Does anyone know how New Orleans is doing as fas as Katrina recovery goes ? The websites of the hotels in the French Quarter make it sound like everything has recovered but I am trying to find an unbiased opinion.

For the quarter and tourist places that's true, but the rest of the city looked far from recovered when I was down there over the holidays. I can only speak for what a I saw in the Marina area, but it looked like about one or two houses out of every block were eithe rrebuilt or being rebuilt, the rest were vacant and looked untouched since I was there a year prior.

Certain areas are doing fine. Uptown, French Quarter, Garden district are all basically complete. Metairie is doing well. Kenner, where I live, is doing pretty well. I'm back in my house (about 2 months now). Now I just need to save up for my furniture. NEW Orleans east is still basically completely destroyed. Some parts still don't even have power. In the past few months, restaurants are finally beginning to stay open past 8:00PM. Businesses are still under a lot of pressure, unless you're in the construction or home furnishing business. The tourist trade is seriously struggling. Basically, any business that deal in luxury items are really hurting. People simply don't have money to spend on anything other than basics. Housing is still running about twice the usual cost, but it is sloooowly dropping as more units are becoming available.

So basically, if you're coming to New Orleans to have a good time, PLEASE come. Everything you would normally do is back up and running. Tourist areas are safer than ever, given the numbers of police assigned there. We really need the tourist trade to recover, and the quicker the better. People around the country are complaining that we're having Mardi Gras, as if nothing were wrong, but what they don't realize, is that Mardi Gras dumps over a billion dollars into New Orleans. Money that we desperately need. The party isn't for us, it's for everyone else.

On a personal note, I stated a year ago that I should probably be OK since I had double my houses value in insurance. Turns out that I now have about 60k in debt due to things that the insurance company decided they didn't want to cover. (Half my roof was damaged, so they only paid for half a roof. You can't get a roofer to install half a roof, so we had to come up with the difference, for example.) Building costs are close to double to what they had been pre-Katrina, but the insurance company would only pay fair-market value, regardless of what real-market value here was. Bastards. Over all, we've all learned to live with less, and it's OK. At least I'm not living in a FEMA trailer anymore.

If you have any specific questions, let me know.

Mason

Oh, and like Loren said, there are pockets of places that were hit harder then others. Lakeview, for example only has a handful of houses rebuild, and some of those are empty. Lakeview was an exclusive area of town, with houses starting at 500k, and it was also the site of a levee breach. The subdivision is like a ghost town. Very few people have even started to rebuild there. Keep in mind, all those federal dollars have yet to trickle down. I did the math the other day, and out of the billions in federal aid, that comes to about 4-500k a person. I can tell you I haven't seen dollar one, and don't really expect to. It seems they could make a lot of these issues go away by simply rebuilding people's homes and businesses, but apparently, that approach makes too much sense.

Thanks Mason and Loren for the info we are going to go just need to set the date. I have never been there my girlfriend who I am going with was there before the hurricane. She really liked it and wants to return and stay someplace in the French Quarter.

It sounds like driving and parking the the French Quarter is pretty much impossible so I am thinking of not renting a car and just trying to use public transportation. Any comments on how feasible this is ? It sounds like most of the stuff we would go to is in the French Quarter or the Garden District although I usually do try to get out of the tourist areas when traveling. Between the car cost and parking it would be pretty expensive for a rental car so it would be nice to save the money.

Mason that sucks about your insurance screwing you over. That has been my fear since getting a house I also have mine insured of well over the value but I don't think that means much in the end.

Wouldn't fair market value be what it costs right now to get the work done ? I know with auto insurance for a pay off on a total if they tell you an amount that is too low you can fight them on it and make them prove to you they can replace the car for the amount they claim.

I suppose with so much damage they are trying to screw everyone as much as possible.

Everything you'd want to go to around the Quarter is EASILY walkable or a very short cab ride away. I don't know if the trolly's are running. But definitely don't get a car if you are just staying around there, though some hotels do have parking garages. I'd highly recommend you get a car for at least a day or two though and get out of the tourist areas, if for nothing else than to tour the devastation of the city... it's pretty damn unimaginable until you see it up close and see how widespread it is, and it's very impactful. There's also some really great drives you can do to plantations along the River Road that might make great day trips, and even a swamp tour might be cool if you've never really been out in one, despite how cheesy they sound.

