We Orleanians have long been enthusiastic to receive visitors to our home town and, like any good host, have endeavored to make sure they enjoy their stay.  That’s why, like the lei, we often offer beads to new arrivals to welcome them, as we did these Canadian Volunteers, the Mission Team from St. Albert Catholic High School who recently volunteered a week of their time to help our residents.

Knowing that it takes both visitor and host for a successful stay, we’re optimistic when we see visitors openly wearing Mardi Gras beads, like Tim Onasch and Rich Becker from The Potomac River Jazz Club who attended this year’s French Quarter Fest.  They told me they come every year for the festival and that putting on the beads is a way of starting the fun.

At the 2011 Sugar Bowl Game, over both Arkansas and Ohio jerseys, the beads around fans’ necks as they walked the streets and cheered in the Superdome made a similar statement.  They declared their intent to enjoy the setting in which their favorite teams competed, win or lose.  Would men and women walk around wearing bright, inexpensive beads in their home towns?  It doesn’t matter.  What a sweet compliment their beads conveyed:  “We accept your hospitality and we’ll match your enthusiasm for this place with ours.”

Thank you to all of you who wear our New Orleans lei; we’re confident you’ll enjoy your stay!

The BP oil spill last year was a huge reminder of the perilous problems oil has been causing in the Gulf Coast and elsewhere.  The fact that even this catastrophe is only part of the ongoing problem is graphically brought home in the maps and data offered by the National Response Center Incident Reports for Louisiana in 2009 available at http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/04/chronic-exposure.html.

So what does an individual do?  Well, one step my husband and I have been striving to take is to reduce our gas consumption in cars.  Unfortunately, we’re finding that even that meager step is not easy as residents of the greater New Orleans area.  Our shopping revealed that the available choices offered us either gas efficiency or space and clearance:

Space–there was an appealing car that would decrease our consumption by 37% and its interior was relatively spacious considering the gas-efficient cars.  Unfortunately, the trunk is rather small in order to accommodate the hybrid’s battery and cooling system.  Why the emphasis on space?  Have you evacuated since Hurricane Katrina?  Since that event we even think about space in the car when we consider adopting a pet—would we have room to take it and its food, et. al.?

Trapped in a Neighborhood Flood

Clearance–we also noticed that the fuel-efficient cars are all low to the ground.  If you read my blog  An Ironic Confirmation of Water Vulnerability  you know this photo of our Subaru and the water surrounding it was taken after an everyday storm in New Orleans.

For so many reasons, I remain a strong advocate against expanded oil drilling.  I also know that this car shopping reflects only a minute example of the complexity of our nation’s dependency on oil.

We figured we had enough time to catch the matinee of Harry Shearer’s documentary, The Big Uneasy, which we had heard was nothing like other New Orleans documentaries and was well worth seeing. We drove to the last one-screen movie theater in the New Orleans area, located Uptown amidst nice homes.

While the film methodically, convincingly, and comprehensively presented the facts of poor engineering that resulted in the devastation related to Hurricane Katrina, we became aware of loud, persistent, thunder outside the theater. It seemed to punctuate the stark message that the new pumps for taking water out of the city during hurricanes do not work.

About three-quarters of the way through the film, as we absorbed the film’s warning, we got another from a theater employee: “It’s raining pretty heavily outside and flooding. You might want to check on your cars.”

In fact, when we and other members of the audience went outside, the water was already too high to act. Opening the doors of our cars would simply let more water in them. Moreover, there was little possibility of successfully moving a car were we willing to wade out and have the extraordinary luck of starting it.

A few people, who either lived nearby or had cars parked on higher ground, waded out. As the rest of us waited for the rain to stop, the pumps to catch up, and the water to subside, we learned that this is a regular occurrence in this neighborhood. So accustomed to the flooding, the residents on the block where we had parked had enacted their system of erecting barriers at each end so no cars could travel in the waters already threatening their homes. They took out signs they made to stop the truck or SUV that sometimes entered adjacent streets, whose wake exacerbated the flooding. One resident later explained that he had installed a water-tight gate to protect his property because this occurs so often.

After waiting about an hour, my husband and I waded four blocks to reach a restaurant and have dinner. Upon our return the water had receded from the streets, but not from our car. Our passenger seats were saturated as was our engine, apparently, for it didn’t start. Tow trucks did a booming business in that neighborhood that evening.

In Why People Live in New Orleans, though I spoke about the need for good drainage in our city and showed some of how it works, I didn’t go into the fact that some streets in many neighborhoods of the greater New Orleans area flood whenever we get a torrential rain. Since we are a sub-tropical climate, such downpours occur often — without hurricanes – and quickly overcome the pumping capacity of these susceptible areas.

