Things In New Orleans.....

So, I have a friend who is working with a claims guy down in New Orelans..... I'll be tehre, helping out thr Red Cross and then Habitat For Humanity later in the rebuilding, but since my buddy is good at telling it like it is, I'm going to post his journal here. It's surprising how little we actually know about the day to day struggle, or lack there of, by the folks who live there..... So, here's what Dennis has to say bout what he's seen so far....

MONDAY OCTOBER 3
Looks like I’ll have a little time today to write. I’m playing chauffer mostly and reading policies to get an idea what to look for in terms of
coverage. These things are written by lawyers and are intended to clarify - but only if you’re another lawyer. It’s another world and I’m in the middle of it. On the last plane I sat next to a dentist who was coming back from a Paul Simon (Paul McCartney?) concert in NY. He had an office on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain that wasn’t really affected. His home was without electricity for two weeks but he’d just gotten a generator and 300 gallons of gas so was pretty insulated. His biggest concern wasthe 100 lbs of shrimp he’d just bought. (different levels of fears,
obviously) He pulled down a full page ad from the NY Times that was a photo of a body floating face down in front of some stores in the flooded
part of NO and went on to decry the lack of National Guard troops because they were in Iraq and the lack of money because of the same war. It
was signed by a couple hundred business people (I guess) in New York. A bit crude, perhaps. That same dentist, whose wife is an ob-gyn stayed at the hospital through the storm; he said at one point marauding gangs had surrounded the place and someone made the decision to toss out all the available drugs to keep them from breaking in - grim.

I just filled out a form for a beauty parlor called “Curl Up and Dye”.

Mostly we’ve been working in Gretna and Algiers which is on what is called the “West bank” but is actually south of New Orleans proper, just
across the river (Mississippi, if there’s any doubt) from the Garden District. I’ve not been over there yet but I’m anxious to see what’s happened in the Quarter and the Garden District. I think they were pretty much spared. I heard on the news this morning that the Army would finish pumping out the city tomorrow or Wednesday. I think Mike has some claims over there that he’s not been able to get to yet.

Restaurants have been opening back up, which is good as all we have in the rooms are a microwave and a fridge. Mike’s rented a two story flat
somewhere near Algiers but there’s no electricity there yet. It’s a vacation rental owned by a musician - a good one, too, from his CD we’ve
got. It will be good to get into that - full kitchen, very cool neighborhood - everything is painted like Darcy’s house in Czz - bright and outrageous. We’re right across from the streetcar barns and there are a Thai, Greek and Mediterranean restaurants within a block - assuming they’ll open in the next couple weeks.

The repercussions of this storm get more and more mind boggling each day; I talked to a black man in the restaurant day before yesterday who was
saying that when everyone moves back here and rebuilds one of the things that he expects to happen is that mostof the private schools will
disappear. Apparently this parish (county) has the highest proportion of kids in private schools than any other county in the country - mostly
because the public schools have been so bad. He figures that most of the really bad slums and the poorest people who inhabited them will not
reappear, property values will rise and taxes for schools increase. Perhaps that’s a naïve assumption that more money will make the
difference - it certainly won’t hurt.

Still a lot of army helicopters flying around.. I’m sitting in the car filling out forms while Mike is climbing roofs in this condominium with some 9 huge units. Apparently there is damage to most of the roofs and a large number of the apartments. We’ve been here for over three
hours and I haven’t seen him since I moved the ladder the last time about an hour ago.

It is interesting to be sitting in the middle of the biggest natural disaster to hit in recent memory and people are pretty much going about their business with calm and good humor. The only thing I notice is that everyone wants to talk about it. It’s 3:30 and folks who live in this
place are starting to come home - from where I don’t know - a few are carrying stuff like they’ve been off somewhere and are just now
returning but most are just driving up and unlocking their doors and going in. The mail man just came by - a good sign things are returning to normal. There surely are a lot of bright blue roofs, though!!

I’m discovering that there is a whole culture of folks who follow disasters - insurance adjusters being just one variety (State Farm has like 1400 adjusters here!!) But there are also guys with big honkin’ trucks with high sided goose-neck trailers that hire out to clear debris. In the motel with us are a couple rooms of guys from Mexico with pickups and tools and stuff - I don’t know how they get work but there are signs all over the place that advertise for help with just about everything from McDonalds to hauling to construction to roofing. I would imagine there are fortunes to be made over the next several months. I guess that proves the adage that it’s an ill wind, indeed, that blows no good!

MORE TO COME>>>>