Colin, thanks for your interest:
Doc_Man, would you say if the Katrina thing happened in New York or Washington or California the clear-up would be much speedier? I always get the impression that the Southern states are the poor relations in the US - stemming back to the populace being significantly non-white
I doubt it is black/white. It might be "continued punishment for being a former part of the Confederacy" - the voting rights act was renewed recently with CONTINUED supervision of redistricting in southern states. What a joke!
It might also be that the SCOPE of the devastation is so huge that folks don't even know where to start. It might truly just be too big a problem for anyone to seriously grasp. Katrina whacked some areas so badly that the houses in some localized communities are 100% gone. Waveland, MS for example has no houses left standing. We had friends there who sent us photos showing mud and a bare concrete foundation where a three-story near-mansion had stood. In St. Bernard Parish (E & SE of N'Awlins), I think there were less than 200 houses NOT damaged or destroyed by the storm. Out of tens of thousands of houses. Plaquemines parish lost so much land to tidal erosion that we may have to redesignate our parish boundaries. There might not be enough of the parish left to qualify for representation.
I'll ask you to reconsider the closest evidence we have to the answer to your question. How long after 9/11 did it take for New York City to start a serious rebuilding program of the affected area? First, it was northern. Second, devastating though it was, the affected area was geographically small.
If you were to visit a site called NOLA.COM, you would perhaps be able to browse through some photo galleries, directly or by following references. It is impossible to believe unless you see the pictures. The recent flooding in northern states was tragic, don't get me wrong, but most of them suffered a couple of feet of water. We have places where the peak of a one-story house's roof was under water. Fifteen to twenty feet of water. Boats were able to pull up even to the roof to rescue people.
Every day I drive through an area near Fleur de Lis Blvd where water was even with or above the eaves of houses. Some of the pictures on NOLA.COM would show this area. Some streets are totally lost with no sign of life. Others have a few returnees. But the big problem is that one insurer, who happens to cover about 20% of the state's homeowner's policies, wants to either pull out or drop certain types of coverage. We have a state law that says if they want to stay in business in this state, they can't do that. So it will probably come down to a lawsuit very soon.
What? Why won't we let them limit their liability? Well, in a year where Katrina caused the biggest single USA natural disaster in terms of area and number of people affected, this insurer made a mere $1.21 BILLION dollars in AFTER-TAX PROFIT. They THINK they are entitled to be guaranteed a profit, forgetting that ALL businesses are about risk, not just insurance companies. EVERY BUSINESS YOU START has the right to TRY to make a profit - but no business is guaranteed one.
But I digress.
Colin, part of our problem is also logistical. For a long time we had no working roads from the East. I-10 across Lake Ponchartrain was so badly damaged as to be impassible. US 11 has a narrow, one-lane-each-way bridge that was weakened by the storm. The Lake Ponchartrain Causeway was at least temporarily damaged. The only roads were from the west, where there is more land and less water to cross.
Another factor is that there was no place for the workers to stay even if they wanted to come in and repair things. Contractors were literally living in tent cities for a long time. We are STILL in the demolition phase on major apartment complexes and whole neighborhoods because of the dearth of available workers.
My cousin's boyfriend talked to me about the aftermath of Andrew. He's a plumber. He said that if he could have managed it, he could have worked 7 days a week, sunrise to sunset, with guaranteed work lasting for not less than 6 months before it started to die down. He got to the point that he had to start taking 1 week off at a time because it was so depressing.
OK, now multiply that concept by carpenters, electricians, plumbers, house demolition teams, and general laborers. Multiply that by literally a few thousand square MILES of devastation. (Remember, a thousand square miles is a square only about 31 2/3 miles on a side...) How many houses are in a square mile in a relatively densely populated area? It is staggering.
Part of the problem is getting supplies. At least initially, according to a guy my wife talked to, a well-known building supply chain was getting 20 big truck loads (18-wheeler, full-sized trailers) a night and was sold out by the close of business in a limited work day. I.e. instead of being open 8 AM to 10 PM, they were doing 10 AM to 6 PM - and they STILL sold out of every basic construction supply you could imagine. My wife also talked to an insurance adjuster who had somehow learned that the entire year's output of a major maker of sheet rock was already committed to the New Orleans area. Think about that for a little while.
