Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and exploded the conventional wisdom about a shared American prosperity, exposing a group of people so poor they didn't have $50 for a bus ticket out of town. If we want to learn something from this disaster, the lesson ought to be: America's poor deserve better than this.

I did live through Katrina and also Hurricane Rita, which hit Lake Charles. Interestingly, when Katrina hit, they evacuated and Lake Charles was one of the evacuation destinations. We opened up the civic center of the city to the evacuees and provided them free medical and psychiatric care there.

We've done it in intelligence sharing and certain elements of security. There were parts of the department, in fact, that worked very well in Katrina, like the Coast Guard and TSA.

My heart goes out to victims and survivors of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and to their families. This disaster will go down in history books as one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history.

In her second career as a minister, my mother defied a legacy of chauvinism to become a leader of our community, overseeing a church that served as a hub, offering parenting classes, a food pantry, after-school programming, and - in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - a lifeline to those ravaged by loss.

I've been through so much, especially coming from New Orleans where there was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I had to pick up. We had to move, make new friends, and I think my family was just strong for me as well because we had to start completely over again.

I moved to Humble under really unfortunate circumstances obviously, Hurricane Katrina, so our family was displaced here for four months. Humble was a home for us.

I'll never forget Hurricane Katrina - the mix of a natural and a man-made catastrophe that resulted in the death of over 1,500 of our neighbors. Millions of folks were marked by the tragedy.

My last trip to New Orleans was for the fifth anniversary of Katrina, and I had the awesome opportunity to bring my family down. We all worked on a house together and met some of the families.

A miracle is a single mom who works two jobs to care for her kids and still helps them with their homework at night. A miracle is a child donating all the money in their piggy bank to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's where you'll find the hand and face of God.

We've done it in intelligence sharing and certain elements of security. There were parts of the department in fact that worked very well in Katrina like the Coast Guard and TSA.

Relief organizations both large and small are coordinating deliveries of food clothing water and other basic necessities to those impacted by Katrina.

I have faith the men and women of the Coast Guard will immediately rise to the challenge and see the people hit by Katrina through until the storm has truly calmed.

In my home State of Louisiana several institutions of higher education have been impacted by both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita literally dozens across the entire State.

My last trip to New Orleans was for the fifth anniversary of Katrina and I had the awesome opportunity to bring my family down. We all worked on a house together and met some of the families.