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Appended July 4.

It's hard to believe, but Aug. 29 will mark two years since Katrina, the most deadly hurricane in U.S. history, ravaged New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

News of the death and destruction of the massive storm has been eclipsed by other more recent news: the war in Iraq, Paris Hilton's latest antics and the never-ending presidential campaign.

But for most of the more than 14,000 former residents of the area hardest hit by the storm - the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, Katrina still seems like yesterday. Not just because of the terror of losing their homes and loved ones, but because of how shockingly little government officials have done to improve things in two years.

On a tour I took of the Lower 9th Ward last Monday, it looked as if Katrina had just left. All that was missing was the water. In an area about one square mile, only a few dozen houses stand defiantly next to overgrown lots, with concrete slabs where homes used to be and mounds of rubble left by the storm. There are no working phone lines, and much of the area has no electricity.

"It almost seems like they don't want them to move back," noted a fellow tour member. Bingo.

Many locals say land speculators are salivating at the thought of getting their hands on this valuable tract of now nearly empty land. Local officials have been slow in issuing rebuilding permits. Federal readjustment funding has been inadequate.

With all the politics, greed and incompetence, the odds of rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward for its former inhabitants seem pretty tough.

Not tougher than Patricia Jones, though. A tall, dynamic local resident, Jones got tired of waiting for government officials to help local residents rebuild and come back. She founded the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association in the months after Katrina. Despite the incredible obstacles to residents returning, the association has helped many of the more than 2,500 Lower 9th Ward residents who have moved back.

The association is helping local residents come back against all odds, by helping them access federal and state programs and giving them housing, employment and financial advice. One of the ideas pushed by the association is to give a right of first refusal to local residents on lots adjacent to their homes. Jones feels this will encourage folks to come back and will discourage the kind of gentrification that Katrina has caused in other parts of the city, as old damaged structures are demolished to make way for newer, less affordable housing.

Jones speaks of her own memory of the flood: "I can't swim, and neither can my husband, so we evacuated." Like most residents of the Lower 9th Ward, Jones and her family have been here for at least a generation and feel deeply connected to the area. The area's most famous former resident, Fats Domino, lived there until the hurricane hit. He was missing for several days, but both he and his house survived. The house is one of the structures the community has preserved.

Another monument - to those who died in Katrina - lies at the entry to the Lower 9th Ward. Of the more than 1,800 people who died in the flood, many, if not most of them, lived in the Lower 9th Ward. At one end of the monument, a series of blue poles marks the water levels in different parts of the ward - the highest at 20 feet.

For the survivors, such as Patricia Jones and the hundreds of residents she has helped, the bureaucratic battle goes on after almost two years. To them, the best Katrina-survivors monument will be a rebuilt Lower 9th Ward that they can once again call home.

To volunteer for or contribute to the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association, write to P.O. Box 771039, New Orleans, La., 70177-1039, or call Patricia Jones at (504) 319-9666.

Appended July 4. This column should have said Fats Domino's home survived Hurricane Katrina, as did the rock 'n' roll legend himself.