Stairs that lead nowhere. Columns from a previous time. Sewage lines exposed in the streets during road work.

Large oaks that withstood Hurricane Katrina have seen it all. They were here for Camille and have stood strong the last three years since Katrina, just like the people of Hancock County.

"She took everything," said Waveland resident Judith Soulier. "Anything she could get her hands on, she took. And where it went, nobody knows."

Soulier is handicapped, unemployed and has no insurance. She lives in her Katrina cottage, just down the road from the Gulf of Mexico. Her husband died 12 days before the storm. And now she doesn't know what she will do to get by. Religious statues purchased by her late husband were the only items recovered from her life before the storm.

"I want to stay here and do what I can to get it up and going," said Soulier. "It's in the Lord's hands, if He really wants me to stay here. And He does because he's done things to let me stay."

You see, Judith wants to buy her Katrina cottage, but the city of Waveland is requiring that all cottages be out of the city by March 2009.

"If they don't allow the cottage, I don't know where I will go, in all honesty," Soulier said.

Tom Bentley hears a story like Judith's every day. He owns Bentley and Sons Construction in Waveland. As you can imagine, he has been busy since August 29, 2005. He admits that he typically works with the fortunate ones, the people whose insurance finally paid, or the ones who received grants and can finally afford to start rebuilding.

"They are still traumatized," said Bentley. "They are in Katrina trailers or Katrina cottages. They are just overwhelmed, stressed out. There is still a lot of indecisiveness in the air."

"I don't expect everything free," said Soulier. "I don't want everything free. I would love to afford a nice place here, but I can't afford it."

There are definitely signs of progress, but residents in these neighborhoods say full recovery will take years, even a decade.