A family in the Lower Ninth Ward must deal with the loss of their home for a second time. After restoring their Katrina-flooded home, a fire destroyed everything they had worked so hard to repair.

This latest recovery nightmare for Kellie Joseph began with a 4:30 a.m. wake up call.

“By the time I got down here,” Joseph said, “it was totally gone.”

Joseph’s home of more than a decade destroyed for the second time in two years. Hurricane Katrina swallowed up her home with ten feet of water and then, this past weekend, a fire finished it off.

Joseph, a mother of six, raced down from her temporary residence in Baton Rouge to find her home destroyed by fire.

“The firefighters found a picture of my grandmother and a picture of my youngest daughter and that's all they found,” Joseph said.

Investigators said the fire was started with a stolen car, which had been stripped and dumped in Joseph’s driveway before being lit on fire. The flames spread to her nearby home, which she had been rebuilding.

Joseph said she’d managed to repair 80 percent of her home through Road Home money. She had plans to turn on the electricity there for the first time since Katrina on Monday.

But it was not to be.

“This was something that was totally uncalled for,” said Dennis Joseph, Kellie’s brother. “Somebody burns a car in your yard and then burns your house down.”

Part of the problem, according to neighbors, was no one saw anything due to lack of streetlights in an area struggling to rebuild.

“The progress is still slower than it is in other areas. But this is the progress that we're talking about right here and unfortunately, this progress has been halted,” said State Representative Charmaine Marchand (District 99).

But for now, relatives, friends and volunteers are trying to help the family rebuild all over again.

And some Tulane University medical students, who heard news about the devastating fire, have set up a website to do just that. Though the Joseph family has homeowners insurance, the money will go toward paying off the mortgage to the home.

“Something like this is kind of extraordinary and it's really something we felt very motivated to want to help with and to maybe do something substantial, long-term as well,” said Alison Smith, Tulane medical student.

Joseph, who lost both her husband and father years ago, intends to come back and live near he aunt, in the same neighborhood as she did before.

“My father died in 2004 and he also played a big part in helping me find this house, you know,” Joseph said. “And I think he was quite happy knowing that I was close to his sister, when he passed…Hopefully, we'll be back home soon.”

Joseph said she’s not concerned with who set the fire, but rather focusing her time and energy toward her children and family’s recovery.

For more information and/or to donate money: Hope in Grace