Hi folks. I sent this out to a number of friends on Thanksgiving, then posted it on rctn in reply to a question. So many people seemed to appreciate a report from a resident rather than a "drop-in" reporter that I thought I'd share it with you all. .............................
The 20% of New Orleans which did not flood during the recent hurricanes is slowly beginning to approach a semblance of normality. The other 80% is still a royal mess.
At our house we have had power and piped gas since we moved back, the water is supposed to be potable - but we still use bottled water for drinking and cooking - and we finally got cable tv just over a week ago. Before that, we could only pull in one local broadcast channel, with a very grainy and snowy picture. We never lost the landline phone, but service is decidedly sporadic. Likewise, the electricity is "iffy", and one morning last week we woke up to find only a very thin trickle of water coming from the taps.
The corner grocery store two blocks from us has not yet reopened, and the supermarket about a mile towards downtown may never do so; it is part of a four-store local chain, and was badly looted. We have to go to the A & P which is about two miles in the other direction and is open
8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. We had a little panic the other day, when we got there and found it closed, but apparently they, too, had lost power and reopened two days later after it was restored. Until ten days ago when the Walgreens Drugstore at the top of our street (again, two blocks away) finally reopened we had to drive five miles of narrow, bumpy, mid-nineteenth streets to get our prescriptions.Traffic on these narrow, historic streets is getting very busy, mostly because this is all there is. On world famous Magazine Street (their advertising says "six miles of shopping, antique stores and art galleries") about half of the stores are open, with very limited hours because of a shortage of people to staff them. Some of the ones which have not yet opened may never do so. Likewise, about half of the restaurants are open, but with very limited hours and menus - staff shortages again. Some are open only for lunch, others are open for dinner, 4:00p.m. to 8:00 p.m. weekdays, and until 10:00 p.m. weekends.
On Tuesday the local once weekly Farmers' Market reopened and was absolutely mobbed by people hungry for vegetables picked at dawn today and fish caught yesterday - I bought twice as much shrimp as usual, cooked it all, and have leftovers in the fridge for tomorrow.
We are lucky in that our doctors are also in the area. When we first got back into town and found them, they were delighted to see an actual patient. However, as most of the other doctors cannot get into their offices, they quickly became very busy. I had to see my dentist the other day for a dental abcess, and his staff told me they are seeing their regular patients plus all kinds of Red Cross volunteers, FEMA personnel and other recovery workers in town. The dentist himself had two feet of water in his house so his family is still living in Lafayette LA, but his office was untouched so he reopened as soon as the city permitted him to.
About half of the downtown and French Quarter hotels are open, some only partially while they do repairs on other parts. The Ritz-Carlton will not open for about a year, as they got flooded in their basement where all the heating, electrical etc. systems are, and they have to be completely rebuilt. Some of the signature restaurants are fully open, such as Tujague's, but others such as Commander's Palace are still undergoing repairs. Neither of these two flooded (the Quarter and the Garden District stayed dry) but had great wind damage from Katrina. A good many of the Bourbon Street bars are going strong and were serving drinks while the roofers and plasterers were working.
Charity Hospital, University, Baptist and Mercy hospitals are all closed from both flood and wind damage, and no-one knows when, or whether, they will reopen. In fact, our local hospital, Touro Infirmary, is the only full service hospital in the city, although there are a couple of others out in the western suburbs. Children's Hospital is also up and running, although they are all limited by lack of staff as so many of their people are homeless and still evacuated.
Most of the city police and firefighters seemed to live in the totally devastated parts of town, and are thus living in very cramped quarters on one of the cruise ships docked here or in hotels while their families are elsewhere. FEMA is supposed to be bringing in lots of mobile homes or travel trailers, but so far we have seen very few. Lots of out of town construction workers either brought their own camping trailers or are living in tents.
In general, life is definitely more difficult and decidedly more stressful than before the greatest natural disaster this country has ever had, but we ARE surviving. It is surprising how good MREs (military Meals Ready-to-Eat) can taste when you are very tired and the alternative is to cook without some essential ingredient which you forgot to buy, and the shops are all closed.
Today was Thanksgiving, and, as usual, we had two long-time friends to dinner. The difference this year was that Sally insisted on bringing the hors d'oeuvres, salad and dessert as she felt I was not fit to do the whole thing.
We still have much for which to be thankful.
Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.