From the Garret: Archives

New Orleans Rising

I recently attended the terrific Novelists, Inc. (NINC) Conference at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The conference planners had booked the conference there many months before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, and they made the courageous decision to keep it there as a way to show our support for the beleaguered folks who call the Crescent City home. What a wonderful thing to do!

The French Quarter still looks much the same physically, saturated with an exotically European-flavored charm. (Note: Click photos to see full-size images). Because it’s above sea level, as is the Garden District, there was minimal water damage. However, it’s showing the economic fallout of the storm. Some of the restaurants and small shops have not reopened. The streets are very empty, even on beautiful sunny weekend days. The people are incredibly welcoming and delighted to see tourists returning to their city but clearly business is bad. Even the most famous dining venues offer reservations at very short notice. It’s paradise for a tourist.

Venture into Lakeview or the Ninth Ward and the physical devastation is overwhelming. What neither news photos nor my own pictures can come close to capturing is the scale of the destruction. You drive for block after block after block through neighborhood after neighborhood where homes are shattered, cars overturned and caked in mud, trees uprooted and smashed onto rooftops. It’s almost impossible to grasp what havoc Mother Nature wreaked on the city.

Yet the folks who live there are amazingly upbeat and cheerful. They are angry about the way the government has failed them at many levels, but they are determined to return New Orleans to her former glory. Their image is of a city rising like a phoenix from the ashes.

The job facing them is mind-boggling in its immensity, and they still need our support whether it’s spending our vacation dollars there (and you will have a great time!) or sending a donation to one of the many organizations assisting with the rebuilding. Hurricane Katrina has passed but her aftermath has not. Help this unique and fascinating city recover!