I live in Slidell, Louisiana. Check that - I *used* to live in Slidell, Louisiana. Slidell is now really nothing more than a collection of abandoned and flooded buildings that over 35,000 people used to call home. With all the media attention on New Orleans, it's easy to forget about the smaller, more rural areas that have also been destroyed, and will most likely never fully recover... areas like my town of Slidell. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it became very apparent to me that my.