Last Rites for New Orleans?
It's 8:52am in Paris, which makes it 1:52am in New Orleans. I'm watching a video feed from a deserted St. Charles Avenue, with more frequent lightning than I've ever witnessed in person, and winds that don't seem as fearsome as they must be in person.
I've read all the hype for this storm, and if the worst-case scenario (or anything close to it) comes true, this could be last call for the city that I call home-away-from-home. I know just a little too much about how old and wooden a lot of those old houses are in the city, and wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of them floated away with the storm surge.
I don't know what's going to happen, but I can only hope that the things I love most about New Orleans don't get washed away. New Orleans, like a lot of the deep South, is an anachronism. It's a place out of time, a city unique to the United States in that it still looks, and to a large extent feels like it must have since a small colonial port grew out of the Mississippi River hundreds of years ago.
The houses may get washed away, but what I most fear is the loss of the people who live in them. Not to death -- most sane people already have sought refuge. But in this impoverished town, there are surely masses of uninsured who could lose everything and never afford to rebuild. This city, for all of its faults, would not be the creative incubator it is without those people. The music, the creativity, the art, these are all manifestations of the cultural friction of the different people who inhabit the place.
Some very cynical people might be thinking to themselves that there's a potential silver lining to this. They might argue that New Orleans needs a new start, that it needs to be dragged out from its laziness and laissez-faire. In Katrina, they may see a modern 40 days and 40 nights, out of which could emerge a brave new city for this new world we live in.
Well, I don't know who's driving the ark, but unless it has room enough for the Maple Leaf and Tipitina's, for Clancy's and the Camellia Grill, for the CAC, the Botanical Gardens, and most importantly, The Fairgrounds, I fear that all would be lost.
So on this sleepless night for you, New Orleans, here's a prayer for your soul. Ride out the rain in the Gospel Tent, and with any luck there'll be another set when the daylight comes.