home

Ode to New Orleans

By Jeralyn, Section Huricanes Katrina and Rita
Posted on Tue Aug 30, 2005 at 09:11:29 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

A little bit of history:

The Big Easy

In the land of spicy music and melodic foods - better known as New Orleans - the pursuit of good times is not merely a diversion, but a way of life. From its beginning in 1718 as a French real estate scam, and centuries of settlement by other ethnic cultures, the unlikely city built in the midst of a swamp has remained tenaciously French in style and outlook. In spite of an early history filled with hurricanes, floods and fires, political upheavals and plagues of yellow fever, the French joie de vivre and love of celebrating endured and is still part of the lifestyle.

Over time, the giant funnel of the Mississippi River drew a mosaic of inhabitants, each contributing flavors and customs of their unique cultures. Many are artists and writers, lured by the music, food, architecture and history, which provide constant inspiration.

Here is a quick look at history:

  • 1762 Louis XV gives Louisiana to his Spanish cousin, Charles II
  • 1788 A massive fire destroys 850 buildings in the French Quarter
  • 1794 A second fire destroys another 200 structures
  • 1803 Spain cedes Louisiana back to France
  • 1803 "The Louisiana Purchase," Napoleon sells Louisiana for $15 million dollars to the United States.
  • 1815 The Battle of New Orleans

By the mid-1800's the city was the fourth largest in the U.S. and one of the richest. Visitors were dazzled by the restaurants, chic Parisian fashions, the opera and theater - and they still are. There is no down time here. For 365 days a year, something fun is going on - either organized or impromptu. Myriad activities range from thoroughbred horse racing to spotting gators in the swamps.

Today's visitors are especially pleased to find everything they want within an easy walk or streetcar or taxi ride. Most attractions and convention facilities are located in one compact area adjacent to the riverfront. So celebrate with us and dance along with the crowd. Laissez les bons temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

A brief history of the French Quarter is here.

Here are a few of My New Orleans favorites:

Please add your's in the comments.

How unbelievably sad that this city has been destroyed.

< Katrina Victims Suffer, Bush Plays Guitar | From Superdome to Astrodome: Mandatory Evacuation >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Ode to New Orleans | 19 comments (19 topical)
    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#1)
    by Aaron on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 01:35:36 AM EST
    I was down in Miami the day after Andrew hit, and the pictures from Mississippi, Gulfport and Biloxi, remind me of that, but with about 20 times more total devastation. Some places were just wiped completely clean. This is going to be the worst hurricane in US history easily, with hundreds and hundreds dead and the cost will be in the hundreds of billions. I knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad. I first saw this video of Mr. Harvey Jackson from Biloxi on MSNBC, I started losing it watching him talk about having his wife pulled out of his arms by the water. You can watch the video... but I wouldn't recommend it.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 06:10:28 AM EST
    Hate to, but I just have to ask this question. Why didn't they leave? There was plenty of warning.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 07:06:21 AM EST
    Thanks, TL. I'll definitely be visiting NO sometme in the future and will make sure I go through your list whilst I'm there. By the way, any word on the Crowne Plaza Astor Hotel? Nothing on their own site.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#4)
    by pigwiggle on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 07:30:50 AM EST
    “Why didn't they leave? There was plenty of warning.”
    Hubris and fear of looting. I listen to interview after interview yesterday and they all were saying the same things, ‘I rode out Camille’, and ‘all must stuff was taken when I left for Camille’. This is being called a natural disaster but I think it is more suitably described as a man made disaster. Here is an interesting assessment of the comparative vulnerability of Baton Rouge and New Orleans drafted in 2003. It has a nice graph of the history of cat 2-5 hurricanes passing within 50n miles of NO and BR over the last 100+ years. Everybody new this kind of disastrous flooding was inevitable. Here are the most telling passages from this assessment …
    In New Orleans, much of the city is near or even below sea level ... All locations on the West Bank and many points on the East Bank could flood even in cat 2 intensity storms … locations anywhere within Orleans and Jefferson Parishes can experience significant storm flooding in a cat 3 storm ... Any single storm can easily flood broad areas of both parishes to depths over land of 10 feet or more ... the more urban nature, bowl-like topography, and dependency on pumps make it more vulnerable to rainfall flooding as well.
    This was writen April 2003

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 07:44:01 AM EST
    I love New Orleans. The damage is overwhelmingly sad.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 07:55:23 AM EST
    Why didn't they leave? A valid question posed. I guess its part stupidity, part denial Jim. I live along the N.C. coast and its tough, someone tells you that you must gather up all your belongs and leave within 24 hours, well its just difficult and some people do not want to go through with it. Everything going on in your life just stops and is placed on hold. Its tense and you have to make decisions fast. I cant blame these folks entirely for not leaving and I would imagine those who didn't leave there are some without cars or transportation, the elderly who had a hard time leaving or lack of a caring family member to come get them, believe it or not I have heard people cite their pets as the reason they stayed and there are always those brave few who think they can ride the storm out because they have been through it before. None of these are good enough reasons to stay, especially in New Orleans, as Pigw points out, but its’ not as irrational as one might think. By the way I think the recent Bush bashing is getting old and poorly timed. We have plenty of opportunity for this another time, believe me the last thing these people care about right now is politics.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#7)
    by scarshapedstar on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 08:45:29 AM EST
    Wow, Jim, third name in a week?

