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What is New Orleans’ future? The Sunday NY Times has a story that captures that confusing place where debates often lead.
Quote:
“At one edge of this city’s future are the extravagant visions of its boosters…At the other extreme are the gloomy predictions of the pessimists….Somewhere between these unrealistic visions lies a glimpse of the city’s real future a year after Hurricane Katrina, say many planners, demographers and others here who have been deeply involved in rebuilding.”
Other Katrina+1 links:
Storycorps: Survial Stories
NPR Weekend Saturday: “Imagining a New City in New Orleans” This is a lot like the conversations I heard in New Orleans last week
Rising Tide Conference Wiki. Related to the blogger-led conference taking place now.
Times-Picayune/Nola.com: “Katrina: One Year Later
Technorati Tags: katrina, nola
 New Orleans is open: On Flickr, I’ve posted some photos from the Louisiana Cookin‘ Magazine’s 2006 Chefs to Watch benefit dinner Monday night in New Orleans. As this will likely be my last New Orleans-visit post, I also want to point to this AP story and stress what it points out: The part of New Orleans most tourists and convention-goers know is up-and-running. While an incomprehensibly broad swath of neighborhoods are still struggling through the very earliest stages of coming back to life, and may never recover fully, — and these range from inner-city to affluent neighborhoods — such a tourist-iconic spot as Jackson Square was stunningly beautiful when I strolled through it Monday. And all those seedy joints on Bourbon Street are still seedy — in a touristy, seedy way. The beignets at Cafe Du Monde still taste exactly like you remember them tasting and there’s still powdered sugar and pigeons on the floor of the outside area. The Superdome is about to reopen and the Aquarium reopened a few months ago. The food is still glorious (as you’ll see on my Flickr photos). It’s amazing to me that the part of New Orleans that most conventioneers, Sugar Bowl fans and tourists know is still pretty much like you’ll remember. Even all those shops along Magazine Avenue are still there. Considering all of the businesses I passed by in other parts of town that are boarded up (including suburban malls and well-know chain retailers), there are an amazing amount of “wonders” to still experience in New Orleans.
According to the AP article:
“The state economic development department estimates 81,000 businesses in Louisiana were damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year. Though more than half reopened their doors by the end of 2005, it’s been a struggle for the rest to start up again or remain in business. More than 18,000 businesses have closed permanently since the storms.
That’s a staggering number, but, like any statistic, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Here’s another quote:
“Harris said the merchants, like most of the tourism industry, are trying to overcome the image that the entire city was destroyed. ‘We’re all hoping people will realize the Central Business District, the French Quarter and the city are basically fine,’ he said. ‘The outlying areas will take years to rebuild, but the business area of the city is basically fine.”
One last thing: It may be in a few weeks or years from now, but one day, you’ll be in New Orleans for a convention or a tradeshow or a sporting event or Mardi Gras or for a vacation. When that happens, I hope you’ll make it a point to seek out restaurants owned by chefs and local restauranteurs. Seek out local restaurants that reopened as soon as possible after Katrina. Not only do they prepare and serve the best food, they are New Orleans.
Update: The NY Times is running a similar story on Friday, a part of a series leading up to the first anniversary of Katrina.
Technorati Tags: katrina, nola
 Dirty Coast T-Shirts: In looking among the thousands of T-shirts for sale that could document our visit to New Orleans, the 15-year-old and I discovered that most seem to be created by the intoxicated to be purchased by the intoxicated. (Admittedly, while we were thoroughly sober, we were looking in shops along a street synonymous with intoxication.)
One positive exception: shirts from the company Dirty Coast Press. Locally designed and screened, the shirts are biting, witty and not tourist-trap bait. The company sells their shirts online and if you are in New Orleans, you can purchase them at several stores, including: Style Lab for Men, Maple Street Book Store, Winky’s, Oliveaux, Still Perkin, Turncoats, Mojo Coffee Shop, and Theo’s Pizza.
Technorati Tags: katrina, nola
New Orleans truth: I hope to see Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. I think anything that gets bloggers talking about Katrina again is a good thing. However, invoking the word truth when describing anything about Katrina can place one in a precarious predicament. I just spent 48 hours in New Orleans and talked with dozens of individuals who each shared with me their truths — everyone has his or her own “Katrina story.” And that’s what they seem to call it, “my Katrina story.” They all share some common “truths” — anger and disappointment with a complete lack of leadership, being one. That, along with commitment to rebuilding their individual homes and lives and neighborhoods and city.
Spike Lee’s documentary is stirring up lots of debate in New Orleans:
Times-Picayune’s Dave Walker’s review of the film.