I'm PMing you an email my dad sent me when I asked him fairly recently for some hotel recommendations in the quarter for a friend of mine. Might have some good tips.

Mason, sorry to hear about your losses man. But like you said, you faired way better than so many so it's nice to see that you can count your blessings. Our family is in a legal fight with the insurance fuckers over our family camp that was in Bay St. Louis... which had 30 ft of storm surge wash through it.

Over-insuring really doesn't help. In fact, one of the complaints around here is that people that DIDN'T have insurance have fared better than some people that did. I am not eligible for many gov't grants because I HAD INSURANCE. God that pisses me off. Oh, and since things took longer than a year, they're trying to use the statue of limitations on claims to keep people from filing supplementals. Part of the problem is that my damages were from flood, not from wind damage. That is an extremely important distinction. If it were wind damage, then everything would have been hunky-dory. I have replacement cost coverage on everything in my house. But since it was flood, that rider doesn't apply. It would also be worthwhile to note that you can't GET a replacement cost rider on flood, since it's a federally backed program. In other words, my $6000 sofa set was ruined. Had the roof torn off and it rained all over everything I would have been payed $6000 +tax to replace it. Since It sat in stagnant water, instead, I got just under $4000 since it was 5 years old, and therefore not worth as much as if it were new. Some things like the 240 CD's that I had in a box in the garage were completely ignored. As if they hadn't cost me ~$3600. They paid me for my cowboy boots, but not my workboots or shoes. Huh? $600 pair of boots, no problem (depreciated of course). $40 sneakers, nope. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm really beginning to be of the mind that they can keep their insurance, I'll just put that money into an account and let it draw interest until I may need it. If only I could.

As far as fair market value, I argued the same thing you did, they said "you could have gotten it done for what you were paid". But as I wasn't given a breakdown of what things should have cost, there's really no way I can fight them on how much sheet-rock cost vs how much they gave me. It just wasn't broken out that way. Oh, and as to how they figured out how much you got, they took measurements of your house and gave you so many dollars a square foot. Whether you had marble tile , hardwood floors, or stick-on linoleum.

As to coming here, the trolly's are running downtown. They haven't finished fixing everything down St Charles, so if you wanted to go to the zoo, for example, or many of our finer restaurants, you'd need a cab.

Speaking of which, Great restaurants:
Commander's Palace - Fine dining - Expensive
Drago's - Seafood, get the char-grilled oysters - moderately expensive, like $25 a person or so.
Port of Call - great burgers, just don't look at the floor or ceiling too much - $10-15 a person
In Harrah's Casino there is Besh Steakhouse. Best filet I've ever eaten. It's $35 so it isn't cheap, but I've never actually paid for it. Comps rock (and I gamble entirely too much)

Come to think of it, give me a ring and I'll try to convince the wife to take you and your G/F to Besh, We've got more comps than we'll EVER use, and we're trying to avoid the casino, but a good excuse never hurts.

Thanks again for the info guys.

I'm guessing it's different there but in Minnesota homeowners is so cheap that even if they do rip you off it's still worth getting. It also doesn't include flood but I'm land locked. I have always been more worried about pipes breaking and according to my agent anyway that is covered by homeowners.

Homeowners really is a better deal, but make sure you read the fine print carefully. You may need an additional rider for pipe breakage. I know a few people around here that have sunken dens, and the rule is, if the room is more than 4 inches lower than the main slab, it's considered a basement, and not covered. When a New Orlenian sees the word basement, we just skip right over it, as no one in their right mind would build an actual basement down here.

I didn't ask about the basement but mine only has cement, a furnace, and a water heater so there's not much to get damaged . I will ask next time I talk to my agent though. I was more worried about things like washer hoses breaking.

Hehe, the point was, it was REALLY a sunken den, the insurance companies just CALL it a basement. That way they don't have to cover the carpet, furniture, etc.