Three years after Hurricane Katrina smacked The City That Care Forgot, storm damage is hard to forget, houses and properties abandoned and untouched since the hurricane seem to overshadow the rebuilding on many streets.

“We're trying to get it back to where it's livable,” Kaaren Grimes, a Hollygrove neighbor.

WWL-TV

President Bush speaking after Hurricane Katrina in Jackson Square.

Grimes is still trying to get her mother's home squared away in the Hollygrove neighborhood. She's willing to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, but says the federal money he promised was not enough to keep people like her from going into debt after the storm.

“I'm thinking he's done the best that he could, but we have to deal with all the different layers that come down under him through the feds, the state, the local level,” Grimes said.

“President Bush is in town. What do you all want me to tell him? Keep it clean,” said Mayor Ray Nagin.

Nagin joked about the president at a dedication ceremony for a new senior apartment building. Later, he talked about the promises President Bush made in Jackson Square in the dark days after Katrina.

“We will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives,” Bush said that night in 2005 from Jackson Square.

“The promise is still unfulfilled as far as I’m concerned,” Nagin said.

Mayor Nagin says so far the city has received less than a third of the money promised to help rebuild public buildings and infrastructure.

“It's the mother’s milk of recovery, resources, money. We still need help, don't forget about us and just continue to work until he's out of office. I'm going to deliver that message,” Nagin said. 

Robin D'Aunoy is back in lakeview. He says the president kept his promise about building the levees stronger and better.

“Even though I built off the ground,” said D'Aunoy, “I don't think it will ever be needed. I don't think we'll ever have a problem in this area.”

In the storm-damaged neighborhoods of New Orleans, this is where the rubber meets the road. Neighbors tell Eyewitness News you can talk all about what the president did or didn't do to help the city rebuild. At the end of the day, they say it's up to the people who live here to make recovery a reality.

“It's just up to the people on the street, on the individuals that's spending their own money to get everything back,” said D'Aunoy.

“Our road home money was funny,” Nagin said. “The money to the city is still funny. But, in spite of all of that, we're rebuilding this city.”