Spike Lee response
Times-Picayune readers respond.
A blogroll of New Orleans bloggers, many of whom are commenting on the documentary.
I think it will be one more sad chapter in the Katrina story if the first anniversary of the disaster and its aftermath becomes focused on debates about whose truth is the real truth vs. whose truths are not real.
At different times, Dave Winer and I have both gone to New Orleans and the gulf coast region during the past year. One thing I’ve tried to do is compare the “truth” I experience with my own senses with the “truth” I’ve seen and heard on TV and other media. Other than being overwhelmed, bewildered and gaining a bit more understanding of the scale of the disaster, I have gathered no “truth” beyond that which is better shared by those who live there. Like Dave, I know I won’t ever “understand” what it was like to be there during the flood.
While I don’t think I agree with Dave on his assertion that “a culture” died when New Orleans flooded — however, I often find I agree with Dave even when I start out in the direction of disagreeing — I believe in the absolute truth of his following statement:
“The tragedy is still here, today, in our hearts. Perhaps we think we’ve moved on, but I don’t think we have.”
(The Times-Picayune has an animated timeline map that helped me at least gain some understanding of the timing and geography of the flood.)
Technorati Tags: katrina, nola
 New Orleans Jazz Funeral: It will be later before I blog anything from New Orleans where my son and I are visiting for a couple of days. A few minutes ago, we chanced upon a jazz funeral procession that was being held as a memorial to pets that died in the aftermath of Katrina. I’ll post more photos later in this set. (The photos were all shot by the 15-year-old.)
Technorati Tags: katrina, nola
Observation: The key to great politician speeches — no politics: I sat through lots of speeches today at the NFIB Small-Business Summit. (I’ve posted short items on several of them over at MyBusinessmag.com.) One speech I heard today is perhaps the best speech I’ve ever heard from a politician. Perhaps it’s the best because it was the least political speeches I’ve ever heard from a politician. It was some straight-from-the-heart story telling by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour about what has happened in Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina. Hammock Publishing’s Emily McMackin does a wonderful job capturing what Barbour said in this article at NFIB.com. However, it was one of those “you had to be there” experiences.
Technorati Tags: katrina, mississippi
The T-P wins a Pulitzer: Jeff Jarvis has always been nice to credit me with my early and continuous urging of the powers-that-be to award a Pulitzer Prize to the Times Picayune’s online efforts after Katrina. Jeff’s bully pulpit is much bullier than mine; I was just stating the obvious - never before had I been moved by such coverage of a breaking news story. As Jeff notes today, the Pulitzer folks have seen the future and while not awarding Nola.com the award explicitly, the online coverage played a significant and acknowledged part in the award.
The T-P did not even have the ability to print a paper in the days following Katrina. Indeed, the reporters and staff of the paper were living through the hell themselves — and still they kept their readers — and the world — informed. History will note the way in which the Picayune’s online coverage of Katrina has forever changed the way in which a breaking catastrophic story can be — should be — reported. It proved that many of the conventions first developed and refined by bloggers, specifically the reverse-chronological display of stories and, at times, the reassuring, compassionate and conversational human voice, are more effective online than the “above the fold” headline, inverted pyramid and 5-Ws (who, what, etc.) of the print newspaper era.
(More about the winners.)
Technorati Tags: blogging, neworleans, pulitzer, puppy
Small business Katrina help — from Yahoo!: This has much mojo. Yahoo! employees from around the country will be in New Orleans this Friday to help small businesses get online. Small businesses in the area will be eligible for up to $1500 worth of free online services. The Yahoo employees will help create websites, build e-commerce offerings, and launch search advertising programs.
(via: John Jantsch)
Technorati Tags: katrina, smallbusiness, yahoo
 My thoughts after spending time volunteering on the Mississippi gulf coast: Last week, my 15-year-old son and I spent a couple days doing some volunteer construction work on the Mississippi Gulf coast in Pass Christian, near Gulfport. I posted a set of photos on Flickr. (Update: Dave Winer visited the same area in December and posted a Flickr set then.) Below are some observations that together can be summed up this way: I was inspired by the volunteer efforts of people pouring in from all over the country; and by the spirit of the people I met from the area. I was overwhelmed by the degree of devastation and all that has to be done. I was struck by the thin line between devastation and normalcy, at some places a matter of inches separate the two. I’m concerned with the decisions being made by competing interests in the region.
Observations:
I really enjoy hanging out with my son.
