Lack of Cohesion Bedevils Recovery

...One night, the 42-year-old mechanic said, he drove to a highway overpass, where his cell phone got some reception, and speed-dialed the toll-free numbers for FEMA and the Red Cross for six hours straight, from 8 in the evening until 2 in the morning.

He could not get through...

Lacourt, the mechanic, said he has used up two tanks of gas driving around the region looking for housing assistance. A rumor of help in Laplace, La., turned out to be false. In Ocean Springs, Miss., FEMA officials working out of a former Kmart gave him FEMA's toll-free number again.
"That's completely useless," he said he told them.

"That's all we can do," he said he was told....