Hope for the future?
It appears the spirit of New Orleans is not dead after all.
Amid the tragedy, about two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter for the Decadence Parade, an annual Labor Day gay celebration. Matt Menold, 23, a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung over his back, said: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."
Yes, it's insane. But this is New Orleans we're talking about after all, and I can't help but take it as a positive sign.
Which brings me to another point about whether to "rebuild" New Orleans. I understand that the question has to be asked, but isn't it a bit presumptuous of us to have this debate at all? Particularly those of us who don't live there?
I understand the thinking of those who believe rebuilding would be more trouble than it's worth, and that to do so may court future disaster, but at the same time it begs the question: what is the alternative?
For example, much of the French Quarter is relatively dry and largely intact. What do we do with that magnificent, historical architecture? Bulldoze it? Pick it up and move it a hundred miles upriver? Abandon it as ruins? None of these options seem exactly tenable. And there will almost certainly be those who will try to rebuild, regardless. Should they be prevented from doing so? In short, those who would choose not to rebuild have some explaining to do regarding precisely what such a decision would mean. I honestly don't see as we have a choice.
Granted, there are probably many survivors who would just as soon leave and never look back. There are also, no doubt, many others for whom abandoning the city would be inconceivable.
New Orleans has been no stranger to calamity over the years. She has endured wars, hurricanes, devastating flood waters, fires that virtually leveled the city and plague outbreaks which decimated a far larger chunk of the population than did Katrina.
And yet New Orleans has survived. She will survive this, too. It may be many years, of course, before it's a vacation hot spot again. It won't be exactly the same city as it was 10 years ago, of course, but so what? As someone who first visited New Orleans in the 1970s, I can tell you that it had already become a different city in 2005, before Katrina, than it was when I first laid eyes on it.
I can't begin to predict, of course, what kind of city "New" New Orleans will turn out to be. But I am confident that it will always be there, and will always be New Orleans. Overall, I think that's a good thing.