About two weeks after Katrina, I saw his sister Susan (who is a fine rootsy singer/songwriter these days) at Johnny D's in Somerville, Mass. At the time she was on a tour with no immediate end since her house in New Orleans was inaccessible. At one point she mentioned from the stage that she hadn't heard from her brother since before the storm and was hoping that he was OK, and that there had been times in the past where he had just dropped out of sight for a while and she was hoping this was just another one. Obviously he wasn't OK, which is a really sad ending to thr story.