Three busloads of insurance claims professionals got a firsthandlook last week at how Hurricane Katrina piled up a record forinsured losses. The tour through the miles of destruction leftbehind in New Orleans by the monster storm was conducted by anindustry member who suffered firsthand from its effects.

Thomas Brown, the president of E-Claim.com, who lives and worksacross the Mississippi River from the Crescent City in Gretna, La.,saw the roof torn from his office and his home inundated by rainswhen wind blew off his chimney.

He decided to give the tour to those here attending the ACEclaims conference, sponsored by the National Underwriter Company,because he wanted to show the extent of "Louisiana's naturaldisaster coupled with a manmade disaster."

"The flooding [from poorly-built levees] shouldn't havehappened," he added.

Explaining the view riders on the tour would get, Mr. Brown saidthat "a lot of what you see is the same thing," but it helps to getacross an understanding of "what a massive area it is." Stateofficials say an area seven times the size of Manhattan wasdestroyed.

At night, the impacted area is in total darkness for miles."It's eerie," he said.

He planned to begin the tour by routing the buses by theSuperdome--not to display the arena, where work on the roofcontinues, but to show nearby hotels and office buildings where thewind channel from Katrina ripped out all the windows.

The cavalcade was then scheduled to head north to the Lakeviewarea of upper-income and middle-class homes that were left severelyimpacted.

"Miles and miles of desolation, and it's all from flooding,"said Mr. Brown, who said he would conduct the group north to the17th Street levee breach, where the force of the waters "was enoughto turn houses upside down. It's pretty much as it was after thestorm."

Mr. Brown intended to tell his own tale of success and trauma aspart of the tour. Because his business is a virtual Internet claimsservice system for insurers--it matches them with adjusters andcoordinates the work based on location and other factors--he wasable to keep going even as he fled the storm.

Servers and other systems equipment for his business are inMaryland, so there was no impact on that side of operations.

"As we were evacuating, I was riding down the road using thewireless card on my computer to give demos. Clients continued to dobusiness with me through my cell phone, but I lost all myfurnishings," Mr. Brown related.

Because he had no postal service to deliver checks for months,he asked all his clients to pay by credit card--but that posedanother problem. The credit card company was suspicious of thesudden surge in income and was holding up payments and demanded tosee three years of his tax records.

He explained that he had been wiped out, telling them, "Youdon't understand, we've had a disaster here." Finally, after he dugout some waterlogged and mold-covered documents and sent a digitalphoto, they paid, he noted.

Mr. Brown believes many more people need to get the picture,which is why he arranged the tour. "It meant a lot that ACE camehere," he said, noting that some people complained when theconference venue was picked, "Why don't you send us toHiroshima?"

"I think this tour will help," he said. The devastation, Mr.Brown pointed out, focused the attention of talented people on thearea, and for New Orleans that means "ultimately, I think, it willbe rebuilt better and smarter."