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#8)
    by MikeDitto on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:01:13 AM EST
    There was literally no way out of the city for a lot of people. They didn't have cars. Perhaps a lesson should be that when a natural disaster is threatening that Amtrak should send as many trains as possible to provide free or low-cost transportation out of the city.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#9)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:58:24 AM EST
    scar - GregZ will probably take exception to your comment. BTW – I trust you didn’t get confused with the name changes. Was it the Baird who said, “A rose by any other name, smells the same?” ;-) GregZ - Good points. We were in Biloxi during the 70’s when a hurricane came in, and we went north. The storm turned out to be a tropical depression, lots of rain and no damage, but I never regretted leaving. I just can’t grasp someone, in today’s world, not understanding that if you live on the beach, leave. Michael – Good point re transportation.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 11:55:13 AM EST
    Why didn't they leave? There was plenty of warning.
    There are those with no way of getting out. Many without transportation, many without the money to get anywhere. There are also those that dont believe it'll be that bad. I mean after all it's just a storm right? Who could imagine that it would flood ALL of New Orleans AND several other towns? Instead of sitting there asking questions and being unsympathetic, do something to help them out.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 12:00:36 PM EST
    Please send help, money, canned food, whatever you can. This is hell.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#12)
    by pigwiggle on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 12:11:16 PM EST
    “There are those with no way of getting out. Many without transportation, many without the money to get anywhere.”
    When Ivan missed folks estimated that around 120,000 residents had no transportation. If Ivan had hit it was projected 40,000 – 60,000 of these folks would have died.
    “There are also those that dont believe it'll be that bad. I mean after all it's just a storm right?”
    Evacuation surveys after Ivan showed that two thirds of folks with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#13)
    by squeaky on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 12:32:05 PM EST
    PW-Are you comparing mandatory evacuation to voluntary? What is your point. People have the right to be stupid? Why should your tax money go to saving fools? What are you trying to say?

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#14)
    by pigwiggle on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 12:54:09 PM EST
    “What are you trying to say?”
    Nothing really; I was adding some concrete numbers to the discussion. I think it’s a good thing to do.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#15)
    by Aaron on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 01:34:00 PM EST
    JimakaJim In response to your question, "Why didn't they leave?" Hurricanes are enormous storms, and very tricky. Living in South Florida most of my life and having seen at least seven big storms come this way with no direct hits except for Andrew, I can tell you that the question becomes where do you go? In Florida on the peninsula you don't have much choice, all you can do is go north or away from the storm. But of course oftentimes you never know exactly where the brunt of the storm will it hit. And we're talking about a storm which is well over 1000 miles across taking into account the large feeder bands. The people in New Orleans could have fled to Mississippi or Alabama but that would've been a mistake. Right now most of what's happening in New Orleans is a direct result of flooding from the failures of dikes and levies. If you notice watching the rescues of the people who are trapped in the bottoms of Louisiana, their homes are hardly damaged, they still have the satellite dishes on top of their roofs. They probably rode out the storm thinking, no big deal it missed us, and then the flooding hit. Most of these are poor people, with little or no resources, and no place to go. Where were these people supposed to evacuate too? They don't know what they're going to do with them now. I hear they're sending the people in the Superdome to Texas to stay in the Astrodome. The power of the storm when it came through Broward County in South Florida where I live was impressive and the winds were only 70 mph. When Katrina hit the Gulf Coast it was about as bad as hurricanes can get. President Bush needs to call up all available National Guard and reserves, and all emergency personnel that they can get from anywhere. Hopefully that will prevent more people from dying. The aftermath of the storm is going to go on for months, and the recovery process will take years. This is one of the worst disasters in US history.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 01:46:44 PM EST
    Time to stop talking and start helping Look at the picture in the main headline. (For those of you who dont look at this before it changes, it's a couple of people standing on a rooftop holding a sign that says "Help us"...sort of sums it all up.) (Peace)

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#17)
    by DawesFred60 on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 02:32:57 PM EST
    mass looting by armed gangs isn't this fun the cops can do nothing isn't that funny?..god help anyone not a gang guy or girl.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#18)
    by Aaron on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 05:35:11 PM EST
    I agree with anonymous, now is not the time for recriminations or second-guessing, now is the time for us all to pull together. There are one million refugees coming out of New Orleans, people are suffering and dying, please I implore you do whatever you can to help. We need everyone.

    Re: Ode to New Orleans (none / 0) (#19)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 06:22:15 PM EST
    Aaron: I have a pretty good grip on what a hurricane is, and I understand the uncertainty of where they will make land fall. And yes, this one did veer slightly east, at the last minute. But:
    The people in New Orleans could have fled to Mississippi or Alabama but that would've been a mistake.
    Not if they had gone north on I55 or west on I10, or far enough east. I understand that no one wants to leave, but if you stay in a apartment building on the beach when every one is saying leave, well, don't be surprised when you drown. The issue is also money and lack of transportation. That could be provided. The next question is, why should Aunt Matilda in Missoula buy you out of trouble just because you want to live in a place with warm waves and a beautiful beach (most of the time). I don’t have an answer, but I think it is a valid question when the cost of someone else’s choice of where to live has probably cost us a trillion dollars in the past 20 years, with $500 billion coming up.

    Ode to New Orleans | 19 comments (19 topical)