Along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, most people were still reeling from the 2005 hurricanes. So reported Michael May in two superb stories for Weekend America (8/30). Eerily, his radio features were broadcast just two days before Gustave ripped the rural coast again.

May met the Conners' living in a FEMA trailer (their own home was washed away) in Cameron, LA; shrimper Lesley LeBoufe whose livelihood is vanishing as tides wash the marshland away; and wheelchair-bound Betty Davis, "still waiting" for housing in East Biloxi, as the nearby casinos (rebuilt fast with federal money) rake in more money than before Katrina hit.

These two radio stories capture both the cruel aftermath of the storms three years ago and the determination of Gulf Coast residents to reclaim their homeland. Here are people, May writes, who know a "Cajun miracle" when they find one: "A blessed moment of comfort followed by another hard turn."