New Orleans native Aaron Neville, who moved to Tennessee after his home was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, is about to close on a new house located about 40 miles from his hometown.      

It's nice," he told The Times-Picayune newspaper of his purchase near Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain. "I can sit outside and watch the sun go down, then drive on in to New Orleans."       

Neville was on tour with the Neville Brothers when Katrina hit in August 2005, leaving much of the city immersed in flood water. Though he watched the disaster unfold from a distance, he couldn't see himself returning. The singer moved north and purchased a house in Brentwood, Tenn.      

Now he says he wants to be nearer to his children. He hadn't returned to New Orleans until last year, to fulfill his wife's wish to be buried in her hometown, and he has visited family and friends in New Orleans several times since then.       

His new place is built on higher ground. "I don't want to run every time a hurricane comes," he said.