"Finally tonight, the parts of this city not visible to the rest of the nation. From the air, New Orleans -- and this whole region for that matter -- looks like a sea of blue. The locals call it "FEMA blue," the plastic tarp material that covers the roofs of houses.

And when you fly over at night, you see the reality as well. As much as this city wants to stress the services that have been restored: there are entire areas still living in darkness. No power. No lights. For three months.

The U.S. is at war. The holidays are coming. Americans are busy. And a whole lot of people in this area want people to know: life is still a daily struggle in this part of the world."

"New tests by the Natural Resources Defense Council and a Louisiana-based environmental chemist found dangerously high levels of industrial chemicals and heavy metals in the sediment covering much of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The tests also found alarming levels of long-banned pesticides that flood waters carried from an abandoned factory into a residential neighborhood. The tests found arsenic levels in samples from neighborhoods across the entire city, for example, that exceeded Environmental Protection Agency safety limits -- in some places by a factor of 30 -- and samples taken in residential neighborhoods near two toxic waste sites found high levels of DDT and other banned pesticides, and cancer-causing petroleum chemicals."

"Cars are strewn around in random ways straddling curbs, on the neutral grounds, some upside down. Skiffs, canoes, pirogues and even small cruisers were beached. Everything once covered in flood waters is now covered in an ash-brown dried mud. Anything that was once green, is now dead and dessicated, coated in that same ash-brown dried mud."

The telethon will feature performances by Sheryl Crow, Dixie Chicks, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys, and Paul Simon. Presenters will include Jennifer Aniston, Ellen DeGeneres, Ray Romano, Jack Nicholson, Cameron Diaz, Sela Ward, and Chris Rock.