An uneven recovery: increased steel traffic helps Port of New Orleans regain footing, but many port tenants are still struggling.(Transportation: Maritime)

From New Orleans to Pascagoula, ports along the Gulf Coast are making slow but real progress toward recovery a year after Hurricane Katrina. But they are still struggling with the terrible breadth of the storm's damage.

That damage includes not only ruined facilities but lost customers and freight that has been rerouted to other ports and other areas over the past year. Damage to the region's image may take longer to repair than its infrastructure.

That makes business tough for shippers in the region as they looks for ways to cope with endemic labor shortages and skyrocketing transportation costs.

In New Orleans, post-Katrina flooding devastated …