Military Families
My husband got his orders.
I was almost certain we were going to stay in Jacksonville but I guessed wrong. He got orders to New Orleans. I have family an hour close so I've been there before but it's not somewhere I am thrilled about moving to. Anyone stationed there? Or been there? Or know how the base housing is?
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Re: My husband got his orders.
When we moved in I asked how it weathered Katrina. Here there was only wind damage here. The housing I live in was built in '03. Also, we are one of the first areas to be evacuated. My assumption is because it's a military base and it's so far south but I don't know for sure.
Yes, this is the link https://www.patricianmilitary.com/navalairstation/Default.aspx.
I think when I was looking the wait was like 2 weeks or something but they ask for 30-60 days. My husband had to check in Sept 30th and we left NY on the 21st of Aug. I've heard of wait lists of like a year so I was shocked at that. Also, I don't know if it tells you this on their website or if it matters to you or not, but you can be married or single active military, civilian DOD employee or retired to live here.
OMG no problem!! Glad I could help
As far as food, I have yet to find a grocery store that I'm in love with (the comissary is moving from Algiers to here and is supposed to be done this Feb). I usually go to WalMart, but to WinnDixie for my meat. The restuarants in the area right outside the base are more like "mom&pop" cajun places, but if you don't mind driving 20min or so there's Applebee's, BK, McD's. There's a small mall (Sears, Old Navy and stuff) before you hit the freeway to get to the city. To get to the really good shopping and restaurants the closest place I've found is Metarie (which is like 30 or 40 min dpending on traffic). There's a couple good malls, a Whole Foods Market (btw that's where the only Dunkin' Donuts is in the area 
). But it makes for a nice day out.
PS- When you live here (on base) you are restricted to the base clinic for your medical. They told us when we got here that children under 3 go out in town... then no they don't that hasn't been passed yet... but whatever we got it waived for my son and he goes to a pedi out in town and I have my first appt @ the clinic tomorrow morning so we'll see how it goes.
If you have any other questions PM me and just let me know
I'm a lurker, but we are currently stationed here. He works on the smaller Algiers base and we moved off almost immediately after getting married (but they're not putting many people in housing over here anymore since they're changing the base around & making it government, off-base housing). If you're planning on living on base, definitely try for Belle Chasse. Personally, I hate Patrician Management who runs housing, but I know a lot of people have no qualms with them. The housing (on BC) looks nicer from the outside than it does from the inside, but that's just IMO. Don't know if you have kids, but Belle Chasse Academy is great and right on base.
As far as hurricanes (and any bad, potentially flooding storms) we are the first people to evacuate out of the entire city. We get orders from the CO before the town officials do and are sent out to Ft. Worth. I don't know that it necessarily has anything to do with being so south because we are so far up the Mississippi, but it is because we're military and we're the ones that need to get out first, just in case they need to come back in after the major damage. The past 2 seasons have had no evacuations at all though even though this year was predicted to be "one of the worst hurricane seasons ever".
Belle Chasse is somewhat far away from everything else, but it's a better place to live than near the Algiers base on the westbank. It's pretty fun to live here at first, but it definitely gets old very fast and it's a very small base. But if you do have kids, there are tons of fun things to do with them around here and quite a few military (and non-military) mommy groups.