Five years after Katrina, progress still slow in New Orleans

What are we supposed to make of the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina when the closest the majority of us have gotten to this tragedy lies within our weekly "The Real World: New Orleans" reality TV fix.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and destroyed more than 182,000 homes in the metro area, leaving natives stranded on rooftops and turning this historical metropolis into a 21st century Atlantis.

It was one of the costliest storms on record. Unfortunately, something that only takes hours to destroy can take years to rebuild, and Hurricane Katrina has followed suit to a slow recovery.

A lot can happen in five years. Since Katrina, a recession has threatened the economic stability the country, a new president was elected, and a catastrophic oil spill has left thousands unemployed.

But where do all of these changes leave the city of New Orleans?

The rebuilding stage seems to have taken two evident directions: affluent communities that have rebuilt themselves through the use of private funds and insurance money, and publicly funded efforts that seem to be taking longer than expected.

For the financially stable families able to rely on their own sources, rebuilding has only been a matter of calculating the right price.

However, the rest of the city has found comfort in relying on outside help to gain back what has been lost. With productivity at a standstill for so long, many outside sources have been lending a helping hand to those in need.

Though many efforts have been put forth – and fallen short – to reconstruct the disheveled city, a new hope has surfaced within the wake of the anniversary.

The Army Corps of Engineers has received $7 billion since Katrina to fortify New Orleans' flood-protection system, including installing new flood gates at the mouth of the Lake Pontchartrain and rebuilding broken levees.

Even the staff and students of Tulane University have come together to reconstruct their campus. Closing its doors to students shortly after the Hurricane hit in late August 2005, with 70 percent of the University underwater, it looked as though this campus had been lost forever.

But under the optimistic influence of Tulane University President Scott Cowen, the school has taken a turn for the better. The University has made a personal mission to not only include service-learning initiatives to all students, but has also severed ties with issues of racism on campus grounds.

The city of New Orleans has finally started to return to its pre-Katrina state, but one can only wonder, are these productive efforts too little, too late?

In the first two years after Katrina made landfall, destroying everything in its path, the city was a ghost town.

Buildings and homes that once kept the city booming lie in shards, only held up by their mere foundations.

Due slow progression, families were forced to relocate, leaving New Orleans with only two-thirds of the population remaining.

As the recession approached in late 2007 and property insurance rates escalated, it quickly became clear to many natives that rebuilding was never going to be an option.

For the rest of the community, self-reliance would be the only opportunity for survival. Since the state and local governments had been overwhelmed and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president, the city was in ruins.

Blaming a singular person for the prolonged reconstruction would only result in a drawn-out conversation of politics, when the real issue of capability remains.

Can the city of New Orleans be saved even if it has taken five years to show signs of progress?

In America, we tend to fend for ourselves.

We care and sympathize with the families that were affected by Hurricane Katrina, but ultimately tend to put the idea of helping them on the backburner.

The reconstruction of New Orleans may have started out at a snail's pace, but there is still time to finish what has been started. Instead of living by the American way, perhaps we can strive to make one of the country's most historic cities better for the next generation.