the last area of the city still under a curfew half a year after the disaster. It was also the last area to have power and water restored, and the last to be pumped dry. Officially, residents were allowed in during daylight hours to look, salvage possessions, and leave, although some few had already done extensive work gutting and repairing their damaged homes in preparation to move back. By January 2006, the widespread damages and difficulties in restoring basic utilities and city services still prevented the official reopening of the Lower 9th Ward to residents who wished to return to live. The most severely damaged section of the Ward was the lower elevation section, north of Claiborne Avenue. A Bring Back New Orleans Commission preliminary report suggested making this area in whole or part into park space because of the high risk of future flooding. Most Lower 9th Ward residents have strongly objected to this proposal, but outsiders worry about the high risk of future flooding in the area. In March 2006 a group of residents and Common Ground Collective volunteers broke into Martin Luther King Elementary School to begin cleanup efforts. Not long after, the state school officials agreed to repair the school. The school has subsequently become a Recovery School District charter school and is running at full capacity. In 2006, Mayor Ray Nagin threatened to use his powers of eminent domain to seize vacant, severely damaged properties in all of New Orleans that had not been gutted or scheduled to be gutted before early 2007. Such blighted properties had been creating serious problems for returned New Orleanians, including infestations of rats and other vermin. Similar actions to seize abandoned blighted property are in effect in other Louisiana parishes, as well as in Mississippi counties affected by the storm. However, as hundreds of thousands of locals were still waiting for promised insurance or Road Home money, many of the poor lacked resources to work on their houses. The neighborhood had few stores and only a handful of schools reopened. By early 2007, a small number of local businesses in the area reopened, and residents began to return, many living in FEMA trailers as they rebuilt (the last FEMA trailer was removed in 2012). However, much of the area was still little-populated and in ruined condition. Work crews continued to remove debris and demolish unrepairable houses daily, but hundreds