Recently I had the opportunity to attend at the National League of Cities (NLC) Congress of Cities conference in New Orleans. Several thousand municipal elected officials participated in the dozens of workshops and tours. The NLC conferences are chocked full of information. I learn so much when I attend. Among the speakers was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

The NLC always provides an opportunity for delegates to go out and give back to the community. In New Orleans, as you can imagine, there is so much that needs to be done to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Two of the projects that NLC delegates helped with were working on Habitat for Humanity homes and more than 150 people joined together to build a playground in Joe Brown Park. My most moving experience was a tour of the lower Ninth Ward. Our tour guide, Marty, gave us the personal side of the devastation from Katrina. At the beginning of the tour she made the point that she wanted to show us "her" city. We drove by two FEMA trailers in the lower 9 th Ward where an elderly lady lives in one trailer and her disabled nephew lives in the other one. Marty explained that this lady comes out of trailer and waves every time a tour bus comes by. She wants us to know that she appreciates that we took the time to see what she is going through.

I learned that everybody has a story to tell when they had to evacuate. We talked to many New Orleans residents about their evacuation from Katrina. One man went to live with is family in New York State, and another went to Shreveport Louisiana for a few months. Many people have returned to New Orleans. Others, however, have not come back. All of the people we encountered were very grateful and thanked us for coming to New Orleans.

I thought about what the people of Aurora would do if we had a similar disaster. We probably won't see the amount of devastation seen in Katrina, but we could see damage and destruction from tornados, floods and other disasters on a smaller scale. Aurora does have an Office of Emergency Management and is responsible for preventing, preparing for and responding to large scale emergencies and disasters. My experience in New Orleans has left me with some very vivid memories that I will have forever.