August 29th marked the middle of another mild Gulf hurricane season and the eleventh anniversary of our storm.
It was not mild everywhere. People in Jamaica and Haiti might didn't think it was mild. The Pacific saw a few fierce storms. Hawaii was threatened, Taiwan flattened.
Now we enter the twelfth year of our recovery. Mentally we may be a bit ahead of schedule. Sometimes forgetting is the best way to cope. Physically and economically the city continues to lag. New Orleans MSA now ranks 41st in the US economically with a GDP of $80 billion per year. (compare to $69 billion in 2005, of which $44 billion was Orleans)
For the record, twelfth is a strange word.
New Orleans–Metairie-Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area, or the Greater New Orleans Region (as it is often called by the Louisiana Tourism Commission) is a metropolitan area designated by the United States Census encompassing eight parishes (the Louisiana equivalent of other states' counties) in the state of Louisiana, centering on the city of New Orleans. As of the April 1, 2012, estimate, the metropolitan statistical area (MSA) had a population of 1,227,096.