The New Orleans Rag

Cries from the Bottom

2006-03-23T16:44:00.001-06:00

The following is the beginning of a new project, “Cries from the Bottom.” Intermittingly, I will be interviewing the people of New Orleans to show how the recovery process is going through their eyes and ears, letting them recount how the storm has changed their lives.

Tales from the Lower 9

Ophelia

Last Saturday, I made my first foray into the Lower 9th Ward, home of some of the most severe devastation. This predominately poor neighborhood before Katrina remains a veritable ghost town, even 6 months after Katrina made landfall.

Crossing the Industrial Canal, the wreckage is immediate and everywhere, houses shredded, cars caked with mud sit silent. It is a petrified neighborhood, the silence is deafening; frozen in time, it is a stark reminder of 6 months prior, as if Katrina just hit. Aside from occasional workers cleaning up debris, it took over an hour to find one resident of the Lower 9th Ward, as most people are tourists who have come to see the ravaged houses firsthand. Clicking cameras and bulbs flashing, this has become New Orleans newest tourist attraction. Ironically, pre-Katrina it was labeled an anathema by tourism guides and riddled with violence. Now, people flock across the Industrial Canal in sadistic glee.

After searching for some time, I came across Ophelia, who was checking on her house for the third time since Katrina. She was a sturdy black woman in her 60s with a great smile and inviting face, taking my hand with ease like an old friend or a member of her church. Her daughter and granddaughter, all of whom lived together, were picking through the remnants of their life. Most of their belongings were scattered on the curb. Her granddaughter flipped through an old photo album looking for anything salvable. There wasn’t much, and certain items were still wet, even 6 months later.

Near the corner of Tennessee and N. Dorgenois, Ophelia’s house is located three blocks behind one of the canal breaches. Pointing to the fence across the street, she said, “See that yard, the one with no house, just the foundation? It’s over there in the middle of the street.” While this may seem incredible, houses being pushed off their moorings are not rare. Some floated right off their foundations after being submerged for a couple of weeks. Ophelia’s house had gone almost entirely underwater. Since she is right behind the canal rupture, the whole neighborhood is almost completely flattened; it looks like a bomb was detonated.

Amazingly, Ophelia’s house stayed in place, but all that was salvageable is the brick walls. Everything else was ruined, “except a jar of coins,” Ophelia laughingly recalled. Everything was gutted inside, even the attic. She looked on and smiled, laughing at the cruel hand that fate had dealt her. She said that she had bought the house about two months before Hurricane Betsy in 1965, flooding her home that time as well.

As for the future, Ophelia was not sure. For right now, she is staying in her mom’s home in north Louisiana and would love to move back.

Unsure, it echoes in the empty streets down in the Lower 9th Ward; unsure who will come back; unsure who is coming back; unsure if they will be able to rebuild. These are the only constants in their lives of rubble.

.................................................................

Lynell

About an hour later, I ran into two more people outside of a house. Lynell and her friend Calvin were beginning to gut her rental property, dumping soggy clothes and old Christmas ornaments on the curb. With smooth R&B emanating from her car, Lynell, an easy going black woman in her late 30s, early 40s, lives across the Mississippi in Algiers, where she suffered minimal wind damage.

Calvin, who looked to be in his late 40s, was a tall, skinny black man full of verve and charm. Like someone you meet in a barroom, not all that he says might true, but sure is damn entertaining, mitigating his bullshit. He claims to have been in 9th Ward during the storm: “I stayed with my old lady right around here.” Lynell casts a skeptical eye, as he tells a story being trapped on a roof and holding on to his friend’s hand. Eventually, his friend lost his grip and drowned.

In the midst of his story, he welled up, making it hard to tell what was fact and what was fiction. That, however, is what Katrina has done; it made the impossible real and plausible false; in this inverted reality, discerning up from down has become hard.

“Somebody needs to tell the world what’s going on down here,” said Calvin, speaking through a paper mask waving me inside the house. Passing the moldy walls covered with pictures from Lynell’s old tenant, we entered the kitchen. The water had moved the refrigerator around like a toy. The smell was insufferable. He spoke of grand conspiracies. Everyone was involved: Halliburton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Mayor Nagin; it knew no bounds. This harkens back to the old days, when rumors circulated of people dynamiting the levees to save white sections of the city. Today, those rumors have come back home to roost once more.

Although this rental took over 10 feet of water, it didn’t have the surge of water like Ophelia’s house. Most of the houses on the river side of St. Claude Ave., like Lynells’s, are marked with brownish stripes; it is a constant reminder of how much water the neighborhood took as a result of the canal failures. Surprisingly, she said her tenant wants to come back.

Not dismayed at the empty neighborhood, Lynell said, “The foundation is fine. I just have to gut the interior." Fleeing New Orleans to New Iberia before Katrina, Lynell recalled the first time she saw the house: “I was kind of surprised; it is not as bad as I thought. The news kind of tricks ya,” becoming a little misty. No doubt, she is a testament to the survival instincts going around the area.

The problem comes in paying for the reconstruction: “I didn’t have flood insurance," Lynell recalled her bad choice, but added, “It wasn’t required.” Although this might seem unbelievable to someone not familiar with New Orleans, as they saw the 9th Ward completely submerged, her rental was determined by the federal government to be outside of the 100-year flood plain, Zone-X. Therefore, she didn’t have to buy into the National Flood Insurance Policy.

In the wake of Katrina, regret is in great abundance in the New Orleans area, and, like so many, she is full of regrets: “I didn’t take(flood insurance) out, but I should have,” said Lynell. Shaking off her bad luck, she is determined to rebuild even without help from anyone. “I got to. I got a mortgage.” Most of the bills will come from her own pocket.

6 months later, the 9th Ward still has no electricity or water, but Lynell heard rumors that the neighborhood might get it back. What upsets her most is that St. Bernard Parish, which suffered as much damage if not more and is right down the road, has running water and it has power in spots.

Next to regret, rumor has sprouted bountifully. Rumor is all the 9th Ward runs on these days. “I heard they might be getting the power and the water on,” said Lynell with a skeptical smile on her face and shrug of her shoulders.

City Hall has not contacted her, and she has no idea what they might tell her when they do. There have been rumors that no one will be allowed to rebuild. That is what worries her the most. “It’s not like they, (City Hall), don’t know who owns the house,” she said, adding all that she wants is some answers and a plan for the future.

“It’s a wait and see situation,” she said pensively.

Why ever would they hold Mardi Gras?

2006-03-02T10:32:00.000-06:00

Many people have ridiculed New Orleans’ observance of Mardi Gras this year, saying that we are callous to celebrate a frivolous holiday while so many still suffer. Even many who were exiled to other cities by the floodwaters of Katrina decried the annual fete. What many fail to realize is the importance of Carnival in New Orleans.

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Op/ed section, an anonymous gentleman wrote: “Unfortunately, I think New Orleans’ fathers are in denial. Rather than pump large sums into a tourist party (which I for one would not go to this year if you paid me because of the shape the city is in), they should be working on raising the city so that another Category 4 or, heaven forbid, a Category 5 hurricane does not do the same damage next year. I gave at the office and am still giving to help folks get on their feet, but I have no desire to throw money out the window just to make it comfortable for folks to get drunk and display body parts.”

Several ubiquitous elements are at work in this harangue, and the central element is one that shows just how great the gulf is between New Orleans and the rest of the nation, as outsiders still do not get what Carnival is about. This is evidenced when other cities attempt to have Mardi Gras, as it often unravels into civil unrest. Also, the city is rarely understood by the casual outsider, depicted a den of sin, loose morals, and good food; it is a hodgepoge of hedonsim. Nonetheless, the city has survived for centuries as a cultural island, where things go on that one would never find anywhere else; it has a European aura in the Deep South. New Orleans relishes in this sentiment, as it prides itself on its unique, funky, and aloof charm. Perhaps, that is the problem, New Orleans just isn't American enough? Not enough to be a rallying point for the nation.

What the gentlemen’s letter misses is that the nation has forgotten us. No longer front page news, we are dying on the vine. Even the president, the one who stood in Jackson Square and promised to do whatever it takes to rebuild, refuses to guarantee Category 5 hurricane protection. That is scary, especially 6 months after Katrina and with hurricane season just around the corner.

Ultimately, New Orleans is on its own, so Tuesday morning it did what does best: forget its worries and throw a party. Throwing parties is also good business. Not only did area businesses that were hanging on by a thread need Mardi Gras as a shot in the arm, it was a catharsis for the citizens. A palpable sense of survival, defiance could be felt all throughout the day. A city screaming together, “We are alive.” It was a renewed pulse for a city that had long been declared dead.

For 150 years, the Crescent City has held Mardi Gras. Since its inception, it has been the season of the Id, whereby satire, mirth, and music is used to celebrate the last gasp of fun before the clock strikes midnight, thus beginning solemnity of Lent. While television would have the average outsider believe that “Girls Gone Wild,” where women expose themselves salaciously, is the height of Fat Tuesday, there are important cultural traditions that come each and every year on Mardi Gras.

Also in the gentlemen’s letter is that New Orleans is at the mercy of the rest of America for alms to rebuild, thus requiring New Orleanians to check their behavior in order to receive charity. Like an alcoholic or dope fiend, we must kick our nasty habits before receiving any counseling, and we must suddenly forget our wicked ways and straighten up if we are to deserve the benevolence of our brothers and sisters. That goes especially for throwing a frivolous party.

This attitude was conspicuously absent in New York after 9/11, as people adorned their bumpers and windows with stickers imploring Americans to not forget that awful day in September. Most people, lunatic preachers aside, did judge not New Yorkers. New Yorkers were not told to cancel their annual Thanksgiving parade. Instead, they were encouraged by the nation, as it was seen as a symbol of defiance. However, New Orleans was hit by a natural disaster; a faceless enemy, not some bearded man wielding an AK-47 in grainy, obscure videos conjuring unified hatred.

