New Orleans ? They are signature scenes of the city: tourists on Bourbon Street, diners savoring breakfast at Brennan’s, revelers dancing at Tipitina’s, crowds at the street fairs and music festivals.

Almost 11 months after Hurricane Katrina struck, these scenes suggest the city is “back.”

But most New Orleanians are stuck in a different scene, one set against a backdrop of moldy sheet rock, plywood, broken tiles and twisted metal that still litter some median strips for miles at a stretch, or the scene in which every available park or defunct strip mall has become a FEMA trailer city.

Much attention has been paid to the storm’s death toll and massive property destruction, but what is remarkable today is how much everyday life in this city has changed.

People make their homes in temporary lodging that offers scant stability or the familiarity their own belongings would bring. The market where they shopped: closed. The schools their children attended: still shuttered and empty. Lifelong bonds with cherished neighbors have been broken; in many neighborhoods there are few neighbors left. In their version of life in New Orleans, people wonder how their lives will feel normal again.

Marie Benoit, 52, feels the disjunction between the New Orleans the world wants to see and the one she lives in.

There is no playground at the Iberville housing project in New Orleans, where hundreds of children lived and very few residents have been allowed to return. Many residents are facing a similar situation because homes, schools and markets are closed nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina.

“They saw carnival. They saw Jazz Fest. They think everything is OK. ‘Get over it; it’s over,'” said Benoit, an elementary school teacher sent into premature retirement by Katrina. Her house remains a pile of rubble in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. “But it’s not over.”

In fact, it’s far from over.

At least 125,000 properties in New Orleans were damaged. Rebuilding those that could be salvaged has been scattershot. At the end of the school year, 25 of 128 New Orleans public schools had reopened and just 12,000 of the city’s 60,000 students had returned. By September, 57 schools with space for up to 34,000 students are expected to be open, although according to school officials, there will be staff to handle just 22,000.

Three of 11 hospitals are open in Orleans Parish where New Orleans is located, according to Louisiana state statistics.