U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu said Wednesday that her third-term win crushed predictions that Hurricane Katrina had destroyed her New Orleans-area political base.
“Last night, the conventional wisdom was shattered,” Landrieu said during a mid-morning news conference.
“The Katrina effect that everyone predicted just didn’t happen,” she added later.
Landrieu defeated Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy, and three others, in Tuesday’s balloting.
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WWL First News Reporting

The Nagin administration and the main redevelopment agency in New Orleans have signed a $38 million agreement to further reduce blight and spur greater investment in the city more than three years after Hurricane Katrina.
Nagin said the agreement represents a $38 million commitment to NORA by the City of New Orleans, and is funded as a portion of the City's $411 million in Disaster CDBG funding administered through the Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA).

by Emilie Bahr Staff Writer

Thomas Ziglar moved to Louisiana from Florida the week after Hurricane Katrina, hoping to cash in on the promise of jobs galore in the storm’s recovery. His wife, Shannon, arrived a couple months later.
The job opportunities were plentiful at first, said Ziglar, an audio-visual effects specialist. He figured once the remediation work waned, he could make a living in the burgeoning film industry here. But three years later, Ziglar has found it more difficult than expected to break into the movie business. He’s on unemployment, which provides about $200 a week. His wife, meantime, makes about $14 an hour as an assistant phlebotomist.
In Florida, the couple made ends meet on modest incomes by paying just $300 a month for their home outside Tampa. But today, higher living costs make it a struggle to survive.
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Pass to break ground on new store Nov. 18
By RYAN LaFONTAINE - rlafontaine@sunherald.com
Katrina crushed Wal-Mart, bookkeepers in this harbor town have been holding their breath each month of the last three years, concerned about how the city will meet payroll and hold off insolvency.
Before the storm Pass Christian relied heavily on sales tax from its lone cash cow, Wal-Mart. Of the city's $5 million pre-storm budget, about $1 million came from Wal-Mart. The retail giant was responsible for more than $75,000 of the city's monthly income.
When the first shovel load of dirt is scooped up Nov. 18, bookkeepers can exhale.
That's when Wal-Mart will begin construction on a new $11.6 million store on its original beachfront property in Pass Christian.
"The Wal-Mart meant the same thing to us as the Beau Rivage means to Biloxi; that's how big this is," Mayor Chipper McDermott said.
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Danielle Thomas
GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) - After more than three years and thousands of coast homes built or repaired, a volunteer group is preparing to say goodbye to the Mississippi Gulf coast. Shortly after Katrina, a group of Indiana churches formed Hope City to organize and house volunteers wanting to come here to do recovery work.
When Kaye Van Pelt decided to come from Indiana to volunteer, she worried she wouldn't have as much to contribute as the rest of the group.
"I knew all the girls that were coming down would have special talents like painting or something like that and I just didn't know what my talent was going to be," Van Pelt said
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Associated Press Reporting
Red street cars could soon begin rolling on Canal Street, in another sign of recovery for New Orleans.
The Regional Transit Authority has started testing the first of the cars restored after Hurricane Katrina flooded the facility that housed the 24 red cars that had run on the line.