New Orleans--Odds and Ends

I'll write about the Red Cross and what I think the big lessons are regarding charities on Monday. For now, as I try to dig out from the work I left behind, here are a few random thoughts, observations, and take-aways from 3 days in the Big Easy:

• At the national level, I think charities need to do a much better job of working together in times of crisis. At the local level, however, in the days after the storm, they did a pretty good job of partnering, mostly because they had to, to get anything done. This was especially true of the churches, who shared worship space, fed each other's congregants, and went out of their way to minister to everyone in their geographic area.
  
• The New Orleans Aquarium just re-opened. While their flood damage was minimal (as compared to others), nearly all their fish died when they went without power for nearly a month.
  
• The city is just hurting financially, and could really benefit from an influx of tourists. The bus companies that once did three swamp tours a day are now doing three a week. My hotel couldn't guarantee daily room cleaning (I know, poor pitiful me) due to a shortage of workers. Restaurants that you needed a reservation 3 weeks in advance for, you can now walk into. If you're an organization looking for a site for a convention or a company get-together, please consider this city. The airport is open, most of the restaurants are intact, the bars are going--you'd have a nice time, and you could really help a city at risk.
  
• I didn't sense a ton of racial tension in the city. The tension that did exist was between the crazy and the sane, and that's going to rise. The long-term mental health of the people that have gone through this is something that the counselors and therapists I met with are terrified of.
  
• When it was apparent that many of the city's residents planned to ignore the mandatory evacuation order the day before Katrina hit, Mayor Ray Nagin went on the radio and told people to at least put an axe in their attics so they could chop out if the waters rose. He was mocked by local politicians and pundits for this seemingly ineffective and pathetic leadership. Several hundred people are alive today because they had axes in their attics.
  
• While FEMA (deservedly) was hammered for their reactions, or lack thereof, one can not deny the number of FEMA trailers and trailer cities in this area. They're everywhere, these singlewide trailers, that many people are still calling their homes.
  
• New Orleans is below sea level. Some people cite this as a reason for not rebuilding. And yet, many cities in the Netherlands, including Rotterdam, are further below sea level. But they have flood control systems in place that make New Orleans levees look like, well, New Orleans levees.
  
• Harry Connick, Jr. and Wynton Marsalis have partnered with Habitat For Humanity to build something called "Musician's Village" where they bought a bunch of land and plan on building a community of houses for displaced musicians. It seemed pretty cool to me, as they are trying to keep the music alive in this now silent city.
  
• Looking for someone with less credibility than FEMA or the Bush administration in New Orleans? Try the Army Corps of Engineers, which not only built the levees, but pronounced them structurally safe.
  
• I have never seen a city with more bad drivers. It's astounding, and frankly, I suspect it has nothing to do with the hurricanes.