KATRINA Residents remain hopeful despite loss

Trailers stand in front of some water-damaged houses.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Dr. Jeffrey Coco's business is gone, along with his wife's job, his children's school and the first floor of his house, but he was hopeful as he stood amid the debris in his front yard on New Year's Day.
"Unless someone in my family gets sick, I can't imagine it can be worse," he said.
Coco and his wife and three children returned to New Orleans especially for a New Year's Eve party held at a neighbor's house that did not flood in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They stayed in the second story of their own house.
"We normally have a fireworks display that rivals most ballparks," he laughed. "We toned it down a lot this year because all the blue roofs around." Many damaged roofs throughout the city are covered with blue plastic tarps.
Coco, an infectious-disease specialist, does not expect to return to New Orleans for good until April or May. He just received his flood insurance check, along with many of his neighbors.
"I think that's what people were waiting for," Coco said. "Now they can start getting things back to normal. That's my New Year's resolution -- to get back to New Orleans and back to normal."
Life returning
Unlike the Ninth Ward, where miles of houses were destroyed, sparse signs of life are returning to the affluent Lake Front neighborhoods, although trailers stand in front of some water-damaged houses, and muddy streets are lined with debris, ruined appliances and drowned vehicles.
"It was kind of spooky at first," said Ray Bigelow, a criminal court judge who is living with his wife and children on the second floor of their house. "But now we have a neighbor two doors down and we can see some streetlights down the way."
Unlike buildings across the street that were submerged to the roofs, Bigelow's house was flooded only 3 feet deep. The bottom floor has been gutted and the family plans to use a trailer parked in the yard as a kitchen and dining room, but their electricity has been reconnected. It's two miles to an open grocery store and 10 to a gas station.
His children plan to return to schools in the city later in the month, and he will be holding court in a couple of rooms furnished by the federal court.
"I'd like life to get back like it was, but that won't happen this year," Bigelow said. "It probably won't happen in 10 years."