Five years after Katrina many parts of the lower 9th ward look like the flood waters just receded yesterday.

Many of the damaged and destroyed homes have not been touched at all, in fact many still have those infamous red X’s painted on the front, indicating the date the homes were inspected and how many bodies were found inside.

Clearly the recovery and rebuilding process is moving at a snails pace.

Before Katrina there were 53 hundred homes in the lower 9th ward. Every single one of them was flooded and uninhabitable. Now only 12 hundred have been repaired or rebuilt.

The main reasons more people haven’t come back to the 9th ward is because there are only three volunteer organizations building homes, and they don’t have enough money or resources to build faster.

And the infrastructure in the lower 9th is still almost non existent. No fire department, no hospitals, no grocery stores, and only one elementary school, the other students are bussed miles away.

But the people who have returned are proud and passionate. And when the 9th ward rises again,(and it will indeed rise) it will be those who came back first who inspired those who came back eventually.