Some good news from New Orleans...

[vickie1ok]

My brother went back to his house last week and it was NOT flooded. The carport was ripped off, the back fence downed and a few siding issues. Nothing compared to what most others suffered. The bad news is he had to clean out a very stinky refrigerator and two freezers. (imagine frozen shrimp that had thawed for 8 days... :eek: )

More good news. My brother works for Chevron Texaco and a manager got in touch with him last Friday; and he will not only be paid while he is out (dunno for how long) but the company is sending a $5,000 check to every affected employee to assist with expenses. Doesn't make me feel much better when I fill my tank, but at least one oil company is doing something good with the profits. Of course, they may close their NO office in six months and everyone is SOL, but for the short term, very good news. It's nice to have good news for a change.

[YCN]

My brother went back to his house last week and it was NOT flooded. The carport was ripped off, the back fence downed and a few siding issues. Nothing compared to what most others suffered. The bad news is he had to clean out a very stinky refrigerator and two freezers. (imagine frozen shrimp that had thawed for 8 days... :eek: )

More good news. My brother works for Chevron Texaco and a manager got in touch with him last Friday; and he will not only be paid while he is out (dunno for how long) but the company is sending a $5,000 check to every affected employee to assist with expenses. Doesn't make me feel much better when I fill my tank, but at least one oil company is doing something good with the profits. Of course, they may close their NO office in six months and everyone is SOL, but for the short term, very good news. It's nice to have good news for a change.

It's great to hear more good news, Vickie, especially for one of our own. I have faith that the American people will pass this very difficult test with flying colors, we've proven that we do so over and over again in the past.

Keep the faith, things will just get better from now on.

[MsProudSooner]

What part of N.O. does he live in ?

[vickie1ok]

I just talked to him again, and they have power in his neighborhood! And some water though the pressure is low. Obviously, they will boil all the water until further notice. He will go back home later this week. I am shocked they have some power and water. But they live in a neighborhood that avoided the worst of the floods. Still, good news for the Big Easy.

A few refrains from Arlo Guthrie, son of a native Oklahoman:

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea
And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news
The conductor sings his song again
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues

Good night, America, how are you
Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

[swok34]

That is great news.......things don't look good for my friend's mother.

She lived in Chalmette/St. Bernard Parish and the water was over the roofs in many locations there. St. Bernard was one of the hardest hit; she evacuates about 50% of the time........just not this time :(

St. Bernard Parish was literally the forgotten as New Orleans proper was receiving so much of the attention...most of the folks in that parish are middle class white.

I've had people at work come up to me and make the comment that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt.......I always ask them if they've ever been to New Orleans and typically the answer is no.

It's hard to understand the personality that this city holds until you've been there AND it certainly has personality with a capital P amongst it's people, it's heritage and it's history.......

I would never choose to live there, but visiting is awesome. I think you have to have a certain kind of grit to live in N'awlins........

and today, I'm glad I no longer live in Baton Rouge.......I'm not a big city kind of person and it just became one. But, I've been reminded quite a bit over the past couple of weeks...how unique and dear a place south Louisiana is.

[vickie1ok]

MsProud, my family lives in Metairie. They were lucky to live in south Metairie further away from Lake Ponchatrain.

SW, have you heard any news about your friend's Mom? My mother would not have evacuated had my brother not have forced her. So for all these people (including the federal government) who blame the residents for not evacuating, well you have old people like my Mom who was lucky enough to have a son to drag her ass out of there, but others were not so lucky. Actually, many of the people who did not evacuate did not have the means to leave, unlike my Mother. Many of the NO poor do not have money or cars. That is why public transportation is so prevalent.

St. Bernard's was indeed hard hit. Did you hear about that nursing home that employees evacuated and left the old people behind? That's CRIMINAL.

