xtron, take it from someone who's been there, it is a long tough road to recovery. It is doable if they have the desire to remain in that community, but it will be a long, slow process. It is hard to remove yourself from a community, especially if you've invested a lot of time, money and energy in making it work for you and you have seen your future in it
When Katrina hit N.O. it happened just as our daughter was starting her second year of high school. My wife found a place to live 60 miles outside N.O. and a school for Kristan to attend to keep her in as normal a situation as possible while we dealt with the day to day things to help us get back home. I invested a ton of time getting the house back in shape to move home, and when we finally did, we were only one of 2 families on the block to do so. Fast forward to about 5 years down the line and all homes in my area were pretty much occupied or being repaired. But it does take time.
To be perfectly honest, I'm going through a lot of remembering what that was like, and even now, it is a bit unsettling to recall all we went through before any semblance of normalcy set in. Like I posted earlier, I'd not want to go through that ever again.