Solutions can be handled by individuals to a point, as the Uptown residents were attempting to do. Our house is another example. We live on a ridge. (Everything is relative and this is by no means as high a piece of ground as might come to your mind when you read the word “ridge.”) However, my parents built our house on a slab in 1956 when the street was only paved with sea shells, and we were one of four houses on the street. Each time someone built another house they had to build to newer codes, which were always at higher elevations. The street also got higher when it was paved. Consequently, we were one of the low spots. Each time it rained, and especially during those gushers, we were in and out of the rain clearing the drains and working to keep the water away from our house foundation and entryways.

When my husband and I began updating the house in 2004, our priority was to re-grade the property and have such features as retaining walls to help neighbors’ water run to the street instead of our property, and more drains.  However, there are still downpours that outpace the pump capacity, and we will always have to monitor the drains and the water level. We also attend meetings of our neighborhood association to work on the wider neighborhood and greater New Orleans area issues. We are grateful to people like the scientists, the Army Corps of Engineer whistleblower, lawyers, and concerned active citizens who work at a national level to resolve issues in spite of losing their jobs and being ridiculed by their colleagues when they find they must fight agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers.

If our car cannot be repaired, it will be the third that my husband and I have lost due to weather related causes. The first was washed down the river in the Big Thompson Flood in Colorado. Wind from Hurricane Rita fell on the second when it was parked in southwestern Louisiana at our Hurricane Katrina evacuation destination.

Natural disasters occur everywhere as seen in the storms, mud slides, earthquakes, and fires just this year. I highly recommend your viewing The Big Uneasy to help ensure that man-made disasters don’t continue to compound the natural ones. Here’s some of what a respected local radio host, Garland Robinette, had to say about The Big Uneasy:

I didn’t want to go. I’ve talked Katrina to death the last four days. I’ve seen most documentaries, read many books, and listened to experts from all over the world on this show for 5 years. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina….enough! . . . went only because Harry is one of the few world-wide backers of New Orleans and a friend. I felt an obligation to see his art.

One man’s opinion: No other book, movie, documentary or news reports even come close to the importance of Harry’s work, ”The Big UnEasy.”

The rest of Garland Robbinette’s August 31, 2010 response to what he learned is contained in an article he called “The Big UNEasy – Consider Yourself Warned” at http://www.wwl.com/pages/8041702.php.

Geographers and other people use the term “region” to help us locate an area of land whose shared characteristics set it apart from other places. For example, geographers identify ten regions of the world, including the continent of North America, which is where we find the United States, Louisiana, and New Orleans. We also use “region” for smaller areas, when we say that Louisiana is in the southern region of the United States, and New Orleans is in the region of southeastern Louisiana.

Can you name other regions to which your location or New Orleans belongs?

Shared Characteristics: Physical

Physical features of a region are made by nature, such as land forms, bodies of water, vegetation, animals, climate, and weather. The three North American countries are Canada, the United States, and Mexico. They form a continuous stretch of land. The Rocky Mountain range runs through western North America, in both Canada and the United States. The range’s highest peak is in Colorado, 14,440 feet (4,401 m) above sea level. The mountains do not extend to Louisiana, but one of their resources often does.

What might the Rocky Mountains send all the way to New Orleans and what physical feature would carry it there?

The three countries of North America share the Pacific coastline. What other coastlines do these countries share?

Louisiana also shares characteristics with areas outside North America.

In fact, what do more than half the world and half the U.S. population have in common with the greater New Orleans area?

a. They all have frigid climates.
b. They are within fifty miles of coasts.
c. They have little water nearby.
d. They have very few natural resources.

Louisiana is part of another region that has been in the news a lot since April 2010, the Gulf Coast.

What are some of the physical features that the states and countries in the Gulf Coast region share?

Use what you’ve answered above, and information you’ve read in pages 1-10 of Why People Live in New Orleans to discuss these questions and support your answers:

1. What physical features of the New Orleans area do interviewed residents value?
2. What physical features make the New Orleans area important to people who live elsewhere?
3. Why should you and the rest of the world care about what’s happening to southeast Louisiana?
4. Who do you think should help decide about future oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? Support your answers with what you know about places and regions.
5. What actions can you and your classmates take that would help damaged physical features of your location, New Orleans, coastal Louisiana, or another region of your choice?  How will it benefit you?
6. If you choose a region other than your own, how could you connect with the people of that region to gain information and work cooperatively?  If you chose your own, how can you connect with other groups in that area who want the same results as you?

