(CNN) -- In the year since she graduated from law school, Melissa Nunley was starting to build a life for herself in Gulfport, Mississippi. She landed her first job in a small law firm, and bought her very first home, just two blocks from the beach. But Katrina ravaged the home, put an end to the law firm, and put her on the road."I loved the Gulfport area. It was just becoming home to me. And to see it how it is now is very hard," Nunley told CNN.Like so many survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Nunley is hoping to find a new job as a step toward rebuilding her life. Preliminary estimates from the U.S. Department of Labor indicate the hurricanes may have wiped out hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Gulf Coast region, primarily in Louisiana and Mississippi. The Congressional Budget Office predicts Katrina alone could cost the United States some 400,000 jobs this fall as the storm's impact ripples throughout the economy.Looking for workSome of the newly unemployed survivors are staying in the region, hoping to re-open their businesses or participate in the rebuilding process. Others are fanning out across the country in search of better opportunities. Many will remain in the cities to which they evacuated.In cities with the most evacuees, such as Houston, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the job search could be difficult, analysts say."The question is how many people are entering the low-skilled markets in these new towns," said Rebecca Blank, dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. "My guess is there is going to be pretty heavy and extended unemployment in the areas with the most evacuees."A fortunate few evacuees were able to remain with their employers, but in new locations."We told associates that they could go to any facility in the country and have a job," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Sarah Clark said. "We have associates today who are relocated all the way from the Gulf Coast to Alaska."Roughly 2,400 Wal-Mart employees took the company up on its relocation offer, according to Clark.Finding a helping handMany companies and civic organizations are reaching out to hurricane survivors to help them find new jobs.Regional civic and business organizations have sponsored dozens of Katrina-related job fairs across the country. Some individual companies, such as Station Casinos in Las Vegas, actively sought evacuees, particularly those with experience in casinos in Biloxi and New Orleans."We currently have 400 positions open, ranging from entry level through management," said Station Casinos spokeswoman Lori Nelson. "Knowing that we haven't filled them locally, we started getting the word out to evacuees."Nelson said Station cut the usual three-week hiring process to two hours for evacuees. Station shuttled job-seekers from a community center to their job fair. The company gave evacuees a skills and interests assessment. And Station employment managers conducted final-round interviews. The company extended 84 offers. For Internet-savvy job-seekers, CareerBuilder.com and Monster Worldwide have designed Web pages where employers and survivors can post and search jobs free of charge. The Monster site also includes a section for people who want to work in the reconstruction effort. (CareerBuilder.com is a CNN.com partner.)Many new jobs could result from Gulf Coast reconstruction. Congress and private organizations are expected to spend tens of billions of dollars in the region to help it recover. Tens of thousands of homes and business need to be rebuilt."This is very good for the construction industry. This goes for the whole Gulf Coast, not just New Orleans," Michigan's Blank said.Moving back homeThe reconstruction effort could draw some evacuees back to the region. So could the difficulty of finding a new job in a new city.Deborah Brown, her three children and her husband, Michael, evacuated from Slidell, Louisiana, to Newton, Texas, as Katrina rolled in. She had been working at a Wal-Mart in Slidell and quickly found a new position at a Wal-Mart in Texas."I just thought this is where I'm most comfortable. I'm going to come to Wal-Mart," Brown said.But Michael Brown, a drafting engineer, was not as fortunate. He couldn't find comparable work in Texas, so the whole family decided to move back to Louisiana."It feels wonderful," she says of being back in Slidell. "But nothing looks the same. Everything is trashed, but we're going to rebuild."Other evacuees may not have that option.Nunley, the young attorney, would like move back to Gulfport. But it doesn't seem likely."My house is gone. And my job is gone," Nunley told CNN. "So at this point, there really is nothing to go back to down there."