My brother and I were also astonished that we haven't seen any news on Plaquemines Parish, which is the southern swamp of Louisiana. I can't imagine much was left. But I haven't seen a damn thing on TV or on the internet about this part of LA. I hope most of those old cajuns evacuated. But I'm sure there were more than a few who stayed behind to defend their homes. Just like my Mom wanted to do until my brother dragged her curmudgeon ass away...

I'm like you, SW. I had a hard time living there for the 9 months I did. It was culture shock for me. But it is indeed a very special city. In retrospect, I know the experiences I had there will always be ingrained in me forever. I love to visit my family, but I don't want to live there again. But I will be honest, part of that is I hate the freaking humidity!

[swok34]

But I will be honest, part of that is I hate the freaking humidity!

no kidding.......I loved Baton Rouge and lived there for 15-16 years, but I certainly don't miss the humidity.

My friend's mother had the means to leave, she went and took a nap at 10:30 monday morning...from what I hear, the storm surge overtook St. Bernard Parish. I think just like we Okies sometimes ignored the tornado sirens prior to May 3rd; these New Orleans folks did, too. And I think there gets to be a point in New Orleans when it's flat out too late to jump in the car and drive.

She did locate an aunt and uncle who lived less than a mile away, were rescued off their roof and located in a hospital down in Houston.

From everything I've heard, the seafood industry may not return........
which I think is about all they do in Plaquemines Parish.

I found an article about Plaquemines Parish in the Kansas City paper.....

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12631406.htm

[Bball Girl]

The American Library Association frequently meets in NO in July...why we don't have our January meeting in NO and our July meeting someplace cooler escapes me but we are scheduled to meet in NO next summer. Note this is a huge conference with 27,000 attendees...there's a lot of discussion about whether or not the city will be able to handle it and discomfort at the thought of being in THAT conference center....but the concensus is that if they had handle us we want to go back.

I can NOT imagine NO not being rebuilt...as you said swok...it has a character, a smell and a sense of place that is unique. You could blindfold me, fly me there, drive me down to the French Quarter and I would know where I was by the smell....a smell of the ocean, the river, and always a slight odor of decay. The sound of the street cars and the music pouring out from Preservation Hall, the smell of coffee and chicory, beignets and crawfish, and river, the voodoo shops and the people and the history.

I do think they should really look at whether they want to rebuild so close to the levees in the 9th ward...or whether it would be better to do something different. But New Orleans will never cease to exist...

I have friends from MS whose family homes were destroyed in Gulfport and Picayune but they are all ok.

[swok34]

I read a good article in a blog and didn't realize this about the Superdome:

Monday, September 12, 2005
The curse of the Superdome

By Jon Donley
NOLA.com

There is intense irony in the Superdome becoming the symbol of the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. In New Orleans lore, it's a haunted building - a cursed structure in this city that lives shoulder to shoulder with its Cities of the Dead.

Visitors are familiar with our huge expanses of above-ground tombs in dozens of cemeteries across the city. Coming in from the airport on Interstate 10, the "gateway" to downtown is flanked by sprawling Greenwood Cemetery on the left, and the elite Metairie Cemetery on the right. Downtown, the old St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery is a prime tourist spot, and has appeared in many movies. In the Garden District, diners at Commanders Palace's second floor can look out over Lafayette No. 1, filled with victims of Yellow Fever plagues.

But you can't visit the old Girod Cemetery. Abandoned for years, its iron caskets and bones were tossed up by excavation gear in the early 1970s as the crews moved in to build . . . the Superdome. Beneath the now-shredded roof and the fetid stinking mess of excrement and blood where tens of thousands huddled in storm and flood . .. and some died . . . likely lie even more unexcavated bones.

And local lore is that the Superdome was cursed . . . a punishment for desecrating this City of the Dead. Exorcists and voodoo priestesses have been here to dispel the curse. That lore will no doubt expand into an even more gruesome story for buggy drivers in the Quarter to enchant their passengers.

