This American Life producer Sarah Koenig visits Pearlington, Mississippi, a town in danger of not starting up again after Hurricane Katrina. It's in Hancock County, the Ground Zero of the hurricane's devastation.

Paul Tough’s father was a mild-mannered professor—until he suddenly left the family to pursue a lifelong quest: making contact with extraterrestrial life. For the first time, Paul joins him and asks the questions he’s long kept to himself about his father’s alien pursuits.

About fifteen miles from Pearlington, Bay St. Louis and Waveland are other communities struggling to bring themselves back to life.