He was born and raised in New Orleans.

But the city is no longer home for Peter J. Badie III.

"I don't see nothing in New Orleans that could bring me back," said Badie, who lost his Lower Ninth Ward home — the home his father built 51 years ago — in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last August. He now lives in an apartment on Lansing's west side.

Will he move back?

"Never — that's a fact," Badie said. "I'm all Michigan now. It's over."

One year after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast region, those affected by the storm still are picking up the pieces and rebuilding their lives — often in cities and states far away from everything they once knew.

As of Friday, there were 23 Katrina evacuees in Ingham County who received assistance from the state Department of Human Services, said spokeswoman Maureen Sorbet.

In November, there were 2,293 evacuees in the state receiving assistance, which ranges from cash to food to Medicaid services, Sorbet said. As of last week, 1,006 remained in Michigan.

For evacuees such as Badie, life in the Lansing area has become a daily adjustment. Some struggle to find employment. Some have no family or friends nearby. But amid the obstacles, a spirit of hope and optimism remains.

These are their stories.

Peter Badie III

The soft jazz music is barely audible from the living room of Badie's apartment Monday. But focus a minute and there it is, floating down the hallway — the New Orleans sound filling the room.

Badie, 48, pops a live recording from the Caribbean Jazz Project into a stereo in the living room and cranks up the volume. The distinct sound, coupled with the orange-red paintings of jazz musicians hanging in his living room, are warm and comforting reminders of his former home.

They don't evoke painful memories of New Orleans' rich cultural history or of Katrina's fury.

They help him heal.

"Music is therapy for me," said Badie, who plays bass guitar.

But it couldn't completely erase the memories, he said, especially as the anniversary neared.

"I've been having nightmares for the past week," Badie said. "I think I need to go to counseling because I'm trying to do this myself and it ain't working."

Badie lived with his father, Peter Badie Jr., in a one-story house 10 blocks from the Industrial Canal levee in the city's Lower Ninth Ward. A breach in the levee during the storm flooded his neighborhood. Badie and his father left New Orleans with several belongings before Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, but he said he found out afterward that water rose as high as the roof.

Although the house remained intact, he believes it was razed about a month ago because mildew was left behind after what he said was about three weeks' worth of water damage.

He said he learned later that several people he knew died as a result of Katrina — mostly people who didn't evacuate.

As talk of the anniversary begins to make news more frequently, Badie said he tries not to dwell on it.

He arrived in Lansing on Sept. 9. His aunt lives in the area and urged him to come north.

"En route, I said, 'Lord, I don't think I'm going to like Lansing.' I'm used to the city," he said.

But as more time passes, Lansing is becoming his home. St. Vincent Catholic Charities in Lansing helped him find an apartment the second day he was here. He bought a car and has worked at a Marco's Pizza in Lansing since late December.

"That job there pays my bills, keeps me going," Badie said. "I'm adapting. When I got here, I didn't have anything.

"Moving up here has changed my whole life on a positive note," he said. "Katrina opened up the doors of positivity for me."

Mary Kane

Boxes line the walls of the baby's room. Clothes not often worn already are packed.

She could move into the new house any day now.

In her two-bedroom apartment on the south side of Lansing — far away from her parents' Louisiana home — Kane, 23, pulls cans of food from the kitchen cabinets and stacks them side-by-side in a box on the floor Saturday. All that's left behind are the essentials — a pot, a strainer and enough food to last a few days.

"It doesn't take long to pack," Kane said.

She said she is excited about moving into the house in East Lansing with her fiance and their 4-month-old son, Damon, but eventually she wants to return to Louisiana.

Kane was living with her parents in Franklinton, La., about 90 minutes north of New Orleans, when Katrina hit last year. There was no mandatory evacuation, she said. No one thought the storm would reach the area.

"My mom and I were sitting there, looking out a bedroom window, trying to decide which trees were going next," Kane said. "All the trees got leveled."

But, she said, the aftermath was worse. Although their house survived, others were split in two or demolished from fallen trees. It took two days to remove enough limbs to make a path. There was no electricity, no phone service, no gasoline.