The main target of the curse, of course, has been the New Orleans Saints

I think New Orleans is scrambling hard to get people back into town........they are broke for one thing and it sounds like they are beating a different drum tonite than in the past week.....

Unflooded portions of New Orleans may be opened up for residents to return, perhaps as early as Monday, Mayor Ray Nagin said in an upbeat and wide-ranging press conference Tuesday afternoon.

The possibility of repopulating areas of the city so quickly marked a stunning turnaround from earlier predictions that New Orleans could remain uninhabitable for months. Nagin said the final decision on the date would hinge on pending results of federal tests measuring the toxicity of the city’s air and water, but initial reports are turning out much better than expected.

“I’m starting to get into the mode of how do we re-open the city,” said Nagin, speaking from the steps of Washington Artillery Park in the French Quarter, one of four areas targeted for early reopening. The others are Algiers, the Central Business District and dry parts of Uptown.

[vickie1ok]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/12631406.htm[/url]

Your friend's mom sounds like my mom! Thankfully my mom lives with my brother. We don't trust her to live by herself.

Couldn't read your article on PL parish since I don't have a login. I will do that crap after I finish here.

Ah, the seafood industry will return. Hurricanes don't destroy shrimps, crabs and oyster beds. Now, we may see some delay as the cajuns and others retool their boats.

Bbgirl, you have a sense of the big easy. The smells. (I wonder if that will be better or worse after things are back to semi-normal) For those who have not been to NO, it is a unique city of America. Totally. No other like it. It is European in many ways, but Americanized in a Cajun/Southern kind of way.

When I moved to NO for 9 months, I had never been exposed to such diverse cultures since I had lived most of my life in Norman, Oklahoma. Black people, gay people. Cajuns. Catholics. (even though my Mom is Catholic) The flip side was decay, crime, etc. As BBgirl said, the smells.

New Orleans is far from a perfect place. But it is a very special place. You just have to go there....

Good night, America, how are you
Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done

[vickie1ok]

Wow, I didn't know about the "curse" of the dome. I know that it was built and made many cheating bastards rich! Good lore; I 'll send it to my bro and his friends there. Maybe that is why the Saints have been so damn bad there!

Hell yeh, SW, NO is swinging back into business very quickly. Like I said, my bro has electricity and water and is going home Thursday.

BTW, SW, where are your season tickets located? I'll come down and talk at you when I can.

[swok34]

vickie.........I'm in LE4, Row 13, Seat 10.

I noticed over the past month or so, that the shrimp we buy here in Norman.......

come from China or Thailand or somewhere over seas. I think the gulf coast shrimp industry has had a really hard time trying to compete.

Speaking of New Orleans smells: the worst time to be in NO is July and August.....humidity and heat, lots of drunks, high buildings. Ok, that part of NO: I don't miss. :D

[hoopjnky]

Last time I was in New Orleans it was the Final Four. We cheered for LSU and left a day early when the finals turned out to be Tennessee and UConn...again. But, oh, what a lovely time we had.

Although in my earliest memories she lived on Hathaway place near City Park, my Grandmama spent last years of her life in a converted stable nestled in a gated couryard on Decatur Street near Elysian Fields. She used to swear that her's was the flat that Tennessee Williams had Blanche DuBois looking for when she got off that Streetcar Named Desire. She was full of that kind of romantic but made-up stuff. She attended mass at the St. Louis Cathedral and on more than one occasion she succeeded in rousing my hungover bones to get my ashes after Mardi Gras.

Since she died in 88 I had hardly been back to New Orleans. Even though so much had changed by 2003 the smell WAS still the same. The combination of great bball and those old memories made it just about the best Final Four ever.

My nephew in Mandeville tells me that grandmama's old house in underwater but that her flat in the Faubourg Marginy survived.

Grandmama used to say New Orleans opened her legs for every invader that stormed up or down the Mississippi - and that's how she managed to survive. I reckon she'd see Katrina as just one more overwhelming invasion - and rest assured that New Orleans will carry on.

