What Katrina did

Today a middle-aged man shoved a big rolling bin full of supplies into the elevator. We assumed he was going to set up a party area by a parade route, but he said, no, he was leaving New Orleans and never coming back. He lost his house, his boat, half his business, and he's moving to Charlotte, N.C. "I'm getting the hell out of Dodge right now."

Friday, a manager of the Cotton Exchange Hotel downtown, a young black man, talked to us when we took refuge from the rain under the awning. He said he's a native of the city. He and his wife and kids evacuated to Milwaukee for the storm. He didn't like it much. Too many rules. The example he gave was that he got two tickets for not wearing seat belts. He couldn't believe how happy he was to come back to work. But he has to live in Baton Rouge, an hour away, because his home is gone and the rents are so high.

A waitress at the Cafe duMonde, who was Asian and spoke with an Asian/deep South accent, said she lived across the river and had 11 people including 7 adults living in her house because relatives had become homeless during the storm. She has one of the blue roofs--a plastic tarp--they're everywhere.

The manager A Gallery for Fine Photography, a beautiful store full of historic photos, said the gallery and his apartment, both in the French Quarter, did not get flooded. He evacuated to Tampa just hours ahead of the hurricane. It took 27 hours to get there (I think he said it should have been about a 10 hour drive). The towns they drove through were flattened a few hours after they went through. When he got back to New Orleans three weeks later, he was amazed that his electricity was back on and he was thrilled to have air conditioning in the 100 degree heat. But mold had already eaten completely through one of his valuable photos hanging on the wall. The smell everywhere was just terrible. The discarded refrigerators drew flies and smelled so bad that people would throw up just walking by. No one picked up the discarded stinking appliances for a long time.
Saturday night, a quiet block from the very raucous, beer-soaked, bead-paved Bourbon Street, a young man stood against a wall with a big wooden cross leaning on his shoulder--one of the street preachers taking a break. He was talking on a cell phone. We overheard: "I tried to call you earlier. I'm out with the cross now."

Laissez les bon temps roulez.