There is no way to comprehend the coastal devastation of Katrina without seeing it. There are times when I’m frustrated with TV coverage of a “crisis” news event because a tight shot of fire damage, for example, can make it appear that an entire city has gone up in flames. In this case, despite endless hours of TV coverage, the extent of the damage cannot be conveyed. It was like being on the set of some sci-fi post-nuclear war film.
That said, it is amazing that outside those areas that have been wiped out, life goes one: Look one way, and it’s flatlands - wiped out down to the sand — except for some massive, now leaning, trees. Look the other way and there’s a suburb with yards’ full of azaleas in full bloom.
There are armies of volunteers from churches, colleges, civic groups from all over the country. We passed by staging areas of Baptists, Methodists and were working with a group from our church, Westminster Presbyterian in Nashville, that is coordinating its efforts through national denominational channels. I was also impressed with the massive support of the volunteers through a effort called God’s Katrina Kitchen. We ate lunch there one day with hundreds of other volunteers. The food was prepared by a group of Mennonite volunteers and others. They must serve thousands each day, and charge nothing. I enthusiastically left a donation for their efforts — and the food was hearty and tasty.
Despite the legions of volunteers, the sense I felt when we were back at the house we were working on was one of futility: of being a drop in the bucket of endless need. Our church does one or two Habitat for Humanity houses each year and I enjoy the progress one senses when the house goes up and the neighborhood emerges. Despite enjoying being with my son and other volunteers, I felt little sense of progress being made in rebuilding a neighborhood or community, rather it was more overwhelming what has yet to be done — how what a small dent is being made. Fortunately, there are thousands of other efforts underway making little dents — they’re just so spread out, my personal sense of what needs to be done drowned out the sense of progress made — also, I was not there to see how the massive debris removal process had to precede the rebuilding.
I had the fortune of having names and faces to connect with the two houses I worked on. I got to meet family members and work with the people who live in the homes. I’m into the people-to-people approach of solving things.
On the macro level, I kept looking around, thinking, what a great opportunity to start all over: to be able to reboot a whole region, neighborhood by neighborhood. With what is known about urban planning and zoning and engineering today, the chance to rebuild water-front neighborhoods could only enhance the quality of life of residents of the region, at many levels of the economic ladder. However, it looked to me that there is a mad dash by some to throw back up what was already there. In ten years, will this stretch of the Mississippi Gulf Coast look like a re-creation of what was there before, complete with a water-front Super Wal-Mart? Will the potential for some smart zoning be trumped by the desire by some rich folks to re-create faux-antebellum mansions with modern plumbing and Internet access?
I feel certain the locals will resent any suggestions from “outsiders” on how they should rebuild the area, but as long as we all are subsidizing the insurance system and the post-disaster management infrastructure and systems that enable houses to be rebuilt in flood and hurricane zones, all U.S. tax-payers are insiders.
I can’t imagine how many decades it will take to sort out all of the conflicts among governments, insurance companies, corporate interests and individuals. There are young lawyers, associates in law firms in the region, who will spend their entire careers following the threads of Katrina.
Did I mention that I really enjoy hanging out with my son? (I also love hanging out with my daughter, but while her brother and I were in Mississippi, she and my wife traveled to another corner of world).
Technorati Tags: katrina
Mississippi Coast Back to Work: A directory of Mississippi coast businesses that are rebuilding and open for business and want to let everyone know about it. More than 500 businesses have added information. The chambers of commerce of three coastal counties and the state’s Economic Council created the site.
(via: Shawn Lea)
Technorati Tags: katrina
 Work of art: Blog friend Shawn Lea has created KatrinaArtists.com, for Gulf Coast artists in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina to post information about their work, to let customers know where they are now and to sell their work online. Pass it on.
Technorati Tags: katrina
Shawn Lea can’t go home again: Shawn’s returning home for Thanksgiving, but the house she grew up in is no longer there. She reminds us what to remember when we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of days.
The economics of rebuilding New Orleans: The Wall Street Journal Online (free feature) asked economist bloggers John Irons and Lynne Kiesling to pick through the good, the bad, and the ugly among post-hurricane economic policy proposals.
 Here’s something we can all do to support the hurricane relief effort - eat out: On October 5, 2005, restaurants across the country are joining together in a “Dine for America” day, a national fundraising project to support the American Red Cross’ Gulf Coast hurricanes efforts. Already, over 15,000 restaurants have signed on to participate, including 20 restaurants in Nashville, with more being added daily. To find a restaurant near you that is participating, visit this directory on the Dine for America website, DineForAmerica.org.
tags: katrina, rita, dine for america
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