[vickie1ok]

vickie.........I'm in LE4, Row 13, Seat 10.

I noticed over the past month or so, that the shrimp we buy here in Norman.......

come from China or Thailand or somewhere over seas. I think the gulf coast shrimp industry has had a really hard time trying to compete.

Speaking of New Orleans smells: the worst time to be in NO is July and August.....humidity and heat, lots of drunks, high buildings. Ok, that part of NO: I don't miss. :D

No wonder the shrimp we buy here is so BAD!! I truly understand that. Our company, or rather the company I worked for last week before we were sold to another company (another LONG story), couldn't send enough jobs to Mexico or Asia. It's all about bucks for these companies. That's why I hardly ever buy "fresh" shrimp here anymore. It literally stinks. Maybe not as bad as the shrimp in my family's freezer last week. :D

Yeh, I also hate the heat and humidity of NO, probably even more than you do. I really, really hate humidity. Of course, the drunks are there all the time. Especially when LSU comes to town. I was there with my family when OU played LSU for the football championship, and it was drunk city. Ask how many OU fans (and their kids) had drunks come up to them and scream "Tiger Bait!" two inches from their faces. Everyone lavishes on the tailgating at LSU but the cold hard fact is the food is secondary to the booze. Those people drink like fishes. But I will admit, I would have loved it when I was a freewheeling college student!

Why high buildings? That's kind of interesting. Of course I worked in downtown OKC many years ago and actually quite enjoyed it other than the drive. Other than that, I think you and I don't miss the same stuff...

[vickie1ok]

Although in my earliest memories she lived on Hathaway place near City Park, my Grandmama spent last years of her life in a converted stable nestled in a gated couryard on Decatur Street near Elysian Fields. She used to swear that her's was the flat that Tennessee Williams had Blanche DuBois looking for when she got off that Streetcar Named Desire. She was full of that kind of romantic but made-up stuff. She attended mass at the St. Louis Cathedral and on more than one occasion she succeeded in rousing my hungover bones to get my ashes after Mardi Gras.

Since she died in 88 I had hardly been back to New Orleans. Even though so much had changed by 2003 the smell WAS still the same. The combination of great bball and those old memories made it just about the best Final Four ever.

My nephew in Mandeville tells me that grandmama's old house in underwater but that her flat in the Faubourg Marginy survived.

Grandmama used to say New Orleans opened her legs for every invader that stormed up or down the Mississippi - and that's how she managed to survive. I reckon she'd see Katrina as just one more overwhelming invasion - and rest assured that New Orleans will carry on.

That's awesome hoopjnky. What a true N'Awlins tale! Thanks for sharing. Come back more often.

[Scamp]

Originally Posted by swok34 I noticed over the past month or so, that the shrimp we buy here in Norman.......come from China or Thailand or somewhere over seas. I think the gulf coast shrimp industry has had a really hard time trying to compete.

Many of the mangrove swamps in South Asia were torn out to establish shrimp farms. Then, when the tsunami hit last December, nothing was left to slow down the waves. More info at http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/new_articles.cfm?articleID=958&journalID=83 What fools we mortals are!

[swok34]

Why high buildings?
(Maybe I should say "closetogetherbuildings)

because it stifles any wind that just might be blowing.....and makes it even that much more stifling a place to be. (talking about the French Quarter)....
and all the remnants of the night before's partying (if you catch my drift)...are part of the "smells" of New Orleans.

I don't think you even have to be a football fan (or know that football exists) to drink in the quarter.......or in south Louisiana. I've always found north Louisiana folks to be completely different than those in the south.

I certainly never followed football at that time (college or pro)....and I managed to find my share of the parties. We would get up on Sunday morning.....buy 2 gallons of daquiri's in Baton Rouge, and we were on our way to the Quarter. They have every kind of festival known to man in Louisiana.....http://www.cajunradio.org/louisianafestivals.html

only in Louisiana would they have the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival :D