Recalling New Orleans, Part One

To continue my theme of being absurdly remiss in my blogging duties, I am only now, almost two weeks after I got beck from spending a week in Louisiana, going to write about it.

I went down with a group from my company, Return Path, to a Habitat for Humanity build near Mandeville, Covington, and Abita Springs, three small towns on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain. As you might remember, the day after Hurricane Katrina hit, everyone was relieved at how little damage it had done. Then, the levees which held Lake Pontchartrain in its basin burst and the lake flooded South, towards New Orleans. The neighborhoods on the South Shore of the lake were among the hardest hit areas and many of them have not been rebuilt -- some probably never will be.

Instead, the neighborhoods on the North Shore of the lake have seen their populations triple in the last year and a half. Needless to say, this has been a bit of a strain on the infrastructure (the traffic (almost) rivals New Jersey!) Also similar to parts of New Jersey, the North Shore neighborhoods are home to many who commute into the big city for work everyday. Instead of the being the Bridge & Tunnel crowd, these folks could accurately be called the Causeway crowd, because to get to New Orleans they drive across the lake on a 23 mile bridge! Check out this google map to see this wonder.

I left New York a couple of days early with my friend and colleague, Russ, with plans to enjoy the various delights of New Orleans before we got down to work. Unfortunately, we had chosen to fly AirTran, so we spent a lot of time waiting around in La Guardia airport with a group of people, who like us, were fated to spend an unwanted night in Atlanta due to various plane and customer service malfunctions. Luckily, we were stuck with some nice people, some of whom were from New Orleans, so we heard a few interesting stories.

The most remarkable of them came from Amanda, a young woman whose extended family are almost all firemen in New Orleans. Apparently, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, firemen were forced into all sorts of first-responder duties, and among the various responsibilities of the job was the issuing, by the FBI of "drop guns." A "drop gun," we found out, is an untraceable gun with no serial number which, when given out, went along with instructions to -- if you ended up needing to use it -- drop it.

In more light-hearted news, we were (supposed to be) flying on the same day as the NFL draft and the Atlanta Falcon's star quarterback, Michael Vick, happened to be flying from the same gate as us. Despite being distracted by the blingiest chain I've ever seen, I caught a snippet of conversation between him and a white male admirer in his mid thirties, "You're great, man! I love playing you in Madden!"

When we finally made it to New Orleans, it was a real pleasure. Canal Street and Bourbon Street are busy, bustling, and unbelievably smelly. At night the bars feature cover bands or, worse, karaoke. On the upside you can buy funny T-shirts (the best we saw bore the message, "FEMA emergency plan, 'Run bitches, run!'") and get colorful alcoholic beverages in large plastic cups to go. We had more fun on Frenchman street several blocks away where there are several great jazz and blues clubs (try the Apple Barrel) and a great restaurant where I had one of the most exquisitely wonderful meals in recent memory. My guess is that everything is amazing, but I can personally vouch for the Fried Chicken, Mac 'n Cheese, and Mustard Greens.

Thank you for making it through part one, and please tune in to part two, when our intrepid heroes discover the joys of stuffed ices, the omnipotence of the word "baby" in Louisiana vernacular, and get our hand dirty with some building.