Someone e-mailed us asking about State Farm Insurance, saying they had heard our city had had real difficulties with the firm and wondering if they should cancel their policies in support. I replied that the true culprit–if you ask the average New Orleanian–is Allstate rather than State Farm. (I’ve been a State Farm policyholder for over 30 years and have had only good experiences with them. My home is insured by American National and they were more than fair in our post-hurricane dealings.)

Recently, Allstate sent cancellation notices to 4,772 policyholders in our part of the world, informing homeowners that “since this house is unoccupied” they were ending the policy. The Times-Picayune did story after story on residents who have rebuilt their homes and who have been living in them many months, but who received those cancellations. It turns out that Allstate’s investigators had done drive-by inspections only, spending an average of 60 seconds per house.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon has ordered Allstate to re-instate all those policies immediately and to redo the inspections. Today, Friday, the newspaper announces that the insurance company is appealing that decision to The Division of Administrative Law, a state body which handles disputes with state agencies. A judge will listen to both sides and issue a ruling. The hearing must take place within 30 days.

Earlier, the state had informed insurers that they could begin canceling policies on any damaged property on which repairs had not begun by March 1.

After some 600 policyholders complained to Donelon about the cancellations, he sent his people into the city to test 18 of the complaints. In each case, they reported it should have been obvious to anyone–even sitting in his car on the streets!–that the homes were occupied.

By an odd coincidence, January’s Sugar Bowl in our city was sponsored by Allstate. A number of unhappy policy-holders pointed out the irony of that. I don’t know how long the contract has to run, but I’ll betcha it will not be renewed. This is one company locals do not like.

Quick rundown of local stuff.

A national guardsman, in town with hundreds of his colleagues to keep the peace, shot and killed a mentally retarded fellow the other night. Guardsmen had no way of knowing the man was harmless, but judged his actions as threatening and his rantings as serious. When the man appeared with what appeared to be a rifle, but was only a BB gun, one shot him to death. The family’s grief is inconsolable.

The front page story in Friday’s paper says local hospitals are out of beds and the emergency room wait for a bed can run into many hours. “We are in crisis in New Orleans,” said the president of the Metropolitan Hospital Council.

Meanwhile, same page, a number of FEMA health clinic trailers that were brought to this city last summer to alleviate the health-care crisis sit unused in a parking lot. LSU officials are upset about the delay and accuse “the city’s own bureaucratic roadblocks” for blocking the delivery of the trailers. The idea was to provide for neighborhood clinics with these trailers. Eight months after LSU applied for them, FEMA delivered six of them at a cost of $761,000 which was picked up by the feds.

What followed was more than 100 meetings involving city, state, and federal officials. Only last week did the New Orleans City Council get around to temporarily waiving the zoning code in order to allow the trailers into schoolyards for a two-year period. Even now, nothing can be done until Mayor Nagin signs the waivers. And then! (I’m not believing this.) And then, permits will have to be secured from the city, and we’re told that could take six months to happen.

Lordy, lordy, lordy.

Here’s a good letter-to-the-editor from a lady in Mannford, Oklahoma. “My husband and I had never been to Mardi Gras. This year we decided to go. Everyone was against us coming. People were telling us how terrible people were, how we’d get robbed because we looked country and how people in the city would pick up on our innocence and rob us blind.”

“Let me tell you, they were so very wrong. We were treated with respect and lots of smiles. All those terrible people must have been on vacation…. Everyone welcomed us. Strangers were making sure we got the real experience of Mardi Gras. We will be back next year with more of our family. We want to thank everyone for making us feel like we belonged and so welcomed.”

Reminds me of the time I attended a Cincinnati Reds baseball game on a Saturday evening. The people around me were so friendly and when the game ended, they were shaking my hand and thanking me for coming. The next day, I attended the coldest worship service on the planet in a church across the river in Covington, Kentucky. I drove home thinking, “If they had given an invitation, I’d have joined the Cincinnati Reds!”