Sunday Coffee

I strolled over to Rue de la Course, one of two nearby coffee houses, this mild and sunny afternoon. Two professors from the Newcomb Art Department were sitting at an outside table, facing Carrollton Avenue. And so I joined them.

Sandy is a painter. Several years ago, she joined a class I led to the Yucatán. Her house in Gentilly was flooded and she lost some recent paintings which were in her ground floor studio. That was bad enough, but, what seemed to bother her most of all was that she lost her entire wardrobe - clothes that she had collected over many years.

Michael had evacuated to his family's home in Maine. He lives in this neighborhood, so his house and belongings were in good shape - although his roof was severly damaged and he can't find a contractor to fix it. Like me, there is the illusion that everything is more or less normal. On the otherhand, you talk to people who are living in two rooms of their much larger houses (a bedroom and bath) and know all the open restaurants while their kitchen is being rebuilt.

Last night, I went to a tree-trimming party a few blocks away from my house. The hosts and some of the guests had stayed in their houses through the hurricane. My neighborhood is on the natural levee, close to the Mississippi and on high ground. It was not flooded and only suffered from wind damage. They spoke of looters traveling through our neighborhood with shopping carts of stolen goods. They left more from fear of lawlessness than from the lack of power and potable water.

Bush announced aid to reconstruct the levees. Is this sufficient to reassure New Orleanians from the flooded city to return? Will families return when school opens in January? Will businesses and jobs return? When will we get a real sense of what kind of a New Orleans we need to construct?