Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina shook America, Kansas National Guard officials met at Forbes Field.

Their mission was to check on Kansas troops operating in different southern cities and survey the evacuation and relief effort.

We boarded a C-12, small government airplane with Major General Tod Bunting and other Kansas Army and Air Force leaders early Saturday morning.

A two-hour flight led us to the first stop in Alexandria, Louisiana 220 miles away from the chaos of New Orleans.

At the airport in Alexandria, National Guard airplanes and helicopters are as plentiful as the love bugs swarming the Louisiana air.

Kansas soldiers have set up camp on an old landfill a few miles from Camp Beauregard. The tents and heavy military equipment look like a war zone even though they're two hours away from the front line. Their mission is to provide communication support for Hammond, Louisiana.

In many parts of the state there is still no electricity or phone lines. The lack of communication has made it hard to request aid, food, water or supplies for troops in many of the bordering Gulf cities.

Communication is one of the first steps to getting a city back on its feet. These soldiers know the service they're providing is important.

Many Kansas troops are organized to provide this communication service; they are often called in for services like this.

Not far from the submerged city of New Orleans is Belle Chase Air Service Station. 10,000 National Guard troops are camping out in a base built for 2,000.

Major General Tod Bunting paid a visit to Kansas soldiers working on logistics.

Kansas National Guard troops are in charge of coordinating New Orleans relief effort. Using maps and computer logs, soldiers determine where troops are in the city and where supplies are needed.

After visiting with troops we climbed into a black hawk helicopter.

Pilots flew us as close as they could over the city of New Orleans. Water covered the streets and edged up to the rooftops of many houses. The damage to the Superdome was visible from the air.

Cars were stranded on parts of 100,000 pound bridge pieces that had broken apart.

The flooding stretched for miles.

Troops from all over the country continuously searched the streets of New Orleans looking for people.

Master Sergeant Rodney Evans, with the Texas Air National Guard says it's hard to see the city like this, "The buildings are still here, it's just different because there's no people right now."

Kansas troops in charge of operations expect to be here for 60 to 90 days.

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi was one of the hardest hit cities in the south.

Relief efforts by Kansas guardsmen included a makeshift hospital and communication services.

At the end of a long day we headed into some of the worst destruction we had seen yet. A fully operating hospital was set up in the midst of it all.

The one of a kind, Emeds facility with a pharmacy, operating rooms, patient rooms, and a dentist, provided by the state of Kansas was up and running.

When we arrived, doctors had just finished surgery.

In the heart of ground zero a small group of Kansas soldiers set up a communication system from a microwave network truck.

It will soon give Bay of St. Louis officials the chance to communicate with the outside world.

Bay St. Louis streets are hardly recognizable. Some houses are completely demolished. Boats and cars haphazardly strewn about. Many locals were wandering the streets looking at the damage.

While Jimmy Carver and a friend were looking at their beloved town, they stopped to talk to Major General Bunting.

"It's you just wanted to cry, because it's gone, you know, but we livin’, you know, we livin.'"

Carver and his family lost their home and are sleeping in tents, but are thankful for the presence of soldiers in Bay St. Louis.

“They got people all around the country that's helping us. You know, they gotta lot of love in the U.S."

General Bunting was also glad his troops are down there.

"You know their hearts are broken too, they're working hard but they're also very proud to be here, we're talking about the resilience of the American people and I think it's been demonstrated here."

As the sun sets over the coast, their loss is not forgotten.