Guess Who I'm Rooting For in Tomlinson v. Allstate?

The first legal case where a Louisiana homeowner is suing an insurer in federal courts because of Hurricane Katrina is set to begin February 12th. I'm especially pleased that it's Allstate. Go Tomlinsons!

FEMA Trailer Schizophrenia

The family and I have spent just over a week in our FEMA trailer for a trial run. I'm wiser for having done so, but to quote Ecclesiastes, he who increases wisdom increases sorrow. Sadly, this next year is going to be a difficult one. I wonder if ever again I'll be able to feel the "normalcy" that permeated life before the Federal levees failed.

Abry Brothers, the company we hired to raise our house and to straighten the walls, has spent the past several months working on our neighbor Mike Prados' house. When they are finished with Mike's house, they'll start on ours. So we've been gradually putting stuff in boxes for storage, and thought we'd start gutting the house in mid-February. The plan was that all four of us and the dogs would live in the trailer for the year, with the goal of moving back into our fixed house by Christmas 2007. We put shelves in the FEMA trailer, and many self-adhesive hooks on the walls. But last night I had an epiphany: there is no way that we can do this for a whole year. Kalypso was trying to do her homework, and Gilgamesh was bored so he was bouncing around. Plus when all four of us are in the trailer, there is no space to put things like clothes and dishes. Therese and I started thinking that Therese and the children should get an apartment. It was strange, sort of like we'll be separating but not because of a fight, but so Kalypso can do homework, Gilgamesh can take a bath and do six-year-old-stuff in a space larger than a trailer. Most of the time I would live in the FEMA trailer with the dogs to keep an eye on the property. But that would be awful to miss out on parts of my kids' lives because of all of this.

But now the plan has changed. I called Abry Brothers and asked Jeff, the supervisor, for an approximate date to start working. He said it might be two months before they were ready. He also reminded me that I shouldn't gut the house until they had put in support, as removing the plaster and lathe might weaken it and it could fall over. So now I'm thinking the best course would be to move our primary base back from the FEMA trailer to the house, and stay there as long as we can. Even when Abry Brothers starts working on the structure of our house and the foundation, it will take them several months to finish their work. All that time we can live in the upstairs of the house, which is about 1000 times the size of the FEMA trailer. Then, as they get close to finishing our house, that would be the time for Therese and the kids to move into an apartment, store our stuff there, and I would then occupy the trailer while we gutted the house and rebuilt it.

Of course this plan will likely be revised many times on a daily basis for the next several months.

Victory Helps Chicago Recover

A bit of humor courtesy of The Onion.
Later Note: This photo of one Chicago "fan" isn't very funny, in fact, it makes me sick.

Op-Ed and Something Much Darker

I have an opinion piece today in the Times-Picayune that is based on a previous post about the negative experience Therese and I had at the "Welcome Home Center" in New Orleans. It caused a bit of a stir, and already I've heard from several employees of the Welcome Home Center, the mayor's office and some of the city council members. They all say things there will improve, which of course would be a good thing. Thanks to Annette Sisco of the T-P for publishing the piece. But tales of being treated like a criminal were nothing compared to the story on the front page where Paul Gailiunas recounts the tragedy of his wife Helen Hill's brutal murder on January 4th. Police Chief Riley has been critical of Gailiunas during the investigation, saying he has not been cooperative, and Riley reportedly told one of Paul's relatives that Paul is not a suspect in the murder. To have experienced what Paul went through, and then to be publically denounced by the police chief, and to use Paul's name in a sentence with the word "suspect," all of that makes me very angry with Chief Riley. I pray that Paul and his son will somehow, someday, find some sort of peace. We live in such a violent society. Since Katrina and the ineptitude shown by our government on all levels for the past 17 months, I'm turning into the Angry White Man. But I know that I will never, ever, purchase a gun.

Allstate's Record Profits Are At Risk

""We believe it would be bad business to continue to add to our risk."
Michael Trevino, a spokesman for Allstate, on why Allstate won't write any new policies in New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, and why they won't renew 30,000 existing policies around New York City. I found this on Da Po' Blog.

Got Road Home, Should We Still Sue Allstate?

