After the storm, Pam Collins reopened her home decorations business in Old Town, Bay St. Louis, but it wasn't easy; her insurance went up 400 percent, she's closed out  retirement accounts just to pay insurance and she says financially everything has been a fight. Yet there are no regrets.

“Our customers have been absolutely wonderful; our local support is what has carried us,” said Collins.

Right now, Old Town is a mix of new construction, new streets and returning business.

But empty buildings and the scars of Katrina are still very visible. The beach road has yet to be rebuilt, and even when work begins, it's an 18 month project.

“Because until it’s done, our businesses can't rebuild, and downtown's the heart and soul of the city, so without that coming back, we're not going to have Bay St. Louis like we had,” Mayor Eddie Favre.

Just before the second anniversary, the bridge between Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian reopened and a year later that remains the biggest catalyst for the area.

Down the road in Biloxi, eight of the ten pre-storm casino's have reopened, though not all at 100 percent.

Road work on Highway 90 should be completed by the end of the year, but progress along the Gulf Coast's main artery is slow, and it is a concern for Biloxi Mayor A.J Holloway

Most of the antebellum homes and restaurants are gone, and the number of hotel rooms Biloxi had is down 50 percent.

“The mom and pop hotels are washed away,” said Holloway. “I don't look for them to come back for a while anyway.”

New construction in Biloxi is vertical; there are several new condominium buildings open and others are still in the planning stages.

Rick Camerena has big plans for a new vision in historic Gulfport. Many buildings were old and decaying before Katrina.

Those that couldn't be saved are gone. Camerena owns seven other buildings in a two-block radius that he hopes to renovate and generate new business with a clean slate

“You're kind of like an artist with a canvas, gives you a brush and some colors and start painting it,” said Camerena.

His long-range plan for Gulfport is to bring in new business and later to build apartments above them and convert downtown dead after 5:00 p.m. into a thriving residential

“It’s kind of like being a pioneer, something different and new; it’s definitely a challenge,” said Camerena.

If you look at life right along the beach all over the Gulf Coast, progress is sporadic. And the reasons from Waveland to Biloxi are the same, high insurance costs, availability and affordability are preventing people from rebuilding where once they flourished.

“We have a long way to come, and it’s going to take awhile to get here, but when we get back, we'll be bigger and better than we were before,” said Holloway.

The hardest part for people living along the Gulf Coast is to put an actual timeframe on future recovery because they've been down that road far too many times.

“What we thought was going to be 3 to 5 years is 7 to 10, to 12, maybe,” said Favre.

But those pioneers who are back speak of the hope they see for the future.