A milieu of laissez le bon temps roule (let the good times roll) has pervaded the city’s eclectic charm for as long as the annual celebration. This, however, has been condemned by outsiders, portraying us as slothful, drunken louts. While that criticism might not be completely off the mark, New Orleanians must laugh at themselves, and Mardi Gras is important time of year for us to do that, this year we needed self-deprecation more than ever.

Those that suggested New Orleans not hold Mardi Gras were met with scathing rebukes from locals. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: “I found this show-must-go-on consensus jarring, but I should have thought back to my time as a correspondent for The Washington Post covering South America, specifically Brazil, and remembered just how important the tradition of pre-Lenten carnival can be to a society. Carnival in Brazil is more than an officially sanctioned bacchanal, it's more like a national birthright - a guaranteed, weeklong interlude during which lots of inhibiting rules are suspended, most societal barriers are ignored and all manner of oppressive problems are deferred.”

Robinson’s comparison of Brazil and New Orleans does hold water. Mardi Gras is essential to New Orleans’ identity; it a central part of what the city is. Ask many locals, and they too, would say it is a birthright of the city, and the lessening of social norms and barriers as the streets come alive with music and utter insanity is part of that birthright. Perhaps Robinson’s most stinging criticism is that all of the frivolity does little to solve the problems that plagued New Orleans.

But Mardi Gras is not about solving problems, it is about brass bands in the streets, parades, Mardi Gras Indians, and Skull Krewes. It is a chance to mock our politicians. For one day, that fleeting moment, the tables are turned, as satire becomes king. This year there was no lack of targets. Former FEMA head Michael Brown, Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin, the beleaguered Kathleen Blanco, and, as always, the President were targets of merriment. However, with what many have gone through, New Orleanians needed the day to laugh at the state of things, lest we cry. It was a chance to forget for one day.

Today, as the city’s coffers are little fuller, many of us awoke—this writer included—with an awful hangover and the same problems that plagued us before the storm. But we are still here to live with the problems rather than washed away in Katrina’s wake, and this year we celebrated that we are alive.

Special thanks to the All-Indian Krewe of Pushpa, Veena, Rajiv, and Rajesh for helping with pictures and providing a great time for Mardi Gras. Remember to click on the photos to see enhanced shots.

New Orleans, a Vanilla Future?

2006-02-16T10:36:00.000-06:00

Race; as much as we try to evade the truth, there it is; it is an inescapable topic in America, as it divides and incenses us as a nation, but, like scar tissue, it is simultaneously in the rearview mirror of the past and on the windshield of the present.

In the last few months, nowhere has it been more pronounced than in New Orleans, a city that broils at moments with racial hostilities. Never did this become more apparent than right after Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans and the nation were forced to examine the uncomfortable feelings that race, and potentially racism, conjures.

Dropped into this seething miasmatic milieu, Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s comments at a Martin Luther King Day March:

We ask black people: it's time. It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.
This city will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way; it wouldn't be New Orleans. So before I get into too much more trouble, I'm just going to tell you in my closing conversation with Dr. King, he said, "I never worried about the good people -- or the bad people I should say -- who were doing all the violence during civil rights time.'' He said, "I worried about the good folks that didn't say anything or didn't do anything when they knew what they had to do.''

First and foremost, and in all fairness to the mayor, the words that preceded this section spoke of coming together as all one people, much like Dr. King preached, and the problems that plague the African-American community, such as fatherless teen pregnancy and black-on-black violence. Nagin called for African-Americans to take it upon themselves to heal the shortcomings and inequities. From Mardi Gras Indians to Jazz, he also noted the importance of black culture in New Orleans, as the Big Easy would not be the same without these contributions. They are essential to the city’s eclectic charm.

Aside from him evoking an arcane funk number by Parliament and his open, imaginary conversation with God, it was Nagin’s espousal of a “chocolate” city that got him in to a lot of hot water and his omission of white people in that new New Orleans.

Immediately, this metastized into a hot button issue, as New Orleans took another post-Katrina black eye. People all around the country spoke against this notion, claiming a double standard was in play. Jeff Crouere, a local conservative pundit, had this to say: “The worst part of Nagin’s speech was the overt racism displayed and an apology does not heal those wounds, they are deep and long lasting. No mayor of a majority Caucasian city would be forgiven for demanding a “Vanilla City” and neither should Nagin be forgiven for his reckless rhetoric, apology or not. Now, white citizens and business owners do not feel welcome in New Orleans.” Crouere is right; the wounds are deep, and Hurricane Katrina only exposed what many — Mayor Nagin included — have known for a long time: New Orleans is a city riven with racial divisions.

And in those racial divisions, New Orleanians elect people.

The next day, websites sprung up from entrepreneurs selling t-shirts looking to capitalize on the mayor’s misstep, lampooning him as a modern day Willie Wonka. Mardi Gras parades mocked his words.

Taking a step back from mayor’s inflammatory comments puts all of this in to perspective, New Orleans has not had a white mayor since the days of Moon Landrieu, 1970-1978, after which only African-Americans held the office. The city prior to Katrina had a racial makeup of about 75 percent African American, and the general consensus being it would be awfully difficult to elect another white mayor.

The makeup, however, is in doubt, as Katrina washed many blacks away. Using the chief of Housing and Urban Development as a source, in an article for The Houston Chronicle,
“Alphonso Jackson predicted New Orleans will slowly draw back as many as 375,000 people, but that only 35 to 40 percent of the post-Katrina population would be black,” wrote Lori Rodriguez and Zeke Minaya. That means a total population loss of about 125,000. If this prognostication is correct, this changes the balance of power quite a bit in New Orleans, and it also changes interpretations of Nagin’s “Chocolate City” speech.

This is not to say whites were devoid of power prior to Katrina. In fact, there were many white political dynasties within the city. Nonetheless, votes and issues are viewed through a racial prism. Pre-Katrina, quite often votes on the city council and the school board fell straight down racial lines.

Some have been licking their chops for this day, a day when a white person could become mayor of New Orleans. Nearly a week after the storm, some saw Katrina as an opportunity and were already speaking. On Sept. 8 — Katrina made landfall on Aug. 28 — a Wall Street Journal article picked up on the theme: “Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives (in Uptown)…, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. ‘People can't survive a year temporarily — they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back,’ he says,” reported Christopher Cooper. As callous as it sounds to talk about political shifts while people were fighting for their lives in New Orleans, this is the reality, and it is how the game is played; it is about seizing upon exposed weaknesses.

Nagin is a wild card in this Republican vs. Democrat polemic, particularly in New Orleans, where family dynasties — white and black — compose the factions of the powerful. Of these dynasties, such as the Jeffersons or Landrieus, almost all are Democrat, even in the South where there is strong Republican shift underway. White or black, as there is just as much corruption exposed on either side, the dynasties in post-Katrina world seek the status quo in their insular society of New Orleans. According to Christopher Cooper’s piece, a small group controls the lion’s share of the power and wealth:

More than a few people in Uptown, the fashionable district surrounding St. Charles Ave., have ancestors who arrived here in the 1700s. High society is still dominated by these old-line families, represented today by prominent figures such as former New Orleans Board of Trade President Thomas Westfeldt; Richard Freeman, scion of the family that long owned the city's Coca-Cola bottling plant; and William Boatner Reily, owner of a Louisiana coffee company. Their social pecking order is dictated by the mysterious hierarchy of "krewes," groups with hereditary membership that participate in the annual carnival leading up to Mardi Gras. In recent years, the city's most powerful business circles have expanded to include some newcomers and non-whites, such as Mayor Ray Nagin, the former Cox Communications executive elected in 2002.

Elected on a pro-business platform, promising to end the city’s centuries-long bout with corruption, Nagin was swept into office on a swing vote: the Uptown white elite, the very same upper crust that Cooper used for his article. Nagin, who has never been a tow-the-line Democrat, endorsed Republican Bobby Jindal instead of Democrat Kathleen Blanco for Governor. While Jindal did not win, the choice symbolized the mayor’s indifference to the old politician guard, and his wish not be pigeon-holed a particular type of politician. In other areas of the country, he might even be seen as more of a Republican. He ran as the unpolitician, and it worked.

His differences with Gov. Blanco became glaringly obvious in post-Katrina Louisiana, where there were several public bouts between the two, and it is well-known that the two have not gotten along since Nagin endorsed Jindal, especially to an old school, well-heeled Democrat like Blanco that expected the endorsement of the mayor. Thus, not towing the party line has gotten Nagin in trouble, especially where the old party people expect patronage. And when the old school has had an opportunity to inflict damage on the mayor, it has not been pretty. At these moments, it is a lack of politic experience showed his weakness.

Nagin’s Achilles’ heel is exactly what got him elected: the unpolitician. In not being a true politician, there have been a multitude of occasions where Nagin lost his savvy, getting eaten up by the political sharks that know the game all too well. Exhibit A was his speech on Martin Luther King Day.

“‘Everybody's jaws are dropping right now,’” said City Councilman Oliver Thomas, who is black. ‘Even if you believe some of that crazy stuff, that is not the type of image we need to present to the nation.’ Thomas, who has been friendly to the Nagin administration but is now viewed as a potential mayoral contender, said the mayor was indulging in ‘equal-opportunity slamming,’” reported The Times-Picayune. Up until this moment, Thomas was sheepish about his aspirations of the mayor’s office, saying he wanted to see how the polls viewed the mayor before announcing a decision. Now, with the mayor in freefall, even old allies are stepping up to fill the potential opening.

Also dogging Nagin has been a bad connection with the poor blacks of New Orleans, as most voted for NOPD Chief Pennington during Nagin’s bid for mayor. Although he came from meager beginnings, Nagin built a fortune at Cox Communications. He is a self-made man unlike the previous mayor, Marc Morial, who was Ivy League educated, graduated from Georgetown Law and brought up by Ernest “Dutch” Morial, the first black mayor. Whether it was because of political astuteness, and while their bios seem juxtaposed, Morial has identified more with the city’s poor and black.

