Unemployment surges after Katrina.

Nearly 282,000 Louisiana residents, 14 percent of the state's workers, are unemployed because of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The huge number of filings is draining Louisiana's unemployment trust fund.The 281,745 hurricane-related claims filed over the past seven weeks are 45 percent more than the total for all of 2004. They are 13 times the normal seven-week total, Labor Department spokesman Ed Pratt said.

This is a pretty deep hole if we have to climb out of it all by ourselves.