No, I didn't start a thread. Most of my thoughts have been reflections on the food, drinking and carrying on we did
Mr B was there for a week before I arrived. He had a few days of vacation time left and decided to go back down and do another week of house gutting. Some of the houses they did last summer are being rebuilt, one of them still had piles of personal belongings exactly where he left them in July. The houses they did this week included one with a FEMA trailer already in the driveway (indicating that there is electicity to the property), one they had to abandon because the walls were collapsing, and one belonging to a musician who ran a recording studio out of his house. That man stopped by while they were gutting and told them he plans on reopening the studio once he can get back inside (which he will now be able to do).
One afternoon, we took a long drive around the city. There are small signs of life returning in the Upper and Lower Ninth Wards (those hardest hit by the levee breaks). Many of the rest of the residential areas are much improved since I was last there in April. Many of the French Quarter businesses have reopened, but there are still many empty buildings for sale. Most of the office buildings in the downtown area have new glass where blown out shards were six months ago. There is a big difference between those who have been able to complete insurance settlements for 'storm damage' vs those who are still fighting with the insurance companies for 'flood damage' from the levee brakes. The flooded areas will take the longest to rebuild because they suffered from both the storm and then the flood.
Real estate prices are very high due to the high demand for limited refurbished housing and there is a shortage of construction labor to do the needed refurbishing. All in all, though, the people who are back have started to move on somewhat. There are still discussions about 'before Katrina' and 'where I went for ____ months after Katrina', but not like it was last spring. The big discussion of the weekend was the re-election of William Jefferson to Congress (after the FBI supposedly found $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer). We were in one of our favorite bars having a lively discussion with a group of local regulars on Saturday night (election day). I won't say that we could have been anywhere, because there's no place like New Orleans, but it reminded me of the times we enjoyed 'before Katrina'.
Thanks for asking, mac. Wanna hear about all the food we ate?