In addition to Nagin’s lack of understanding the political game, a great deal of this has to do with the city’s history of race, how race is defined in the city. Usually of mixed blood and born in North America, Creoles are descendants of Africa along with French and/or Spanish mixture. Even during the time of slavery, Creoles were granted far more latitude than other blacks, such as being able to obtain their freedom. In an AP article, Erin Texeira writes:

After the Civil War, amid Jim Crow laws that restricted freedoms for all people with African ancestry, Creoles maintained exclusive social clubs, schools, neighborhoods and Roman Catholic churches in which whites and darker-skinned blacks were not always welcomed. Historically, Xavier and Dillard universities, St. Augustine Catholic Church and High School and the Seventh Ward neighborhood were Creole bastions. Many Creole musicians were involved in the early jazz scene, including such pioneers as Jelly Roll Morton.

For many black New Orleanians who were not Creole, life was tougher-and sometimes still is. Without historic connection to parochial grade schools and universities, they often faced barriers to middle-class jobs. Before the hurricane, many of the poorest lived in tough neighborhoods such as the Lower Ninth Ward, where poverty rates are among the city's highest.

"There has always been a separation in terms of classes of people," said Ortez Taylor, a New Orleans native who now lives in Harlem.

In practices that have long played out within black American communities, some class divisions have been maintained through emphasis on family lineage, along with preferences for lighter skin color and straighter hair texture.

Members of New Orleans' Autocrat Social and Pleasure Club, a historical Creole group that until the hurricane still had weekly fried fish cookouts and dances, once barred from social gatherings anyone whose skin was darker than a brown paper bag.

"There is an elite in Louisiana which generally prides itself with being not entirely black, which prides itself upon its wealth and education," (Historian Gwendolyn Midlo) Hall said.

Evidence of this power structure can still be seen today, and Marc Morial is most certainly a member. Even though Morial has no affinity with the poor, he does know how to play the crowd. Texira continues, “Mayor C. Ray Nagin, a former cable company executive, is not closely aligned with the Creole power structure-a fact that would have prevented his rise to power in generations past, (UNO Historian Arnold) Hirsch said. Meanwhile, Creole influence has been waning slowly as some residents have moved away from historic neighborhoods like the Seventh Ward to settle elsewhere, particularly in and around Los Angeles. But the city's old cultural fault lines-and entrenched power cliques-have not entirely disappeared.”

Morial made this apparent during a recent visit to New Orleans, his first visit in two years since becoming the head of the National Urban League. At a church in New Orleans East, an area especially devastated, he directed a blow at the mayor: “Turn on the lights in New Orleans East and the 9th Ward,” Morial said, drawing cheers. “Pick up the garbage. If you do that, stores will open, the businesses will open. There will be a place for teachers to live, for workers. Turn on the lights in Pontchartrain Park. Turn on the lights in St. Bernard Parish. Turn on the lights and give people the opportunity to return to New Orleans. The nation is watching.” Speaking to the east and the 9th Ward, Morial addressed poor and predominantly black sections of the city, although he has zero authority presently. Regardless of the feasibility of the plan or Morial’s ability to bring it to fruition, the speech was lauded. As an agile politician, he knows that the poor black vote is an essential sector of New Orleans.

What led to Morial’s speech was a suggestion by the Bring Back New Orleans Commission, who lends recommendations to the mayor, to shrink the footprint of the city due to the substantially lower number that are expected to return. Two targeted areas are the 9th Ward and New Orleans east because they were the hardest hit and they are the farthest away from the city’s center. The idea is to repopulate the heart and work outward, as opposed to a spotty return. While Nagin never officially agreed with the plan, the recommendation was met with jeers from black residents, seeing this as a move to gentrify the city and favor the wealthier areas.

Again, a little history: once elected, Nagin’s corruption removal dealt with the remnants left behind by Morial. During Nagin’s term in office, many contracts Morial had put together were voided, his brother’s house was raided by the FBI, and his uncle was indicted, thus giving him an ax to grind. This may explain Morial’s pandering. Nonetheless, the episode is indicative of the public’s radically different perceptions of each man, as Morial remains wildly popular in the city, while Nagin is forced to deal with the hard, real truths New Orleans face.

An important element of Nagin’s election, the white elite of Uptown, is something that he has not been able to live down in the African-American community, lacking credibility with blacks throughout the city. Although it may seem paradoxical, religious leaders have unusual political muscle in New Orleans’ cauldron of sin, particularly so in the black sector. Cut from this cloth is Bishop Paul S. Morton, who has a congregation of 20,000 strong.

Last year, upset at the mayor for not showing enough patronage to the African-American community, he called Nagin “a white man in black skin.” Morton is so powerful in the city that not only did he never publicly apologize for the slur, Nagin actually attended a public anniversary celebration for the bishop.

The reference to Uptown in Nagin’s MLK speech, to those unfamiliar with New Orleans, is a loaded phrase; it is to the rich white members of the city, casting off the prediction of his demise in a new, white New Orleans, one that would not need a black mayor on their side. Perhaps, seeing that he has been weakened in this sector, Nagin is speaking directly to those who did not vote for him last time, as he might need a “chocolate city” to win the next time.

Was it a poorly calculated political decision acted out by a desperate man? Maybe, once more, Nagin, the unschooled politician, was caught saying something he should not have said. Or, quite possibly it is man under great duress, standing at the helm of major metropolitan city as it spiraled in to the abyss of the worst natural disaster to ever befall America.

After probably making his PR people burning the midnight oil to put out this fire, Nagin has publicly apologized.

Whether it is too late for Nagin, the next election will tell, but with the racial dimensions in a state of flux in New Olreans, politicians — white ones too — seeing the blood in the water, have begun to announce their candidacy for mayor. Jimmy Fahreholtz, Ron Forman, Peggy Wilson, Leo Watermeier, and James Arey all have their thrown there hat in the ring. Each has a diverse background, but all share the same race: they are white. Although nothing is official, another name being bandied about is Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, a member of Louisiana and New Orleans’ most powerful white dynasties and son of the last white mayor.

As of today, there is not one single black candidate, except Nagin. Pre-Katrina that would have been unconceivable, but the storm has changed many things in the city. With around $ 2 million in his war chest, Nagin was a shoe-in for reelection. But, most importantly, that was before Katrina.

Does this spell the dawn of New Orleans as a Vanilla City?

Woe Is Those Who Built The Levees

2005-12-08T09:26:00.000-06:00

Today's Times-Picayune, a potentially devastating blow to the Army Corps Of Engineers and all parties invovled in the construction of the levees.

Evidence points to man-made disaster
Human mistakes led to N.O. levee breaches
Thursday, December 08, 2005
By John McQuaid, Bob Marshalland, and Mark Schleifstein Staff writers

As investigators and residents have picked through the battered New Orleans levee system's breaches, churned-up soil and bent sheet pile in the 100 days since Hurricane Katrina struck, they have uncovered mounting evidence that human error played a major role in the flood that devastated the cityFloodwall breaches linked to design flaws inundated parts of the city that otherwise would have stayed dry, turning neighborhoods into death traps and causing massive damage. In other areas, poorly engineered gaps and erosion of weak construction materials accelerated and deepened flooding already under way, hampering rescue efforts in the wake of the storm.

These problems turned an already deadly disaster into a wider man-made catastrophe and have made rebuilding and resettlement into far tougher and more expensive challenges.
That's the picture that emerges from investigations of the levee system by teams sponsored by the state government, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Science Foundation, as well as from dozens of interviews with local residents, officials and engineers.
Experts say the New Orleans flood of 2005 should join the space shuttle explosions and the sinking of the Titanic on history's list of ill-fated disasters attributable to human mistakes.
The evidence points to critical failures in design and construction, as well as a lack of project oversight and responsibility that allowed small problems to metastasize into fatal errors. Twisted lines of authority led to cursory inspections, communications snafus and even confusion about such basic information as wall dimensions.

Outside engineers, political leaders and many New Orleans residents now question the judgments and even the once-unassailable competency of the Army Corps of Engineers, which had final authority over the system. The corps and some of the same firms involved in the original design and construction of the levees are spearheading the effort to repair the system and already are planning to build stronger protections.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who sits on two Senate committees investigating the levee failures, says the U.S. system for building flood defenses is broken. The corps, he said, should be overseen by outsiders who can ensure it will do the job right.
"We need a new model, a new structure, a new process to get this done which has to include outside, independent review of the corps by outside, independent engineering experts," he said.

'The best minds'

The levee flaws also raise troubling questions about the integrity of flood defenses elsewhere.
"Everybody who has a levee out the back door now has to look out and wonder, is this going to fail? Was it designed right?" said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington fiscal watchdog group critical of the corps' priorities.
Corps spokesman David Hewitt said the agency has several experts and engineers from outside agencies, private firms and academia to aid its investigation. "We are determined to find out exactly what happened both in the technical engineering and the planning and execution process so that we can prevent another occurrence," Hewitt said. "We are engaging the best minds and professional expertise in this important effort."

Engineers say most structures that fail do so not because they're hit by overwhelming forces, but because of flaws that creep in unnoticed during design, construction and upkeep. A paper published this month by Robert Bea, an engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley who is studying the levee failures, concluded that 80 percent of 600 structural engineering failures he studied in the past 17 years were caused by "human, organizational and knowledge uncertainties."
Bea said everything he has seen about the New Orleans levee system so far tells him it belongs in that category.

