Then and Now: New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

PEOPLE.com revisits the city – and its determined residents – four years after the devastating storm

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SCHOOLHOUSE ROCKED

Elementary school principal Rose Smith, 57, worried about her students, her staff and her school in the chaos after the storm. When she was finally able to visit historic Brock Elementary in Slidell, La., and saw the waterline had risen to 8 ft. in places, "I was shocked," she says. "I didn't know how we'd open."