At last, a plan for (most of) us!

Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced today that the City of New Orleans is streamlining access into targeted areas of Orleans Parish while continuing to safeguard previously flooded areas. The City will begin allowing re-entry in the targeted zip codes of 70112, 70113, 70114, 70115, 70116, 70118, 70130 and 70131. Those areas include Algiers, the Central Business District, the French Quarter and Uptown.

Business owners in these zip codes may re-enter beginning tomorrow, Thursday, September 29, 2005. On Friday, September 30, 2005, residents in those eight zip codes will be allowed back in New Orleans.

On Wednesday, October 5, 2005, residents and business owners in the rest of New Orleans, with the exception of the Lower 9th Ward, can return.

— from the City of New Orleans’ latest press release

We left our house a month ago. Actually, we left our house a month and nine hours ago, to the minute: 11:55pm. It was dark, we were in a hurry, but we thought we’d be back soon, so we didn’t think about things too much.

Today, it’s a little weird to think of New Orleans as home; it’s almost like we’ve moved. We’ve settled into a routine here, a daily ebb and flow that’s not too different from the one we followed in New Orleans: I get up before dawn, make coffee, check email, do some work, hit the gym, struggle to stay up for The Daily Show, and wake up when Jonno comes to bed. He follows the same schedule, more or less, but he’s about eight hours behind–or 16 hours ahead, depending on how you look at it.

Eventually, we’ll have to deal with the problems of living in post-Katrina New Orleans. At the moment, though, the worst problem of all this–apart from imposing on our friends in Lafayette and living in a state of neverending uncertainty–is the resentment some of us are feeling toward friends who’ve moved on.

Now, I know that folks who work in service and other industries have found themselves in desperate straights. I know that waiters, hairstylists, gardners, New Orleans public school teachers, and many, many others haven’t been paid in over a month. I know those people and their families need food, clothing, and shelter, and they can’t get any of that at home. Logically, I understand that those people have to find work elsewhere to stay alive.

Still, I can’t help but feel slightly angry when I hear of folks who’ve abandoned ship (so to speak). New Orleans was and is a group project. By living there, we signed on to that project, implicitly throwing our hats in the ring with everyone else. We believed we were in it together. Friends who speak of leaving now sound like deserters.

Let me make this clear, though: my sentiments are not like those of Mr. Codrescu, who lamented that New Orleans after Katrina will be a different city. I acknowledge that. In fact, I embrace that. I’m not sentimental about some mythical New-Orleans-that-was. Leave that stuff to the talented people at WYES. I’m not the kind of person to spend much time looking back; I’m looking forward to a new, better city.

No, my sadness is that we’ve lost some very helpful hands in building this new, better city. Things that could and should happen–great things, great opportunities–will be carried out by fewer people. People who could be very useful, visions that could be uniquely clear, won’t be around to offer support and guidance.

But whatever. I’ll get over it. So will everyone else. Things will go forward. No one is irreplaceable.

My favorite part of the mayor’s new Safety and Security Re-Entry Information bulletin? The opening sentence: “On behalf of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the City of New Orleans, Welcome Home!”

What’s so good about that, you ask? Well, grammatical eccentricities aside (I mean, what communications director in his right mind would capitalize “Welcome Home” like that?), this oh-so-cheery opener is followed by no less than 17 skull-and-crossbones-style warnings to returning citizens. To paraphrase: Welcome back! You could die here!

My least favorite part? Item #9, which contains contact info for something called “Remains Management” (225 763 5480 or 225 763 5760, if you’re interested). What the hell is that? Is it for dead pets? Dead people? Is that supposed to serve our funerary needs until Bultman is back up and running? I could call and find out, but do I really want to know?

During Rita’s march through Lafayette

Proof that adversity can make for some very strange bedfellows, indeed.

So, Bush just held a press conference in Austin. In theory, it was to address the rescue and recovery efforts for Hurricane Rita, but in fact, it turned out to be little more than a photo op with Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Tom DeLay, and other folks of dubious distinction.

I’m not saying that the press conference was a sham. I’m sure that somewhere deep down, Bush really does feel sorry for storm victims. I’m sure, however, that he’s equally sorry to see his public approval ratings hit the skids in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Still, if I were Bush’s publicist–and thank goddess I’m not–I might have cautioned him against appearing in an official capacity quite so soon. See, if I remember right, it was three days after Katrina before GW bothered to cut short his vacation for a fly-by of the Gulf Coast–in a jet plane, no less. (It was four days before he saw the area at closer range, by helicopter.) For Rita, though, Bush has set up camp in one of the affected states less than 12 hours after the storm made landfall. That leaves poor Georgie open to a number of critiques–all of which will soon follow, I’m sure:

• Bush cares more about his home state than about his troublesome, eccentric neighbor to the east.
• Bush cares more about the largely white, relatively affluent population of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana than the predominantly African American, relatively poor population of New Orleans (a critique that overlooks Houston’s HUGE African American and Hispanic populations, but whatever).
• Bush cares more about shoring up support for his public policies than actually protecting and caring for the citizenry.

And sad to say, I think there’s a bit of truth behind some of those comments. ‘Cause while it’d be nice to believe that the press briefing was held to express hope for the rebuilding of damaged areas, it was pretty apparent Bush is even more anxious to rebuild his numbers at the polls. Not a great move, if you ask me.