Not as good as advertised

The levee system's design dates to the 1950s, when understanding of hurricane risks and flood dynamics was primitive compared to today. The system was never built to take a hit from the most powerful hurricanes, storms in Categories 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The levees were designed by congressional mandate to fend off floodwater heights -- up to about 11 or 13 feet, depending on location -- that Category 1 or 2, and some Category 3 storms would kick up.
But the investigations show that the levees did not live up even to that billing. When Katrina's storm surge rolled in from the Gulf of Mexico before dawn Aug. 29, the huge dome of water followed a path up the Mississippi River and then along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet into Lake Borgne.

In a matter of hours, the sheet of water -- reaching 25 feet high at some locations -- moved relentlessly north and west, pouring over the tops of and eroding large stretches of levees surrounding Chalmette, clearly exceeding their design capacity.
When the surge reached New Orleans' southern edge along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, it caused as much as five miles of the 17.5-foot tall levee there to disappear, creating a back door for water into eastern New Orleans.

Water pushed west through the waterway into the Industrial Canal, where it met water already rising from storm surge that had entered Lake Pontchartrain. The water topped levees on both sides of the canal, causing walls to fail on the east side, flooding the Lower 9th Ward, and leaking through smaller levee breaks and a pump station on the west side, flooding the rest of the 9th Ward.

Breaches by design

Later that morning, as surge rose in Lake Pontchartrain, floodwalls along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals breached, even though the water was well below their tops. Investigators say those breaches shouldn't have happened. Observational data and computer modeling indicate that storm surge entering the canals from the lake reached heights ranging from 9 to 11 feet in the 17th Street Canal and 11 to 12 feet in the London Avenue Canal. The walls were 13.5 feet high or higher along much of the two canals and were designed to withstand water rising to 11.5 feet.

Investigators say the walls broke when floodwater, pushing through the soft, porous earth under the steel sheet pile foundations, started moving the soil. In the 17th Street Canal, one breach opened on the east side, and in the London Avenue, two breaches occurred. Water poured into the Lakefront area and moved south, inundating much of central New Orleans over the course of the day and night.

Engineers say some systemic design problem -- not merely a localized fluke -- caused the breaches because walls gave way in two canals and some walls appear to have been close to breaching at other points.

While it's easy to second-guess after a disaster, outside engineers say the depth of the sheet pile foundation appears too shallow. A survey by Team Louisiana, the state-sponsored forensics group, found -- and the corps confirmed last week -- that the sheet pile depth was about 10 feet below sea level in the breached areas at both canals, much shallower than the 18.5 foot below-sea-level depth of the canals and 7 feet shorter than the corps thought.

Modjeski & Masters, the firm that designed the 17th Street canal wall, said last week it had initially recommended a 35-foot depth for the piling on the 17th Street Canal, then shortened it at the corps' behest, but the firm offered no documentation to back the claim.

Soil and safety

It's still unclear exactly what went wrong, though engineers suggest the soil's resiliency was overestimated. New Orleans soil is swampy and mushy, with alternating layers of peat, clay and sand. Along the length of a floodwall it varies wildly in consistency and strength. Along both canals, a layer of peat -- the weakest and spongiest of soils -- lies directly under breaches a few feet below the base of the sheet pile. Along the London Avenue Canal, coarse sand underlay the peat and now lies throughout nearby residential yards and homes, another layer of weakness, the engineers said.

"Those are the kinds of subsurface conditions that lend themselves to having weak pockets or stronger pockets, and Mother Nature will always find the weak pockets," said Joseph Wartman, a Drexel University geotechnical engineer studying the levee failures. "What makes levee design and engineering so challenging is you can have a system that's many, many miles long and you only need the weakest 150 feet to rupture for the whole system to fail."

Another factor in the breaches, one with national implications, is the low safety factor used in constructing the levee banks and floodwalls. A safety factor is a kind of cushion that engineers include in a structure's design to ensure it can withstand all the punishment it's designed to take, plus a little more.

Corps standards for levees and floodwalls date back decades, officials say, and were intended to protect sparsely populated areas, not cities and billions of dollars of infrastructure. The safety factor of 1.3 used in the designs is significantly lower than those used in structures with similarly large-scale tasks of protecting lives and property.

With data from soil borings spaced at more than 300-foot intervals along the canals, engineers could develop only a fragmentary picture of what is underground. They were supposed to account for that uncertainty. That is typically done by raising the safety factor or by making conservative estimates of soil conditions.

Team Louisiana investigators said last week that based on new calculations, they think engineers working for contractors Eustis Engineering and Modjeski & Masters miscalculated the depths of the 17th Street Canal walls. The team has not yet released detailed findings. University of California engineers say the designers might not have accounted for storm surge's effects on the soil.

According to project and court documents, those designs were reviewed and approved by corps engineers.

It's not clear yet whether additional factors such as cost-cutting or specific on-site construction problems contributed to the levee breaches, but the failures can also be linked to a chain of political and managerial decisions.

The corps originally proposed building floodgates at the mouth of each canal -- and at the mouth of the Orleans Canal that runs along the west side of City Park -- to block surge. But local officials, including those at the Orleans Levee Board and New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, insisted on building floodwalls because floodgates would have made it difficult to pump water out during a storm. Engineers say the obvious, though expensive, solution is to build pumping stations at the lakefront rather than miles inland.

A 1980s-era Sewerage & Water Board dredging project in the 17th Street Canal next to the breached area left the Orleans Parish canal-side levee wall much narrower than that on the Jefferson Parish side. Investigators say that change probably contributed to the failure of the wall.

Pittman Construction, the contractor that built the 17th Street Canal wall, ran into trouble driving sheet piles in 1993. When the concrete tops to the walls were poured, documents show, the walls tipped slightly. Though the corps attributed this to Pittman's methods, not the site conditions, and a judge agreed, some engineers say the difficulty they encountered was an early warning sign.

What lies beneath

Meanwhile, state and local officials have admitted they generally skipped the canal floodwalls in annual inspections of levees -- and the levees they did inspect were examined in a cursory fashion.

Though necessary, visual inspections are of limited use. Absent an obvious problem like water bubbling to the surface, most levee problems go on out of sight, meaning a system's problems can go undetected for years without a more aggressive inspection program that includes probing beneath the surface with soil sampling, sonar or other methods.

"It looks perfect from the outside. It looks in good shape. Even if you had a 10-man crew walking along there every day, you would not have seen the problem," said Jurjen Battjes, a retired professor of engineering from the Technical University of Delft, Netherlands, who is on an American Society of Civil Engineers panel reviewing the corps' investigation.

To the east, assessing the levee system's performance is a more complicated task. Water flowed over levees and floodwalls along the Industrial Canal, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. In many spots, the water scoured out earth along the dry side and the walls gave way.

In general, engineers say that once a levee is topped, its structural integrity cannot be guaranteed. But the speed with which many of the walls breached or eroded and the large scope of the damage have alarmed investigators. The outer levee along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet protecting St. Bernard Parish and the levee along the north side of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway protecting part of the Lower 9th Ward were all but washed away by the storm, for example.

Engineers say that if a wall is sturdy enough to remain in place while water flows over it, flooding will be minimized, lasting only until the surge drops. When a breach opens, adjacent neighborhoods basically become part of nearby waterways and the scale of the flooding is many times greater.

The funnel effect

One source of the scouring and multiple breaches is actually a corps policy, dictated by Congress. Corps officials say they are not allowed to put rip-rap, concrete or other forms of scour protection on the dry side of levees. Doing that anticipates flood level higher than the walls are designed for, which is beyond the corps' mandate for Category 3 protection.

A report published last month by the American Society of Civil Engineers and National Science Foundation teams identified other unanticipated weaknesses in the levee system. Builders used weak, sandy soils in the now-obliterated St. Bernard Parish hurricane levee, and that likely contributed to its rapid destruction. In areas where two different levee sections came together, investigators found many awkwardly engineered transitions that allowed water through.
A much larger problem lies in the overall design of the levees along the city's southeastern flank. Unlike areas fronting Lake Pontchartrain, southeastern areas are more or less directly exposed to waters from the Gulf, and hurricane floods are more likely to strike there and rise higher when they do.

The levee system forms a V-shape where the MR-GO and Intracoastal Waterway meet. That acts as a giant funnel, driving water heights even higher and channeling storm surge directly into canals leading into the city.

Computer modelers have complained for years that the corps had underestimated the risk to those areas, and former corps modeler Lee Butler estimated the actual risk was double the corps estimate in a 2002 study done for The Times-Picayune. The corps only recently announced it will stop dredging the MR-GO.

Waiting for answers

It will takes months, and possibly years, to arrive at a detailed assessment of what went wrong and assess responsibility, engineers familiar with the situation say. Investigators must determine not only why individual wall sections failed, but they also must trace the roots of decisions, untangling overlapping responsibilities of the corps, private contractors and local agencies. A federal interagency team investigating the system won't make its report until June. A National Research Council team is only now being formed.

So far, the scope of the disaster, and the human element central to it, have only begun to sink in among political leaders and agency heads, including the corps, which is at the center of all the inquiries. The corps has declined to comment on the causes of the levee failures, pending the outcome of its own studies.

People familiar with the agency say the disaster means things might never be the same.
"In the old days the corps used to get criticized for being way too conservative in their designs," said Don Sweeney, a corps economist for 22 years who left after exposing irregularities in the agency's economic impact statements and now teaches at the University of Missouri. "They would design a structure with a safety factor of 4 or 5. They did have that reputation of building things with integrity that were built to last. And if they said it was built to do something, it would do it."
. . . . . . .
John McQuaid can be reached at john.mcquaid@newhouse.com or (202) 383-7889. Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539. Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.

2005-12-08T09:22:00.000-06:00

An overview of the flooding due to levee failures in the New Orleans area per this morning's Times-Picayune. Click on the image and it will appear larger.

Katrina, Natural or Engineered Disaster?

2005-11-30T16:50:00.000-06:00

Once again, The Times-Picayune uncovered disturbing evidence regarding the construction of New Orleans' levees.

