Five Years Later, Families Move Home After Years of Displacement
Five years after Katrina, families are finally going home.
NEW ORLEANS -- Aug. 29, 2010 — -- For the first time in five years Sharen Williams and her two daughters finally have a place to call home.
Not only was their home ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, which sent 20 feet of water surging through their house, but the foundation they had hoped to mend was accidently demolished in the storm's aftermath.
Today is their first day back home in Arabi, a neighborhood in New Orleans that was one of the hardest hit during the storm five years ago.
"I can honestly say I'm home, home," said Williams, outside her freshly-painted, three-bedroom house. "I'm one of the fortunate ones cause there are a still lot of people who don't have a home."
Williams is one of the 290 families helped by the St. Bernard Parish Rebuilding Program, which dedicates volunteer efforts and fundraising to rebuild the homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Fifty more houses are currently under construction in St. Bernard's Parish, where 100 percent of the homes were rendered uninhabitable after the storm.
To date only half of the parish population has returned, a number the St. Bernard Project hopes to improve with families like the Williams.
"It's good for me because I wanted this for my children," said Williams. "I can be comfortable because I know I have a roof over my children here."
Kenneth Dorsey's family is another one that has been helped by the St. Bernard Project. Dorsey and Williams' homes were the two houses volunteers worked on for 50 straight hours during the days leading up to the five year Hurricane Katrina anniversary.
Dorsey's home was demolished during the hurricane when a river barge broke through the flood wall in the Lower Ninth Ward, crushing his house and everything in it.
"The Dorsey's have a tragic story, and now five years later we're finally getting them back into their house," said Liz McCartney, a co-founder of the St. Bernard Project.
"I can't imagine how difficult it must be, but I know after meeting the Dorsey's that they're incredible resilient and strong," she said. "I think they're just really excited to close the Katrina chapter and start the new chapter of their lives."
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