Several readers have asked for an update on the construction next door on Laurel Street. It’s going splendidly and will emerge as a fine home for which someone will likely spend much to own.

Even Bob, the next door neighbor most skeptical throughout the process, has been won over by what is being built. He still complains that it is too much house for the lot, which it is, but that’s not uncommon in New Orleans. We will learn to accept it.

It is part of a post-Katrina boom that began as soon as people returned to the city. Our neighborhood is part of what became known as the “sliver along the river” — the slightly higher elevation along the banks of the Mississippi River that remained above the level of flood waters when the levees broke. The French Quarter, Warehouse District, Bywater and Riverbend neighborhoods all lie at least partly within the sliver along with Uptown.

On our block with eight structures (seven homes, now all owner-occupied, and the old, abandoned firehouse building) there have been two major renovations that were as extensive or moreso as building new houses (one on our immediate east side) and now the new house under construction on our west side.

The firehouse building is under renovation into apartments. The transformation has been carefully orchestrated to preserve the architectural integrity of the building while getting the most out of the space. And on the bottom floor, the building owners have said they plan to have a coffee shop.

The post-Katrina boom has been fueled by aid and insurance money that flowed into the city following the flooding and ramped up by money from the BP oil spill. On every block in any direction there are dumpsters where contractors are tearing out the old and renovating.

Gone are the neighborly hoods who once gathered across the street for society and commerce in Wisner Playground. There now is a new Kaboom Playground for small children and a new dog run with sally-port entrances and dog-watering fountains. People with dogs named “Merlin,” and “Jackson” and “Gwendolyn” (Okay, I made the last one up. I am yet to hear anyone call to a dog named Gwendolyn, but you get the idea.)

Any house that once stood rented and ramshackle is now the target of buyers who want to tear it down and replace or to renovate.

That is the post-Katrina transformation still underway before our eyes. I have posted photos from our Katrina experience on The Panolian’s Facebook page and will add more in the next few days.

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind there a statement often repeated from the Mississippi Gulf Coast post-Katrina: “Camille killed more people in 2005 than it did in 1969.”

I wonder if some day New Orleanians using Katrina as their benchmark will become victims of a catastrophe surpassing what was experienced in 2005.