When we were there a couple years ago we stayed in the French Quarter but we poked around in the suburban type areas a little. I saw quite a few houses that were damaged and looked like they were abandoned and never being repaired.

Did quite few people flee never to return or is it taking that long to fix them ?

After our short visit would have to agree it would be a nice place to live aside from the hurricane thing. All Minnesota gets is hail and tornadoes which are minuscule by comparison.