17th Street Canal levee was doomed
Report blames corps: Soil could never hold
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
By Bob Marshall
Staff writer

The floodwall on the 17th Street Canal levee was destined to fail long before it reached its maximum design load of 14 feet of water because the Army Corps of Engineers underestimated the weak soil layers 10 to 25 feet below the levee, the state's forensic levee investigation team concluded in a report to be released this week.

That miscalculation was so obvious and fundamental, investigators said, they "could not fathom" how the design team of engineers from the corps, local firm Eustis Engineering and the national firm Modjeski and Masters could have missed what is being termed the costliest engineering mistake in American history.

The failure of the wall and other breaches in the city's levee system flooded much of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore Aug. 29, prompting investigations that have raised questions about the basic design and construction of the floodwalls.

"It's simply beyond me," said Billy Prochaska, a consulting engineer in the forensic group known as Team Louisiana. "This wasn't a complicated problem. This is something the corps, Eustis, and Modjeski and Masters do all the time. Yet everyone missed it -- everyone from the local offices all the way up to Washington."

Team Louisiana, which consists of six LSU professors and three independent engineers, reached its conclusions by plugging soil strength data available to the corps into the engineering equations used to determine whether a wall is strong enough to withstand the force of rising water caused by a hurricane.

"Using the data we have available from the corps, we did our own calculations on how much water that design could take in these soils before failure," said LSU professor Ivor van Heerden, a team member. "Our research shows it would fail at water levels between 11 and 12 feet -- which is just what happened" in Katrina.

Not deep enough

Several high-level academic and professional investigations have found that the sheet piling used in the design to support the floodwalls was too short for the 18.5-foot depth of the canal. In addition to holding up the concrete "cap" on the walls, the sheet piling is supposed to serve as a barrier preventing the migration of water from the canal through the porous soils to the land side of the levee, an event that rapidly weakens the soils supporting a wall and can cause it to shift substantially.

The corps has long claimed the sheet piling was driven to 17.5 feet deep, but Team Louisiana recently used sophisticated ground sonar to prove it was only 10 feet deep.

Van Heerden said Team Louisiana's latest calculations prove investigators' claims that a depth of 17 feet would have made little difference. He said the team ran the calculations for sheet piles at 17 feet and 16 feet deep, and the wall still would have failed at a load of 11 to 12 feet of water.

Investigators have been puzzled by the corps' design since it was made public in news reports. They said it was obvious the weak soils in the former swampland upon which the canal and levee were built clearly called for sheet piles driven much deeper than the canal bottom. It was not a challenging engineering problem, investigators said.

Prochaska said a rule of thumb is that the length of sheet piling below a canal bottom should be two to three times longer than the length extending above the canal bottom.

"That's if you have uniform soils, and we certainly don't have that in the New Orleans area," he said. "It kind of boggles the mind that they missed this, because it's so basic, and there were so many qualified engineers working on this."

Corps approved design

According to records, Eustis Engineering provided the detailed analyses of the ability of soils along the path of the levee to withstand water pressure once the wall was built on top. The information was provided to Modjeski and Masters, the contractor that designed the wall for the corps. If the project followed normal procedures, the engineers with those firms were using design criteria spelled out in various corps handbooks. "You use the corps cookbook, and you usually have to work it out using corps (computer) programs," Prochaska said.

Private-sector engineering work must be reviewed by corps personnel in relevant sections. In this case, legal documents show, the work was reviewed by engineers in the corps' geotechnical and structural engineering branches, as well as the flood control structures section. It was approved and accepted by the district's chief engineer at the time, Chester Ashley, according to the documents.

Robert Bea, a University of California, Berkeley professor who led a National Science Foundation investigation of the levee failures, said the mistakes made by the engineers on the project were hard to accept because the project was so "straightforward."

"It's hard to understand, because it seemed so simple, and because the failure has become so large," Bea said.

"This is the largest civil engineering disaster in the history of the United States. Nothing has come close to the $300 billion in damages and half-million people out of their homes and the lives lost," he said. "Nothing this big has ever happened before in civil engineering."

. . . . . . .

Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3539.

New Orleans as Atlantis?

2005-11-22T07:58:00.000-06:00

As of Sunday night, CBS aired a segment on “60 Minutes,” in which reporter Scott Pelley told of New Orleans becoming an island within 80 years. However, this might not be entirely accurate, as The Times-Picayune reported this morning.

NOT SO FAST, '60 MINUTES'
Five experts say the report on the demise of New Orleans is way off the water mark
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
By Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer
"Rumors of New Orleans falling into the sea are greatly exaggerated."

That's Louisiana Recovery Authority Executive Director Andy Kopplin's response to a segment on Sunday's "60 Minutes" news show that quoted St. Louis University geologist Tim Kusky as saying that within 90 years the city would be an island surrounded by water, and that people and businesses should move away.

Kopplin has a lot of company, including several of the scientists whom Kusky, an earth sciences professor, said he relied on in reaching his controversial conclusion. Their collective response? Kusky went overboard.

But state officials are concerned that Kusky's comments on a national television show could help kill what they say is a comprehensive and effective plan for protecting New Orleans from major hurricanes and restoring the state's fractured coastline. Congress already is considering both levee-raising and wetlands restoration, two critical ingredients in protecting south Louisiana.

Kusky said his conclusions were based on a series of scientific reports concerning subsidence and erosion in coastal Louisiana, including preliminary estimates of damage resulting from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"We should be thinking about a gradual pullout of New Orleans, and starting to rebuild people's homes, businesses and industry in places that can last more than 80 years," Kusky said on "60 Minutes." "Because New Orleans is going to be 15 to 18 feet below sea level, sitting off the coast of North America surrounded by a 50- to 100-foot-tall levee system to protect the city," he said.

Kusky came to similar conclusions in a Boston Globe op-ed piece in September. And in his 2003 book, "Geological Hazards," Kusky went even further, saying rainfall accompanying a major hurricane might change the course of the Mississippi River.

In an e-mail response to people who have written him since the "60 Minutes" segment ran, Kusky said he believes this is the "proper time to be asking questions about the rebuilding process."

"While I realize that this is a sensitive topic, I spoke out because of my concern for the residents of New Orleans," Kusky said. "It is my hope that the scientific communities' research and observations will help save lives in the future."

Balance sought

Kopplin was unsuccessful in a last-minute effort Saturday to get "60 Minutes" to hold the piece. He sent an e-mail to "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley urging that additional scientists familiar with the state's coastal restoration efforts be included to balance Kusky's remarks.

Also making the request was Don Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and a former director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

In a letter to "60 Minutes," Boesch said the op-ed piece written by Kusky for the Boston Globe in September "reads like an undergraduate paper -- a little bit of truth but with a lot of important information missing and not much deep thinking. And, I wouldn't grade it highly.

"The disaster of Katrina is sad in so many respects," Boesch wrote. "One of those for me as a scientist is the proliferation of self-proclaimed experts who, either to seek attention or push their own agendas, have rushed to write op-eds or otherwise opine to the media on topics far from their expertise. They are affecting people's fears and lives and confusing rational decision-making on governmental policies and investments."

'An offhand comment'

On Monday, "60 Minutes" posted a response on its Public Eye Web page, in which Pelley defended the report to CBS's ombudsman.

Pelley told the ombudsman "that '60 Minutes' called the Geological Society of America to check out Kusky's claims. '60 Minutes' was put in touch with three scientists, Pelley says, all of whom backed Kusky's argument. One even said he was being too conservative in his estimate concerning how quickly the city would sink, he adds."

In an interview Monday, Kusky said his projection of the city becoming an island was "based on a statement made by the director of the U.S. Geological Survey" in 2000.

But University of Texas at Austin geology professor Charles Groat, who was then director of the U.S. Geological Survey, flatly disagreed with Kusky's conclusions.

Groat said Kusky relied on "an offhand comment that has often been repeated" that was included in a University of New Orleans magazine piece that compared New Orleans to Atlantis.

"No, no, no," Groat said of Kusky's island image. "You've got a lot of things between the city of New Orleans and the edge of the sea, and they're not going away."

He said that in an ultimate worst-case scenario -- if global warming were to raise sea level several dozen feet -- the city might be flooded, but such a scenario is not thought to be realistic by many scientists.

Warning missed

Roy Dokka, a Louisiana State University geologist who developed subsidence estimates as part of efforts of the National Geodesic Survey to set height benchmarks throughout south Louisiana, said that if Kusky relied on their past estimates of subsidence to predict the future, he missed the warning in his subsidence paper that past estimates cannot be used to predict the future.

If anything, Dokka said, in the past decade, the rate at which land is sinking in south Louisiana slowed considerably.

"If he's using NOAA's NGS data as his guide, I'm the co-author for that subsidence paper and it says explicitly in there that rates are not constant over time," Dokka said. "The measurements we've made of subsidence for the last 10 years show subsidence slowed by half.

"I agree that without coastal restoration, the long-term prognosis for New Orleans -- in 500 years -- does not look good," Dokka said. "However, if the powers that be come to grips with the problem as it really is, the subsidence that's occurring in the whole region, we can develop strategies that provide us with a safe place for New Orleanians to live."

Some scientists also were critical of the "60 Minutes" report's use of photos of damage to Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands in making Kusky's point because the damage to those islands has little to do with the future of New Orleans.

Asbury Sallenger, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who conducted an aerial survey of the Chandeleur Islands immediately after Katrina hit, said the use of photographs from that survey in the "60 Minutes" piece to buttress Kusky's argument simply was inaccurate.

The survey indicated that 15-foot dunes along the islands were knocked down to 4 feet, at most, and many of the individual islands were eroded dramatically, Sallenger said.

He said the damage to the islands reinforces the need for further studies to better understand the effects of barrier island systems in reducing surge, But the loss of those islands doesn't mean levees designed to withstand Category 5 hurricane surge would not protect the city.

