A year and a half after Katrina...

[Neecy]

Here's an update on how one NOLA neighborhood has 'recovered' - and this is an optimistic story.


Since the flood, however, the treasured seclusion has morphed into unsettling isolation for many in Lakeshore, who live cut off from civilization by block after block of Lakeview's utter devastation, a moldering moonscape between them and the nearest open grocery store or restaurant.
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In 2007, a favorite bakery and sandwich shop, two banks and a service station reopened. But some Lakeshore residents, particularly the predominantly elderly population, still teeter on the verge of exodus over such simple wants as grocers and drugstores. Some see the character of the community changing, with older residents selling their renovation projects and even undamaged homes to younger couples with children, an infusion the elders welcome.
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By contrast, Lakeshore is mostly 20th-century landfill that slants upward toward Lakeshore Drive and Lake Pontchartrain. Sprawling front yards rise several feet from street level toward homes built on slabs. Only those in the southern half, essentially between Jewel Street and Robert E. Lee, suffered significant flooding. Bruneau estimates residents now inhabit about half the homes in the neighborhood full time.

But the resettlement patterns in Lakeshore do not necessarily follow the flood's water line. While a demolished property on Sardonyx Street went from a solitary foundation to an impressive two-story structure in the past month, some of the never-flooded homes close to the lakefront levees sit abandoned or for sale. Others that suffered wind and rain damage are plodding along with repairs. At one of the highest elevations in the city, the West Lakeshore house once called home by the legendary late trumpeter Al Hirt is being worked on by contractors.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1173850968105470.xml&coll=1&thispage=1