NORWICH – For the second year, Chenango Memorial’s Linda Lewis-Moors and 11 of her (Newcomb College of ) Tulane University classmates journeyed back to the home of their alma mater, New Orleans, Louisiana, to help rebuild the city, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

For a week just after Thanksgiving, they worked at Habitat for Humanity’s Musicians’ Village in the upper ninth ward, where musicians and others are finding new homes and developing their construction skills.

Linda and her friends report that New Orleans’ downtown and the French Quarter are looking good, and with the St. Charles streetcar running again (although the route is still not back to normal), the residential areas of the part of the city closest to downtown look about the same as pre-Katrina. However, there are still many pockets of the city that look as devastated as they did immediately after the flood waters receded.