"I don't follow that logic," he said.

Out of his league?

Some scientists have questioned Kusky's credentials for making his statements.

Kusky said Monday that he has conducted no basic research in Louisiana's coastal wetlands.

"I've worked down there a number of times, mostly field trips with my students, showing them what people are doing," he said.

His expertise actually is in hard rock geology, especially the study of ophiolites, hard rock that was once part of mid-ocean undersea plates, but was thrust up onto the edge of continental plates.

Sallenger said someone with "60 Minutes" called his office several weeks ago to check out a claim that Kusky had once been employed by the Geological Survey.

"We found a record that he had worked part-time for the Geological Survey, but for a non-coastal group," Sallenger said.

Joseph Suhayda, a retired LSU geologist cited by Kusky as another source for his comments, said he does believe large sections of New Orleans should be partitioned by levee walls to stave off the effects of hurricane storm surge.

He also believes state and federal officials should seriously consider filling some flooded areas of the city, similar to a Breaux Act coastal restoration project that turned open water in the LaBranche wetlands west of the city into productive wetlands several years ago.

And there certainly is a danger that the combination of hurricanes and continuing erosion can cut through the land bridge connecting Chef Menteur Pass and the Rigolets if no restoration program is adopted, Suhayda said.

But he said Kusky went too far in his contention that the city is in danger of being surrounded by water.

"He has mixed a variety of statements without critically looking at the possibilities of restoration," Suhayda said.

Schadenfreude, What it Means to be Home

2005-11-06T10:36:00.000-06:00

     As New Orleans falls from the front page into oblivion, brave souls have returned and are trying to live their lives.  This is not the sexy, salacious looters-running-out-of-Wal-Mart-with-liquor-bottles news that Anderson Cooper, Bill O’Reilly, or other members of the national media misreported at an alarming level, rather this is back page news.
     The Germans have the word “schadenfreude” for the palpable delight the anchors displayed while wallowing in New Orleans’ misery. Webster’s Dictionary defines this omnipresent sadism as “glee at another’s misfortune.” Alas, this is not the first time that this abhorrent behavior was diagnosed. Ironically, in their bloodlust, the national media has missed the germane elements of the post-Katrina story: the everyday lives of those that returned are relevant and intriguing.
     Aside from harangues on FOX or CNN, what has life been like here in the battered Big Easy? Literally, it stinks. A fetid aroma cloaks the city, as refrigerators sit idly on the sidewalks throughout the city. Every shape and size stand silently still, full of pre-Katrina items as testimonials to the weeks New Orleans was without power.  Rather than attempt the Herculean task of removing maggots from the cracks and crevices of the refrigerators, most New Orleanians chose to bind them with duct tape and move them to the street.  With garbage sitting in front of most houses due to the lack of regular trash removal, the refrigerators are only one element in the cleanup of New Orleans. There are gigantic debris piles of sheetrock and furniture on almost every street.  Jennifer Medina in a New York Times article estimates there are 22 million tons of garbage, and “It is more trash than any American city produces in a year. It is enough to fill the Empire State Building 40 times over. It will take at least 3.5 million truckloads to haul it away.” To approximate how many people visit for Mardi Gras, city officials weigh the garbage, and on a good Mardi Gras, a 1000 tons are collected.  Ergo, Katrina left enough trash for 20,000 Mardi Gras.
     Rotten food and garbage is only one element of the putrid odors that assault the olfactory senses. When entering areas where the flooding was over 4 feet, which is a significant portion of the city, a miasma of death now resides. The aura of death leaves an awful stench.  This is due, in large part, to the fact that water sat for weeks, killing all vegetation and leaving a filthy ring throughout the city.  The ring has the feel of a dirty drained bathtub. This ring of reminder is everywhere; it is the line of death, everything above is alive and well and everything below is dead, choked and drowned in Katrina’s waters. Often times, the ring is accompanied by a boat stranded on the side of the road.  The boats—used for saving lives—now sit in a pedestrian fashion, evoking a memory of New Orleans’ brief imitation of Venice.  These are daily reminders of just how high the waters rose, and they force the citizens to relive the experience ad nauseam.
     Most citizens long for normalcy, but it will be quite some time before the city returns to normal. In fact, the most basic services and tasks are hard to complete.  Merely getting groceries requires finding a supermarket that is open, as many have not reopened—due to flooding, looting, wind damage or lack of employees.  Once an open store has been found, then the task of getting there before it closes at seven in the evening begins.  Those souls lucky enough to make a successful dash from work to the store are greeted by a wait to checkout that is like bread lines in the old U.S.S.R.  For those brave enough to return, patience is an essential requirement in all facets of life.
     Before doing almost anything or going anywhere, a myriad of questions must be answered: Is the place open, was it flooded, then, if it did survive the storm, what time does it close?  New Orleans, a city renowned for 24/7 laissez faire lifestyle, now closes early under the enforcement of a 2 am curfew. This is just one change from the way things were.  Most stores close by dusk, and bars are forced to shut down early.  Those violating curfew are ticketed or arrested by NOPD or the National Guard, who still patrol the streets armed with M-16s. The unlucky few who have been arrested are detained in a makeshift jail at the Greyhound station. Hoping to conduct more business, French Quarter bars had to encourage their City Councilwoman, Jackie Clarkson, to force NOPD to extend the curfew from midnight to 2 am. After some protest by Mayor Nagin, the city relented, as he did not want to upset the miniscule tax base that he has left.
     The curfew has a profound impact on the music scene, a quintessential part of life in New Orleans.  Most clubs have not reopened, and, with that, most musicians have not returned. It makes for dreadfully dull Saturday nights, something the city just is not used to.  The clubs that reopened are thriving due to the limited choices of nightlife, packed with both locals and emergency personnel.
     Recently in Uptown, on an unseasonably steamy night at the Le Bon Temps Roule, the Soul Rebels Brass Band provided a chance to hear old New Orleans, the time before Katrina. The band, however, had other ideas, as they began their set with a funeral dirge, leaving a somber ambiance in the packed back bar; it was for those—the band included—that had lost so much.  The crowd rocked back and forth to the mournful horns. One cannot go far nowadays in the city and not be confronted with America’s worst natural disaster. The scar tissue is everywhere. Amid the teary eyes, people hugged and grabbed total strangers welcoming each other home. Not missing a beat, the band seized on the crowd’s emotion and launched into the upbeat number, “I’ll Fly Away.” With the change in tempo, the crowd’s spirits were buoyed. As the gospel standard proclaims, “Just a few more weary days and then, / I'll fly away / To a land where joy shall never end, / To a land where joy shall never end, / I'll fly away. I'll fly away, O Glory, / When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye, / I'll fly away.”
     Apropos, the song is about hope and promise, two things that New Orleans needs most. In this moment, the city was back. Although nothing shall ever be the same in New Orleans again, there are glimpses, mere flashes, where the city emerges from the pain and sorrow that Katrina has wrought.  One only hopes for more of this.

2005-11-01T13:14:00.001-06:00

Like a T.S. Eliot work.

2005-11-01T13:14:00.000-06:00

More of the high water marks on the way out of Lakeview.

2005-11-01T13:13:00.000-06:00

This is only from the water, not the winds, which, in this case, gutted the entire house.

2005-11-01T13:12:00.000-06:00

Oh my......

2005-11-01T13:11:00.000-06:00

Cars and homes that are now part of the canal wall.

2005-11-01T13:10:00.000-06:00

This is what remains of a Lakeview home: only the pilings.

2005-11-01T13:09:00.000-06:00

More carnage.

2005-11-01T13:08:00.001-06:00

The homes behind the rupture.

2005-11-01T13:08:00.000-06:00

A look on top of the 17th Street Canal, which, among others, flooded most of New Orleans.

2005-11-01T13:07:00.000-06:00

A closer look.

2005-11-01T13:06:00.000-06:00

This is directly behind the rupture. These homes, also sandwiched together, didn't have a chance.

2005-11-01T13:04:00.000-06:00

3000 lb. sandbags being trucked to the battered canal.

2005-11-01T13:03:00.000-06:00

The is right below the canal rupture in Lakeview. Notice the force of the water has pushed two houses together.

2005-11-01T13:01:00.000-06:00

This is a ubiquitious sight in the city, the carnage never seems to end.

2005-11-01T13:00:00.000-06:00

Even the finest cars and homes were subject to an inundation of water.

2005-11-01T12:59:00.000-06:00

Heading toward the 17th Street Canal this is what so many homes looked like: slashed with an 8-10 ft. water mark and choked with a hazy cloud of dust.

2005-11-01T12:57:00.000-06:00

One large vessel that somehow left the lake

2005-11-01T12:56:00.000-06:00

The hammered harbor on the Lakefront

2005-11-01T12:55:00.000-06:00

The two-story pile of debris that resides on Pontchartrain Blvd. in Lakeview.

Lakeview, a Wasteland

2005-11-01T12:53:00.000-06:00

The following are a pictorial of the devastation of Lakeview, where one of New Orleans' numerous canals failed, thereby flooding most of the city. A tour of this part of the city has become, almost, a rite of passage for those returning; in some cases, there is a sadistic voyeurism in seeing Katrina's wrath, as all that is to be seen is exhaustion and sorrow on so many faces.

This was not a poor community, rather it was one of the high-end sections of New Orleans. Sadly, this is what remains of the area; it has a World War II look, as if it had been firebombed like Dresden. Instead of explosives, Lake Pontchartrain, the very water that many had strived to be close to, had turned into a killer and a homewrecker.

The Return Home, the Road to Hell

2005-09-18T10:26:00.000-05:00

After two weeks of refuge, Pushpa and I returned home to New Orleans to witness the damage wrought by Katrina. Although, we were beset overwhemling generosity from friends, family, and total strangers during this time on the road, as we travelled from Baton Rouge to Memphis then to Greenville, South Carolina and lastly to Williamsburg, Virginia, this time away from the Crescent City, a place we love, left my mind reeling with feelings of uneasiness.

