Katrina shocks New Orleans visitors 10 months on

NEW ORLEANS, July 2 (Reuters) - Bill Friend thought he was ready to go home again. He had read the newspapers, watched TV and talked with friends about the devastation wreaked on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

Still, he was shocked.

"You go down street after street after street and see nothing -- wreckage," said Friend, 80, who grew up in New Orleans and now lives in the Washington area. "The overall impression of it is how much of it there is."

Katrina hit New Orleans on Aug. 29, flooding 80 percent of the city and killing more than 1,500 from Louisiana in one of the worst natural disasters the country has seen. So far, only about half the population has returned and vast stretches of the city are nearly deserted and still full of debris.

Some are puzzled, angry or indignant at the lack of progress. Insurance money has begun flowing but direct aid to homeowners is not expected before the fall, and views of government's leadership vary sharply among residents.

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