But of course, you didn’t.

Update: Brian Williams has never been my favorite journalist, but he shares an interesting story about the various motivations behind another president’s response to a major hurricane in New Orleans.

Attention Wolf Blitzer, Aaron Brown, Paula Zahn, et al:

I am no longer listening to you. Any of you.

For nearly four weeks, you’ve asked the same questions over and over and over, and although the respondents have changed, the responses have not. So please, allow me to clear up things once and for all, okay?

Yes, we plan to return to New Orleans. I mean, have you been there?

No, we do not think the Feds moved quickly enough after Katrina. Not that our state and local officials are blameless, mind you, but their slip-ups pale in comparison to those of FEMA.

Yes, we plan to have a spectacular Carnival this year. Don’t believe me? Come watch the Krewe du Vieux parade from my house. Or join me for the Satyricon Ball; I’ve got a couple of extra tickets.

No, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco is not an accomplished public speaker. Maybe if she took those rocks out of her mouth….

Yes, there may be something to this whole “global warming” thing. Not that BushRoveHughesRumsfeldRice will pay it any mind, of course.

No, we do not think god hates us. Obviously, she hates Port Arthur, Texas.

Yes, I would totally nail Ray Nagin. You’d hit it, too, wouldn’t you, Aaron? I have it on good authority that you’ve got a thing for tha flava.

No, we are not making gumbo to pass the time. It’s too damn hot.

Yes, Anderson Cooper can have my phone number. (Call me, Andy!)

Got it? Great.

Tersely,
Richard

“Surreal” isn’t seeing photos of my New Orleans, muddy and desolate and nearly uninhabited. “Surreal” isn’t preparing to ride out a massive hurricane less than four weeks after the worst natural disaster in US history. Hell, “surreal” isn’t even Jan Crouch‘s gravity-defying coiff.

No, ladies and gentlemen, “surreal” is watching Martha Stewart show Liza Minnelli and Ben Vereen how to boil crawfish. Has the world gone stark-raving mad?

From the Times-Picayune:

The morning before Hurricane Katrina roared into New Orleans, Dave Howard got a call from his supervisors at the Sewerage & Water Board directing him to report to work at Jahncke Pumping Station No. 14 alongside the Lake Pontchartrain levee in eastern New Orleans.

. . .

[During the storm] the pumps kept running with one exception: A spell of two days early in the crisis, when the city’s water supply gave out and the pumps had to be shut down before they overheated.

During that lapse, Howard and his cohorts – including electricians John Alexander and Bobby Brouillette and diesel mechanic Steve Tregre – devised an alternative: They’d run one pump at a time until the temperature in the gear boxes reached 150 degrees. Then they’d shut it off and fire up the next one until it, too, was nearly fried.

The Thursday after the storm, Tregre came up with a better idea: Use the water from the Jahncke Canal, which the station pumps into the lake, to cool the pumps. Sure, the water was nasty and full of debris, but these were desperate times, with at least three feet of water – full of feeding alligator gars – pooled around the station and nearby homes virtually inundated.

“Pumping Station Operators Ride Out the Storm,” 9/20/05

Okay, so the fact that these pumps stayed up and running for most of the time is remarkable. So’s the fact that the engineers were able to keep them operational even without a reliable cooling mechanism.

What’s of interest to me, however, is those alligator gars. I mean, have you seen those freakin’ things? That’s some shit, yo.

Two massive storms in one month? An escalating cultural war between the left and the right over the role of religion in public life? A political war between America and Iraq (and the Taliban, too, I suppose) that’s spiralled into a religious war between Jesus and Allah? Even as I write this, thousands of ecstatic evangelicals are probably flipping through the Book of Revelations quicker than your average pornhound fast-forwards through dialogue. Armageddon would seem to be at hand, indeed.

Well, except for the part about Rita hitting Texas. I have a suspicion that Pat Robertson et al think of Texas as the Western Hemisphere’s answer to the Holy Land. If Yahweh were to damage it with one of them there hurricanes, well, that might put the whole prophecy thing in jeopardy…

I don’t know how it happened, but I think I’ve become Catholic.

For over three weeks, my home has sat abandoned, uninhabited, and uninhabitable 130 miles away. On Saturday, my car broke down in Baton Rouge, an hour from my current home. Later that day, I lost my keys somewhere in New Orleans, and they never resurfaced. Last night, the piece de resistance: I decided to borrow my host’s bike and trek to the gym, thinking that a good workout would clear my head a bit. It did, but just as I was heading back, my front tire blew out, forcing me to schlep the bike the three miles to the house.

So as I was walking home down Lafayette’s busy main drag, pushing the bike with one hand, holding my duffel bag with the other, sweating in the 90+ degree heat and goddess-knows-how-much humidity, I was really, really tempted to complain. But then, just as I was about to scream out “Why hast thou forsaken me?” or something similarly drama-queeny, I thought, “No, dumbass, you have no right to bitch about anything. You still have a home, a job, your partner, your pets. There are hundreds of thousands of people who fared far, far, far worse than you. Now just shut the hell up and deal.”

Basically, I guilted myself into submission. Sounds pretty Catholic to me, don’t you think? My Southern Baptist daddy is gonna have a conniption fit.