Somehow, a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, many small business owners have been able to not just rebuild, but prosper.

"Business since then has been phenomenal. Anybody that was here was so desperate to shop," said Mimi Bowen, who owns an upscale women's clothing store.

Adam Vodanovich, who along with his brothers were the master franchisers for 11 Wing Zone fast-food stores, lost three of their locations. A year later, "we're pretty lucky — not where we want to be, but we're getting there," he said.

Despite the devastation and chaos wrought by Hurricane Katrina, many small business owners have returned to the city to rebuild their companies. They've had enormous challenges finding new customers or making over their businesses to meet the changing demands of struggling customers and clients. And then there's the struggle to get even the most simple, mundane things done in a city that has been crippled.

Connie Zbilich's Children's Orchard, a franchised resale shop, survived the storm well; just two blocks away, other businesses were pummeled. But while she had little physical damage, her business needed to be rebuilt — she had lost customers who moved away, and, as a resale merchant, was short of inventory because there were fewer people around to sell her used children's goods.

Recovering has been complicated by the fact that insurance reimbursements have taken so long to arrive.

Vodanovich said his business finally received insurance money only about a month ago. Three of his family's Wing Zone stores were destroyed or were in neighborhoods that were wiped out; all but one of the others had varying degrees of damage.

"It's definitely been a struggle, trying to get the stores back open," said Vodanovich, who said the wait for the insurance has been the hardest part.

What helped the business was the success of one of the stores; it pulled in so much revenue that Vodanovich said "we were able to take money out of that" to pay for repairs while they waited for the insurance.

Still, business is quite different from the way it was a year ago. To get employees to staff the stores, Vodanovich and his family are paying much higher wages. And because food deliveries don't always come on schedule, the stores must carry higher inventory levels than they did a year ago.

Even businesses that have done well have had some struggles. Bowen said the losses she suffered from her business were covered by business interruption insurance, but she had all her fall inventory in, and "you just don't want to lose a whole season's worth of sales."

So Bowen, who had gone to Memphis, Tenn., rented retail space there. Employees and friends packed up her merchandise and took it to Memphis, and Bowen sold her clothes there from early October through late November. She reopened in New Orleans on Nov. 30.

Despite these owners' success, thousands of business owners haven't been able to return; some likely never will. Those who are there are obviously in a very different New Orleans.

Zbilich said people outside of the city really don't know how difficult life is in New Orleans. "People don't understand we are really desperately in need of help here — emotional support, financial support," she said.

And Bowen, who estimated the city is "functioning at about a third of the level that most American cities are functioning at," said just daily living is hard.

"We have trouble getting things done," she said. "To go to the grocery store, you have to go to three stores to get what you want. Either the grocer cannot get it or they don't think it'll sell so they don't buy it.

"It's depressing as hell."