Therese and I are now about six months into our very first lawsuit. We're suing Allstate. We claim that our house suffered structural damage and was racked from the winds of Katrina, and they, based on a bogus report from Haag Engineering, claim that our house was racked before the storm. We just received "interrogatories and requests for production" from Steven Lozes who is listed as Allstate's attorney. He's from the firm Lozes & Ponder, and they seem to do quite a bit of business for the insurance industry. It boggles my mind when I think of all the people making money off of the tragedy of Katrina. But even with all the illegal and unethical things Allstate has done to us during the past 17 months, we're considering dropping the lawsuit. We received $120,000 from the Road Home to fix our house (plus $30K to raise it). We have to repay this Road Home grant if we get any more money from Allstate. If we go to court, a judge might determine that Allstate owes us an additional $60,000. The attorney fees of this award would be about $20,000, leaving us with $40,000. But the Road Home might then claim we owe them the full $60,000, and in the end this case would cost us $20,000. This leads me to conclude that the Road Home is a gift more to the insurance industry than to homeowners. But in the meantime, we need to decide. I testified on behalf of the Murray Bill back in May, 2006. The bill increases the penalty of insurers who act in bad faith from 25% to 50% in Louisiana, and adds on attorney fees to the settlement. But we would have to prove Allstate acted in bad faith. They have, and we've documented our interactions with them extensively, but I don't know much about how difficult this is to prove. Our attorney, Greg DiLeo, told me that he was assured by Walter Leger, attorney for the Road Home, that the LRA will not "penalize" people for hiring an attorney. He said they will calculate the Road Home grant based on net as opposed to gross, so attorney fees would come from Allstate, not us. But he also said he hadn't seen this in writing, and what happens if Leger quits tomorrow? Does anyone have more information on this issue?

Allstate Wins, New Orleans Keeps on Losing

Two things weigh heavily on my mind this morning. First, a student reminded me that Allstate is based in Northbrook/Chicago. So my corporate nemesis will root for their team in the Superbowl while we prepare to gut our house now 17 months after it flooded. Allstate employees were probably among the Bears fans who threw snowballs and beers at Saints fans last Sunday and shouted Katrina related insults. Second, not one mention was made of Katrina and the Gulf Coast in last night's State of the Union Address. Not one! That is hard for me to believe. Of the many words about Iraq, Bush said "The great question of our day is whether America will help men and women in the Middle East." And so we learn about priorities. Webb's Democratic Response had only a brief mention, saying the Democratic Party hoped this administration would address "such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of the great city of New Orleans." Last year I was shocked at how little was said, but at least Bush said the words "New Orleans." Come to think of it, he said "In New Orleans and in other places, many of our fellow citizens have felt excluded from the promise of our country." I feel more excluded today than I felt last year. If Louisiana is not part of the union, please let us know, so we can formally secede.

Investigate the Federal Response to Katrina

There were two alarming stories (1, 2) in the Times-Picayune today about a speech given by the former head of FEMA Michael Brown last week to graduate students at Metropolitan College of New York. Brown stated:

"Unbeknownst to me, certain people in the White House were thinking, 'We had to federalize Louisiana because she's a white, female Democratic governor, and we have a chance to rub her nose in it. We can't do it to Haley (Barbour) because Haley's a white male Republican governor. And we can't do a thing to him. So we're just gonna federalize Louisiana.'"

Brown claims he heard such conversations aboard Air Force One while parked at Louis Armstrong Airport on September 3rd. Certainly Brown is not the most credible source in the world. But other journalists in September and October of 05 painted a similar scenario. Joe Lieberman, who heads up the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has said there won't be an investigation, and he likened such an investigation to a "witch hunt." But now there is word that Mary Landrieu might be able change this, as she is expected to be appointed to a subcommittee to oversee disastor response. I want to know more about what happened in the aftermath of Katrina, and I don't care if it damages Democrats, Republicans, or both.

Dreary

We went to toast at Buddy D's grave, we even had awesome Bears voodoo dolls made by Carol.

But despite some brief highs in the third quarter of the NFC Championship game, few things seemed to go in favor of the Saints. The loss has been pretty depressing to me, and I feel like the weather: cold, wet, and dreary. The FEMA trailer seems smaller now, and the upcoming year of gutting our house and rebuilding it seems like a much bigger task than it did a week ago.

One Road Win Away

The Saints played every game on the road last year. Now we're just one road win away from going to the Superbowl. We're off for a good luck toast at the grave of Buddy D. Who freakin' Dat?!?