At Boat Launch

After Hurricane Katrina and before a new marina was built, Lake Pontchartrain shrimpers moored their boats at a nearby boat launch. I loved to visit in the evenings to see the pelicans hanging out and waiting to be fed leftover fish.

I took many pictures of them there and in other locations, like the one at West End on pilings. The pilings are all that’s left of seafood restaurants that used to be out over the lake until they were washed and blown away in 2005.

Remains of Restaurants

As big as the whole is inside me when I view the remains of the places where so many memories were made and good food enjoyed, I now have another perspective. At least the lake and the pelicans remained after that last disaster. I wonder about what will be left of the one going on now in the Gulf.

Shortly before the April 20, 2010 oil rig explosion we had had a series of articles that now seem ironic. We were being encouraged to return to swimming and enjoying the lake, because, with the help of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation and residents’ efforts, the lake had been cleaned and was deemed a healthy environment. About the same time, we were pleased at the announcement that Pelicans had been removed from the endangered species. Now we see the images of pelicans and other animals dying in oily muck, and we worry about that same black muck destroying the Gulf, being at the Mississippi river’s mouth, and inching toward Lake Borne which goes into Lake Pontchartrain.

Hope for the Future

It’s easy for me to become mired myself in the oil catastrophe – hours reading, discussing, and worrying about what’s happening. Fortunately, I have excellent friends, mentors, and family who help me move forward in positive ways. One of these is my daughter who, believe it or not, is named Katrina. Yesterday she sent me written and video versions of a meditation for the Gulf that was, of course, just what I needed at the moment. The last picture on this blog is one I took before this spring, when the water and the pelicans appeared quite healthy. It and the meditation help me focus on the possibility of the Gulf returning to some form of health in the future. You are welcome to check out the meditation yourself at Healing Meditation for the Gulf.

 ”we owe the people of Louisiana and of the Gulf Coast both an ecological and economic debt.”

Wondering about  the term “ecological debt?” Do you consider the Gulf Coast an “industrial sacrifice zone” or a “resource-rich hinterland?” Dr. Haney clearly explains these with a sound summary of relevant environmental and economic events since oil arrived in the Gulf Coast region, including the hurricanes Katrina and Rita periods and the current realities and implications of this 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  He also makes specific suggestions as to how to repay the debt, including the responsibility of the average citizen/consumer.

I think you’ll find it well worth reading whether you agree or disagree with him.  You can access the article at:  http://www.truthout.org/the-2010-oil-spill-and-our-ecological-debt-louisiana59386

Like five years ago we realize the domino effect of the devastation.  Not only were people killed in or displaced from their homes in the flooding, but those houses once needed postmen to deliver mail, grocery stores to provide food, doctors, schools, and so on, all of whom were affected by the loss of each area.  Similarly, not only did eleven men die, countless fishermen and people working the Gulf lose their jobs, and damage or destruction of wetlands and animal life begin, but people across the nation who drink coffee, eat shrimp, like fruit, plan to buy a new set of tires, or export grain, and those who supply these items, could also feel the effects of this oil incident.

Some things have changed in five years.  There have been a lot more more disasters worldwide and people have become much more proactive, much more connected, and have heightened their expectations.  Volunteers line up to help with booms, debris, and wildlife.  Fishermen, who are prevented from doing what generations of their familes have done, quickly sign up to help because they desparately want the solution and so that they may have some income.  Networks of interested groups communicate with their constituents to mobilize needed support, pressure, and action for a quick response at all levels.

We’ve also learned to stay informed, and to distinguish facts from the damaging misconceptions and generalizations surrounding the event, so we don’t compound the effects of the catasrophe. 

Lost Bayou Ramblers at Old U.S. Mint Stage

Did you attend French Quarter Festival this year? Have you previously? It’s billed as the largest free music festival in the U.S. south, because there are outdoor stages set up throughout the Quarter, where bands take turns performing a wide variety of music free to the public from 11:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. for three days in a row.

It was my good fortune to work all three days right across the street from the Old U.S. Mint where there happened to be a stage for Cajun music. While I remained near my table most of the time, my husband, Bob, meandered throughout the Quarter to sample the entire fare.  When I asked him what impressed him about the festival he replied,

“The uniform quality of performers – excellent music, the tremendous enthusiasm and participation of the people who came to be with them, and the reciprocal relationship between the performers and the people.”