When they finally heard the news, Kane said she heard mostly about the situation in New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss. — two of the hardest-hit cities. But smaller communities, such as Franklinton, weren't immune to the devastation.

"There's a lot more people that were affected by it," she said.

A few days after the storm, Kane and her parents left Louisiana. Originally from Howell, she stayed with family in Pinckney for about a week before moving to the Residence Inn on Grand River Avenue in East Lansing. She stayed there for two weeks before receiving her apartment.

The week she arrived, Kane learned she was pregnant with Damon. When her parents returned to Franklinton in mid-September, she stayed behind — partly because she knew she likely would receive better medical care in Michigan than at home.

But it hasn't been easy. Kane hasn't been able to find work, and she doesn't have a car.

"We don't really know too many people here," she said. "It's hard, but we make it through."

She's hoping to find a job in a restaurant after the move and wants to begin taking classes at Lansing Community College next semester.

"The anniversary isn't going to be much different from any other day, because we're reminded of it every day," Kane said. "I try not to let it get to me, but the day that it happened and the couple days after, we were all kind of in a daze."

Marcy Wood

When Wood, an MSU volunteer, went to New Orleans in March for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, she couldn't believe the destruction.

Miles upon miles of devastation. Crumbling foundations were all that were left of buildings. Trees were snapped in half.

It all hit close to home for Wood, an MSU doctoral student who grew up across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans in Slidell.

"It was amazing to go to places that were not that far from my house where I grew up and see the flood damage and the devastation, to see the way homes were lifted off their foundations," said Wood, who returned to the area in May with MSU's New Orleans Summer Project.

The storm's one-year anniversary is a way to measure how much progress has been made, Wood said.

"It's kind of that sense that this will be a long-term process," she said. "How could it not be, given the level of devastation?"

The anniversary also holds a personal significance because her mother and stepfather, of Lacombe, La., survived the storm.

They decided to stay at home, Wood said, because they felt they would be safer farther inland from New Orleans.

"My stepdad's pretty self-sufficient, so they had a generator, they had plenty of gasoline," she said. "They didn't have any trees near the house, and they really felt like that was the biggest hazard.

"They felt like they were in pretty good shape."

The house sustained minor roof damage, but that was all, Wood said.

"It was amazing to see the power of the storm," she said. "You just can't imagine it."

Tinisha Speed

Coverage of Katrina's anniversary has been splashed on TV news channels for weeks. Archival footage of the storm's wrath. Current interviews with survivors. Analysis with hurricane experts.

Speed, an evacuee, won't be watching any of it.

"It don't do nothing but bring up memories again," said Speed, 26. "You try to remember everything else before the storm, but the memories just never left."

She speaks slowly, patiently, clinging to a gold cross that hangs around her neck as she recalls the past year.

Speed has been in East Lansing with her three children since last September. They share a two-story, townhome-style apartment.

The New Orleans native and her family lived in the city's West Bank region when Katrina hit. Speed had just given birth weeks before and did not want to spend days traveling away from home.

Besides, she said, no one thought the storm would be serious.

"We knew it was going to be strong, but we didn't know it would be as bad as it was," Speed said. "Every year they cry wolf. And when the wolf showed up, we weren't prepared for it."

The family waited for the storm to pass in a West Bank apartment building. They remained there for days in the hot, sticky weather before leaving for different shelters in the state.

Speed says she has not yet adjusted to living in Michigan.

"That's going to take awhile," she said. "You can't just pop back into a routine because there is no routine. I don't see anything I'm familiar with."

Speed has a car she can borrow when she needs it and has been filling out job applications for the past couple of months. She's looking for something close to home.

Her family will live in the area for at least another year, she said, and then might relocate to Texas where her mother lives.

But she's not ready to return to her former city for good.

"New Orleans holds some painful, painful memories," said Speed, who went back for the first time in February. "When you go to New Orleans, you have this tingly thing all over you because you're just so excited. When I got there, the city just looked so dead.

"It's just not the same."