New-look Saints try to move past painful '05

JACKSON, Miss. -- Last year the map Mickey Loomis used as a prop sat on an easel in the bowels of the San Antonio Alamodome, then the temporary home for the New Orleans Saints. The map showed an aerial view of New Orleans, the real home of the displaced Saints.

New Saints coach Sean Payton was with Dallas when Katrina hit a year ago. (Getty Images)

Loomis, the Saints general manager, pulled a visitor over to the map and pointed out areas of mass destruction -- spots where players, coaches and staff had houses impacted or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

"We got lucky, sort of," said a drained Loomis. "Most of our people didn't have it nearly as bad as many others."

Fast forward to this summer, and we find a far better time for the Saints and Loomis, whose face is now absent of the two dark circles he had under his eyes 10 months ago.

It is a feel-good time, what with Reggie Bush, Drew Brees and new coach Sean Payton all new to the team this year. But underneath the excitement sits an undercurrent of distress that many on this team, and most in the city, will never forget.

How can they? Not after a disaster that ravaged a city, played out for all of us live on network television, but nothing like the reality of being part of it.

This summer, to demonstrate what the storm did to the city of New Orleans, Loomis once again used a map, one of a different kind. Sitting at his desk at Millsaps College during training camp, he took out a piece of paper and started drawing his own map of the city.

With apologies to him for his artwork, it was a rough rendering, but it proved the point.

"This area is destroyed," he said, pointing to a spot on the map.

"This one, too," he added, pointing to another.

He paused for a second.

"I don't know when they will come back," he said.

Will they ever? And if they don't, what does that mean for the future of the New Orleans Saints?