Did our home survive the winds of Katrina's initial onslaught? After feeling okay about the winds, our concern turned to the flooding, especially with the huge gash in the 17th Street Canal. Also we worried about looters in our part of town. In the end the answers to these concerns turned out to be no. Nonetheless, they played themselves over and over in my mind that past weeks as we watched the carnage play out on the national news.

From a patchwork of websites with aerial photos, news reports, and visual accounts from freinds, we had reasons to be optimistic. Even with levee breaks and the subsequent flooding, our section of Uptown looked good. But that's the problem, you never know--not even if a good friend has stood outside your door and confirmed what you thought to be true--until you walk and see it with your own eyes.

And so, with that, these are photos from our return home.

We left at the crack of dawn from Baton Rouge and arrived in New Orleans at about seven in the morning. It took a bit fibbing and cajoling armed soldiers at a military checkpoint, which now inundated the city. The presence of armed troops give the feeling, as Pushpa put it, of the day after an apocalypse or nuclear event.

There she is,our home, looking good from the outside.

As lucky as we were, danger loomed right next door. The arbitrariness of the damage begs a question to your psyche: Why us, why did we get off so lucky? Did we do something that others did not? It always comes back to why.

These thought became more pronounced as we checked out friend's apartment. He had suspected that his home was ruined, but he not seen it, so a thread of possiblity hung in his mind. We headed over towards his place, and, after crossing St. Charles Ave., the flood marks starting rising on houses. We turned on his block and the marks were seven feet.

Here was his home:After seeing the water mark on the front door, we took a peak inside. The water was so high that moved object around, leaving the impression that some hand moved them around. Someone had, that someone was Mother Nature.

Dispelling Lies, Damn Liars, and Myths of Katrina

2005-09-15T08:01:00.000-05:00

Laying the blame for Katrina is a curious phenomenon to watch. Local officials blame state officials, who, in turn blame federal officials, who turn around and place the blame back on the local level. This dosey-do is now in its second week.

In a now infamous interview with WWL, as things unraveled rapidly after the storm, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin blasted the federal response by firing the first salvo. “I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. […] Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here.They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country,” exclaimed the mayor, who is not a career politician and found the grandstanding and political posturing to be reprehensible.

A rebuttal to Nagin’s harangue came via Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, several days later on “Meet the Press.” “The way that emergency operations act under the law is the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials," Chertoff countered after days of negative PR. And so it became blame me, I’ll blame you back.

“There'll be plenty of time to play the blame game - that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to say somebody's at fault. Look, I want to know, I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on and we'll continually assess inside my administration,” President Bush decried as he toured New Orleans on Monday.

Although the finger pointing oscillated the past two weeks, Nagin is becoming the scapegoat in all of this, quite possibly because he is not a shrewd politician, but rather a man who is trying to save the city he loves.

Immediately after things marginally stabilized in New Orleans, Nagin was rebuked for not using buses from the RTA and the Orleans Parish School District to get stranded citizens out of the city. An aerial photo of hundreds of submerged school buses accompanied this charge. To wit, Nagin replied, ““It’s up for analysis. But we didn’t have enough buses. I don’t control the school buses, and the RTA buses as far as I know were positioned high and dry. But 80 percent of the city was not high and dry. Where would we have staged them? And who was going to drive them even if we commandeered them? If I’d have marshaled 50 RTA buses, and a few school buses, it still wouldn’t have been nearly enough.”

The logistics that Nagin speaks of are daunting: Was there enough time to get everyone out, and would that take away from other needs? Has any other major city ever attempted to do something on this large of a scale? Who would drive the buses? Where would the people go? What about the cost, especially if the storm doesn’t hit? Maybe those that accost the mayor are unfamiliar with the state of finances in New Orleans, but the cost alone of busing such a large poor population out of the city every time a major storm looms would be awesome.

One only needed to witness the sad caravan of cars jammed with poor people in automobiles that barely ran on the road to Baton Rouge on Sunday afternoon and hypothesize that more people would have probably stayed and relied on the city to evacuate them. That is a frightening scenario.

Also, as callous as it sounds, the question that begs to be answered is does a city have an ethical obligation to get its poor out of harms way? Yes, without a doubt. But just who is going to pay? Are these critics going to help pay every time we need to flee? Ironically, those that make the charge against the mayor happen to align themselves with the philosophy that personal responsibility rules the day, unless, that is, if it is politically advantageous to take the other side and deflect from the President.

In the midst of the Monday morning quarterbacking, pundits curiously forget this is Mother Nature, an unpredictable, violent old lady when she wants to be, and one cannot apply science to her and expect simplicity. Remember, this storm went from a category three to a category five overnight. Damn, that impetuous, unconscionable old trollop. And before the mayor issued the first-ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, Kathleen Blanco, the governor, declared a state of emergency on Friday. For those that are keeping score at home, that is a full two days before the storm.

For those that are under the impression that the mayor did not do enough to get the message out, those of us that actually live in the Gulf region know, as officials and media inculcate us every year, to pre-prepare for potential hurricanes. The reason being, as Katrina showed, the window of opportunity can be small. Another tidbit people forget is that Katrina was not initially projected to hit New Orleans; instead it was that already-battered Florida/Alabama coast.

A look before Katrina reads like the Oracle at Delphi, as Gordon Russell wrote in a Times-Picayune piece, “Around 112,000 Orleanians do not own cars, according to census data. Nagin urged those people to seek rides with friends, family, neighbors and church members. Those who could not find rides were urged to get to the Superdome as quickly as possible.”

“I want to emphasize, the first choice of every citizen should be to leave the city,” the mayor stated unequivocally. Russell reported further that the mayor warned “that the Dome is likely to be without power for days — and possibly weeks — after the storm hits, and said it will not be a comfortable place.” In the same story, the mayor was quoted as calling Katrina’s approach “an unprecedented event.”

For those that cry that not enough was done by Nagin or local officials prior to the storm, a few things might enlighten those rather dark minds. First, Ron Thibodeaux from The Times-Picayune reported that Nagin said “about 60 percent of the city has evacuated for prior storms, but about 80 percent got out this time.”

The moral of the story: If someone or something is to blame, it is Katrina and no one else. Yet, there has been a political swath of destruction similar to Katrina’s wake, as Mike Brown, the director of FEMA, who was stepped down, and everything and everyone—from welfare to homosexuality—has been in the crosshairs of the blame.

And, now it seems as clearer heads begin to speak, President Bush, Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Nagin have all begun to accept responsibility, which they should. That is a step in the right direction, as the efforts could, and should, have gone better. Rather than laying the blame at the mayor’s feet, we could learn a little from the disaster.

Katrina, the Political Football

2005-09-08T10:57:00.000-05:00

In the face of this tragedy, nothing has been as despicable as the use of Katrina as a means to exact political damage. Neither side of the aisle is innocent of this charge. As I sat a thousand miles away and watched my home become battered by wind, inundated with water and overrun by looters, I detected a palpable glee in the eyes of pundits and pols. Here is a sampling:

Yesterday, as the death toll was predicted to reach into the thousands, staunch conservative Rush Limbaugh used the occasion to vilify liberals and the national media: "The American people see the destruction, the devastation of New Orleans; they don't think politics. They don't look at this as a political event. A hurricane, it's not a political event. But there's the mainstream press because the mainstream press is on the same side of the aisle as Democrat liberal kook activists, and there is, as you know, an ongoing effort to destroy George W. Bush. 'Oh, this is Bush's whatever. This is the one we're going to get him with. Okay, the Burkett stuff didn't work and Cindy Sheehan didn't work.' Nothing is going to work."

The most disturbing part of Limbaugh's analysis is that it removes almost every human element of the disaster and reduces it to a chess match between liberals and conservatives, as the evil liberals, in their cabal with the mainstream press, relish in a national tragedy because collateral damage can be inflicted on the President. Although the prism in which Limbaugh looks at the world through is indeed delusional, there is a ray of truth there; the event is a means to hurt each other. He is merely playing the game as well, while he admonishes the other for doing the same thing. This sort of bellowing from Limbaugh is no different than any other day, only the subject matter has changed.

The Wall Street Journal got into the act as well yesterday. In an editorial by Bob Williams, a distinct move was made to deflect the blame from the President-- who took a public relations pounding last week--to local officials: "Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin." Noticeably, both are Democrats and both openly criticized the federal response. This is an attempt to explain away the fact--a word rarely used in politics today--that it took almost 48 hours for the federal government to recognize the magnitude of the crisis. But that does not matter in this world; in this world, all that matters is whether your political ideology wins.

When it came to the slow response, liberals used it as a means to harm. In Monday's New York Times, Paul Krugman, a columnist who has slammed the President at any turn, had this to say: "Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a 'strange paralysis' set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

"What caused that paralysis? President Bush certainly failed his test. After 9/11, all the country really needed from him was a speech. This time it needed action - and he didn't deliver." This opinion is merely the polar opposite of the right, a reflection in the mirror; it is as if each side lives in dfferent universes. But just what does this line of questioning help?

What it helps is political careers. The Los Angeles Times captured the Democratic left hook: "In an unusually harsh attack on a president during a crisis, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said an investigation into the government's response should ask, among other things, whether President Bush's absence from Washington impeded the government's response. Bush was vacationing at his Crawford ranch when the hurricane struck.

'How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation?' Reid asked in a letter to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

'Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?' Reid asked." His vacation does not matter, because we, the diaspora of the Gulf Coast, would like to go home. What matters is what is being done.

I know it is cliche, but now is the time to put political ideologies aside and fix a region in shambles. This makes people feel like they are being used, which, in fact, is what they are; they are grist for the mill. To that end, tell your Hannitys, Colmes, Limbaughs, and other talking heads to go away. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast needs your help, not your political pursuasions.

