By host Tom Ashbrook:

We are broadcasting from New Orleans this hour. We’re digging into the precarious state of this historic city, a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina and its devastation.

The city center and fabled French Quarter are cleaned up, and wide open for business. But turn any corner in New Orleans, and you can still come face to face with Katrina’s brutal and lingering impact.

Much of this city still isn’t home, and many who are here fear the country has moved on. “Make levees, not war” reads one cheeky t-shirt here. But the levees are still waiting.

This hour On Point: the state of a city, risen to its knees and wondering what’s next?

Guests:

Douglas Brinkley, historian and director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization, professor of History at Tulane University, and author of “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast”;
Lolis Eric Elie, columnist for the Times Picayune.;
Martha Carr, assistant city editor for the Times Picayune.