PORT SULPHUR, La. - Dwayne Palmisano is losing patience with the U.S. Coast Guard, which can't tell him when a crane will yank his 42-foot shrimp boat from the muck where Hurricane Katrina dumped it in August.

Mitch Jurisich, an oysterman, is piqued at the Army Corps of Engineers, which shut down a local floodgate for repairs, cutting him off from his oyster beds after he spent $100,000 to replace his ruined dock operation.

And Benny Rousselle, the Plaquemines Parish president, is fed up with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which won't give residents mobile homes and has delivered only a fraction of the smaller travel trailers the parish has requested.

These are days of angst and frustration in this mosquito-infested ribbon of bayous that stretches for 100 miles south of New Orleans. Katrina flattened the lower half of the remote parish, obliterating a string of towns and leaving 16,000 homeless - half the parish population.

From the ruins of Port Sulphur at the parish midpoint, past what used to be Homeplace and Triumph, to the end of the bayou in flattened Venice, Plaquemines remains a wasteland. The flat, sodden landscape looks much as it did after 30-foot tidal surges crashed down more than six months ago from the Mississippi River to the east and the Gulf of Mexico marshes to the west.

Despair is literally written on wrecked homes. "Please Finish Bulldozing," says a message on one crumpled house. Others read, "Push Down," "Destroy" or, simply, "Doze."

Whole orange groves are dead, and the parish's commercial fishing fleet is a wreck. Entire villages are ghost towns, their populations scattered to all 50 states, according to Mr. Rousselle.

"It's disheartening - it's like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble," said Alan Vaughn, an agriculture agent who lost his home and research station. "You work like a beaver for months, but you look up and you can't tell any difference."

Some residents blame the slow recovery on the federal government. But even the fiercest critics acknowledge that recovery would be impossible without the millions of dollars in federal resources and manpower flowing into Plaquemines. Still, many people expected to be further along by now.

Mr. Rousselle said FEMA bungling had interfered with parish recovery efforts. "From Day 1, dealing with FEMA has been a headache," he said in Belle Chasse in northern Plaquemines, where hurricane damage was modest. "Their flow of information is poor, and so is their decision-making."

The agency cannot provide mobile homes, because federal law prohibits them in floodplains, Ms. Andrews said - and low-lying Plaquemines is mostly floodplain. But more travel trailers, which can be towed to safety, are on the way, she said.

Gwen Loga, a fisherman's wife, recently managed to get a FEMA trailer after a three-month wait. But workers have yet to hook up electricity on the plot in Boothville where her previous residence - a mobile home - was flattened by Katrina.

There are some signs of progress. The Army Corps of Engineers is repairing 162 miles of river and marsh levees. Utility crews are restoring power. Backhoes are chipping away at mountains of debris. Police officers have moved into "Cop Land," a cluster of FEMA trailers.

Half the local orange trees were killed, and 70 percent of those that remain suffered serious damage. Half the 200 growers in the parish - where oranges have been grown since 1727 - are out of business, with little chance of coming back, Mr. Vaughn said.

In Empire, Mr. Palmisano was eager to get back on his shrimp boat after Katrina struck. But the storm surge dumped the vessel into a tangle of ships in the marsh - among them the Lady Grace, his father's shrimper, and the Natalie Nicole, owned by Dwayne's brother, Daniel.

A Coast Guard spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Yuri Graves, said the agency could not provide timetables to each boat owner as it worked to clear waterways of boats and debris in the most efficient way. Cmdr. Graves said 433 vessels had been removed in Plaquemines, with more than 800 still mired in waterways.

No one is asking for reparations. But residents such as Mr. Jurisich, whose Croatian grandparents started the family oyster operation in 1915, would like a little more consideration.

Mr. Jurisich said he spent weeks rebuilding his oyster dock and processing operation so that his four boats could get back to work. But just as he finished up last month, the Army Corps of Engineers shut down the floodgate at Empire for repairs, blocking direct access to his 13,000 acres of leased oyster beds.

"This is not a minor inconvenience - it's a major setback," he said, swatting gnats at his rebuilt dock. "I spent all my savings on my dock. I'm tapped out."

A corps spokeswoman, Rashida Banks, said the repairs were delayed by local budget problems and should be completed by May 1 - well into the March-to-November oyster season.

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