Big Chief Gone Home

2005-07-24T20:11:00.000-05:00

Me got fire me can't put it out,
Heap firewater gonna make me shout,
I going down and get my squaw,
Me might buy a great big car
I'm gonna do everything I could
Me Big Chief, I'm feeling good,
Me Big Chief, I got 'em tribe
Got my squaw right by my side
My spyboy, he just went by,
My flagboy, he full of fire,
Me whole tribe just having fun
We gonna dance til morning come.

It begins and ends in the streets, that is, all things great and wonderful in New Orleans. Jazz and Carnival are merely two examples of the great things born on the streets, and, in fact, great lives, too, are born, celebrated, and waked in the streets. And so, the New Orleans funeral, commonly called a second-line where the newly departed are taken from the church to their final resting place followed by a brass bands musicians and anyone else along the way who feels need to follow, can, and does, turn into a giant partying parade of revellers. The end of a life in New Orleans is no reason to cry but one to smile in remeberance; this is the ultimate sign of respect.

This milieu transpired several weeks ago when the life of "The Chief of Chiefs," Allison "Tootie" Montana, was feted in the Treme. Tootie, a Mardi Gras Indian Chief of the Yellow Pochahontas, was known for respelendent costumes, a man whom took the Uptown versus Downtown violence out of the Mardi Gras Indian culture and channelled it into a world of pagentry and procesion.

Yet it was also the way that Tootie's occuried death that was the cause celebre, as Indians in recent times have encountered problem with the New Orleans Police Department. The most recent run-in was on St. Joseph Night, where reports tell story of police brutality and a general lack of respect. In the midst of this climate, Tootie, along with other chiefs, met with police officials to end this tumltuous relationship.

Standing at the podum addresing city police officials, Michael Perlstein from The Times-Picayune described:

His last words were, "I want this to stop," apparently referring to the cultural miscommunication that disrupted the March 19 Indian gathering at LaSalle Street and Washington Avenue. Participants complained that the traditional gathering was dispersed by police, some of whom were verbally and physically abusive.

After Montana fell, and minutes passed without an ambulance, the crowd quickly sensed the urgency of the situation. The chiefs and spy boys and flag boys and queens of the assembled tribes launched into a somber rendition of "Indian Red," a slow ceremonial song that is a staple at Mardi Gras Indian funerals.

As an ambulance carried Montana away, City Council President Oliver Thomas offered an impromptu prayer. "Everybody needs to pray for the chief," Thomas said, his voice trembling. "If we're never together on anything, let us be together in praying for Tootie and his family. .¤.¤. Maybe this is the moment that can bring New Orleans together like never before."

From this this moment, Tootie's life began to symbolize the problems of violence that threaten the very unique fabric of New Orleans from being torn apart. Up until the end, Tootie was a torch bearer of an essential part New Orleans' culture. The factors surrounding his death and his stature in the Indain community made for an mazaing second line, as crowd amassed in the Treme waiting outside St. Augustine Church. The crowd was thick barely making enough room for the coffin to be brought out. As temperatures reached the upper nineties combined with the stifling humidity of New Orleans, Indians sweating profusely in the sweltering heat from all tribes began apppearing.

People stood on light polls and balaconies, anything to get view of the chief. There must have beeen several hundred mourners outside the church. The mourners, if most could be called that, didn't know Tootie. But that doesn't matter, instead, they were mixture of the curious and crazy. Strange auras surround an event such as this; it is part of the New Orleans charm; rather than a suffercating feeling of gloom and sorrow, a joyous, effervesent attitude permeates the crowd. Many onlookers carry open beers in nicely wrapped in brown paper bags and the pungent smell of marijuana floated through the crowd. It was, in short, a street party, and the police, with previously documented problems with Indians, merely sat back let it happen.

A Lesson Before Dying

2005-06-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

Summer is a time when things grind to a halt in New Orleans, as many flee the rising mercury that is synonymous with living in the Deep South. The heat is blamed for many things: high crime, low tourism and empty cash registers, and general malaise. This week alone racial tensions neared a boiling point and the inner sanctum of a former mayor became ensnared and indicted in a web of corruption. Yet as the pulse of the city slows to the sweltering heat and deals with its ubiquitous problems, there is still a vibrant, beating heart. In the midst of this turmoil, it is an excellent time to find the answer to local trumpeter and recognized barbecuer Kermit Ruffins' song, "What is New Orleans?"

The question has many answers, but I believe that I found one on a Friday night in June. Passion; that is one reply to Ruffins' query. This night, passion was embodied in the spirit of an octogenarian bluesman named Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, who, although diagnosed with cancer, does what he was put on the Earth to do: play down-home Blues. Instead of sitting in a hospital seeking treatment for his ailment, Brown has decided to play as long as his body can withstand, until his time comes. This includes playing with an oxygen tank sitting by his side. All of this seems fitting, as the Blues has always had a preoccupation with death since the mythical days of Robert Johnson allegedly selling his soul to the devil to obtain earthly immortality. As to the reason for eschewing medical care, one patron sputtered it best between sips of his double vodka: "The man's eighty-something. He's already a legend. What's he got to prove? Nothing. What's the point of treatment at his age? He's going out on his terms, doing what he does."

Frail and rail thin, Brown sat idly in the open door of a van waiting for Joe Krown to warm up the crowd, as several attendants made sure the man had everything he needed--including his pipe. Dressed to the nines with a blue and black country shirt, and topped with a cowboy hat, it seemed like this--the Maple Leaf on a Friday Night--was the only place he should be; it was seen on the fine polish of his black snakeskin boots. While Brown sat and casually smoked, inside the Maple Leaf Krown and the band laid down the thickest, heaviest, muggiest New Orleans' Funk. A lyric from a Funkadelic song proclaims, "Soul is the ring around your bath tub." New Orleans' Funk is that dirty. Low down and mean, the vibrations from Krown's Hammond B-3 floated out onto Oak Street, as he laid hand over hand in rapid succession on the keyboard.

Finally, Gate signaled to his entourage that he was ready. Like royalty, they moved to prepare his guitar and fiddle on stage and let Joe know that it was time. Into the dingy, dusty Maple Leaf walked an icon. "Ladies and Gentleman, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown," announced Joe Krown. Gate settled on a stool, took off his hat exposing a thinning gray bramble of hair, and let his assistant put on an oxygen line under his nose. With a heavy blow that looked like a feeble attempt to marshall some strength, six decades of guitar work began easing from the speakers, as he quickly found his space within the band's number. Gate's melodic strumming began to build in stature, leaving a bluesy progression in its wake. The old man that had sat in the car on Oak Street had melted away. In his place was a spry country boy finger-picking through chord changes and feeding off the audience's open delight. His eyes would occasionally lift from his guitar and pierce the crowd, letting everyone know that this might be the last time; the gaze left a haunting impression, but it simultaneously took on the aura of a living wake, a celebration of a lifetime. Pain and pleasure emulsified; it was the Blues.

Still the consummate musician, Gate let the rest of the band have moments to solo. Each one looking to him for approval as if they were beginner students. His head bobbing and toe tapping conveyed his enjoyment. Suddenly, his long, thin finger would raise, signaling that it was time to move to the next musician. He was liking what he was hearing. After four or five numbers, Krown asked him how he felt, adding, "We can go as long you want?" Gate's vitality had visibly drained out through his boots, leaving him ready for a set break. Off came the cowboy hat and the old man returned to the room, the one who needed help getting off the stage amid the jumble of wires and speakers; the one who looked like he needed to be in an old age home. "We're gonna take a short break," Joe announced, sensing that the time was right.

Gate returned to his post out on the street, as he shook hands with fans thanking him for years of enjoyment. "Mr. Brown, I just wanted to say that I loved your music for years. Thanks so much," was how one such encounter went. Gate would graciously smile and nod his head, it was a testament to the impact that his music had had.

After a short break, Krown's band came back on stage, leaving the smell of funk on the street. They played two or three numbers before word reached Krown that Gate had left; it seemed he was just too tired tonight. Maybe he'd be up to it a little longer tomorrow night. Such is current state of affairs in the life of a legendary musician making his last rounds; it does not matter, he left the vibe behind him, as seen in the faces of fans and through the music that continued. Such are the immutable laws of life. "Hey, we're still here," Krown said sarcastically after he told the audience that Gate had gone home.

On the way home, I reflected on what I witnessed: A man dogged by disease that still possessed the gift of doing what he was destined to do and making sure that he did as much as could in his waning moments. This thought lingered in my head and buoyed my spirits. I felt rejuvenated. Like my United Cab driver told me on the way home from the Maple Leaf, "Man, this town sure looks pretty after a storm?" He was right. It is a baptismal experience every time it rains, cleansing and cooling the dingy old town for a fleeting moment before the temperature, as is always does, rises. But before it rose, the problems of the old town were in remission.

Maiden Voyage

2005-06-11T08:41:00.000-05:00

To begin a voyage there must be a destination; the ideal and end-result should be bold, drastic, and sweeping; it will create something great. John Winthrop, one of America's founders who had such an idyllic vision in mind, wrote, "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.
The eyes of all people upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world."

Of course, that "New Jerusalem" just happened to be occupied by some folks already, who under the weight of small pox and the barrel of a gun ceded the land to make Winthrop's utopia possible. But I digress.

From the high falutinness of Winthrop's dream, I, Michael Luke as Editor-in-Chief, set out to inform the masses. Therefore, I shall not shirk my duty.

Will anyone read this? Probably not. But I, as your faithful writer, will press on and continue to shout from the mountain tops so that all may hear one day. Along the way, I hope to amuse, inform, and expose anybody who contradicts Winthrop's vision.

Who are those backsliders? Almost every soul in New Orleans. That's what makes living in America's Sodom and Gomorrah so magnificent.

Shine on, John Wintrop.