And here's another article that focuses on the rebuilding in Mississippi gaining steam. An upbeat article, but here's an excerpt that explains why progress was better in Mississippi:
Full article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-0...rebuilds_x.htm

Right, and you also had largely functional local government.

I really think it's a mistake to dismiss what happened to Mississippi as lightly as that quoted material does. There may not have been standing water, but there was nothing left for most of the coast. Seriously, whole towns were essentially missing. Multi-story brick buildings gone to the dirt.

Now we can discuss whether than helped make a fresh start I suppose, but to argue that there was less water damage since there was nothing left is a little goofy.

I know it wasn't your point Skylark.

You want to know something really stupid, IMO? At the time that Katrina happened, despite being below sea level, New Orleans wasn't in a flood zone that required flood insurance. Why? Because it's behind a levee.

Honestly, property insurance companies don't really care about flood plains to insure a homeowner. Why? Flood insurance rates and claims are ALL set and paid by the federal government. The only difference is the name on the policy and potentially how fast or slow that claim is paid - i.e if you write it through an insurance company vs the federal government you'll probably get a check a lot faster. Your homeowners policy isn't going to provide flood coverage - if you read it, it is most likely specifically excluded. Insurance companies are more concerned about the wind exposure down there.

I apologize for any inaccuracies, but I'm talking about areas where, for any practical purposes that the cost of insurance makes rebuilding impossible for most people. It may be that the insurance companies fear wind driven water rather than just rising water, but the picture has apparently changed since Katrina and the damage is largely thought to have been related to the storm surge, rather than wind.

And I'm really not being critical of the companies. I wouldn't want to insure properties that I knew I was especially likely to take a loss on. Nobody who needs a mortgage really has to live in a single family residence on the beach or the bay, I suppose.

Post-Katrina most insurance companies have modified their homeowners policies to clarify that water damage doesn't mean storm surge, wind driven water, etc., unless they've got a flood policy or some other kind of additional coverage. Not something you'd know unless you sit around reading your policy - not too many people do that, if I hadn't implemented the forms with rate changes, I probably wouldn't have known it either.

But, flood insurance itself has a lot of it's own disclaimers. The flood waters have to rise high enough to enter through the doors. If my basement floods and that water rises to the first floor, I am not covered. If water comes in through the roof, I am not covered. Nothing in the basement is covered except the furnace, hot water heater and the foundation. It is also only covered if the flooded area is at least 2 acres or affects at least 4 properties. For this, I have been paying $1400 a year, in addition to my regular home owners insurance of $750. Everybody in my neighborhood hired a surveyor who discovered that, although some of our property is below flood level, our actual HOUSES are not. They are all several inches above the 100 year flood plain. We all had paperwork filled out and had our houses removed from the flood zone. The likelihood of our houses flooding per their requirements are extremely low. What might flood is the basement, but if the water doesn't come in on the first floor, they don't cover anything anyway.

This is what bureacracy does, it causes things to be inefficient and take too long. If the states were to just handle their own disaster relief with federal dollars and resources the whole process would run much smoother.

Or if not, at least the fault would be more centralized.