I couldn’t agree more. Over the three days I heard fifteen different bands who performend on this stage alone.  While I preferred some bands’ styles over others, they were consistently good.  Somehow “the people who came to be with them” is so much more fitting than the word “audience,” given the vitality that performers and their fans exchanged and generated together.  Add to these the community ambiance New Orleans creates in each of its festivals, where visitors and locals unite in the zest of the celebration.  This exuberant community, in this case, is both a cause and result of the deep experience of the music and the pure fun of the festival.

Likera Lee and family stop for a meal at Louisiana Pizza Kitchen, the generous hosts of my book signing. (Don't be fooled by the restaurant's name; they also have an excellent crawfish etoufee' and more!)

The sign to the left of the table was the subject of many photographs and spontaneous answers.

Throughout the day as people read the top question on my sign — “Why do people live in New Orleans?” – some people, with a large grin on their faces, responded with a sweep of their hands and a nod to the fun, ”Because of this and all the rest we enjoy!” 

Others contentedly said, “Because we can.”  In Why People Live in New Orleans, I address environmental concerns that threaten to cut short our ability to say that.  On this website I invite you to add comments to my posts in the “Environmental Concerns” theme.  I hope you will join me in supporting a solution to these concerns, so that people can continue to say “Because we can” for a very long time.

Donald and Helena Midkiff

Donald K. Midkiff is one of the residents I interviewed for Why People Live in New Orleans. When asked why he lives in New Orleans, he replied,

“King Tut! The New Orleans Museum of Art exhibit was a huge success with hours spent in line. Problem? No, not to the people of New Orleans. A spontaneous block party broke out in line with coolers of shared sandwiches and cold beer. ‘Watcha need, darlin’?’ Love, New-Orleans-style, is all about food, family, and events made special by total strangers.”

Gary Wallerman, co-owner of GW Fins mentioned similar thoughts last Wednesday at my book signing that he and co-owner Tenney Flynn hosted:

“At the first French Quarter Festival after Katrina we had a booth at Woldenberg Park. Here we were along the Mississippi River on a beautiful April day with lots of people enjoying the free music that the festival offers. I looked around at the smiles, the food, the music, the shared values, and thought, ‘This is why I came back to New Orleans; this is why we all love being here!’”

Like Gary and Donald, I feel fortunate to live in a place where people make ordinary and even special events larger than the occasion itself by enthusiastically sharing with others. If we asked people who came here to cheer the Saints in the Superbowl game this year, and those around the globe who became members of the Who Dat Nation, they would probably agree. Fun is contagious, especially with people who genuinely enjoy and welcome others.

Christine Ewy with Pat and Tom Neary

Tom Neary from New Jersey, one of the “strangers” who made Wednesday’s book signing special for me, gave another unsolicited account of this welcoming spirit:

“I was here when I was 19 years old and was a bit intimidated because, being that age, I didn’t expect particularly good treatment. However, the employee who greeted me in the restaurant asked, ‘May I help you?’ in such a way that it sounded more to me like a genuine question of ‘May I serve you?’ I really felt welcome and respected.

More recently I was here with my grown son and again noted that in New Orleans you get a sense of people who are so giving. My son said to me, ‘I know what it is. There’s no attitude here!’”

My book’s title, Why People Live in New Orleans, seems to prompt the type of spontaneous accounts that Tom and Gary gave last Wednesday evening. If you’d like to tell us why you live or visit here, or if you have other responses to what you’ve just read, please add a comment to this blog.

Throughout the book signing, I experience that friendliness firsthand in the delightful exchanges that come so easily in New Orleans among locals and former strangers, where in a matter of moments, through comfortable conversation, connections are found. “May all of your flights be safe ones,” I tell the pilot who is seemingly in a hurry. He slows down for a few moments. He finds out I used to fly for Pan Am and he for Delta. We reflect on the differences in the industry now, and then he is gone. I ask a policeman if he worked yesterday, and nodding, he happily reports that his beat on Mardi Gras was incident-free despite the large attendance. He moves on, but I recognize him when he passes a little later, because in that short, friendly exchange, he became a person and not a uniform. Two gentlemen walk up and read my author description on the poster. They nod to a young girl with them and say, “She wants to be an author, too.” The girl and I chat about what she currently writes. I mention that she can see children her age in my book, because they were among the people I interviewed to ensure multiple points of view. When her guardians so lovingly buy her a book, the written best wishes with her writing that accompany my signature hold the memory of our connection. A musician from Algiers, just across the river from New Orleans, warmly congratulates me on my book. He asks my opinion on future possibilities in our area and emphasizes the need to develop concrete strategies to build on the positive energy from the Superbowl win and new mayor just elected. He excuses himself as someone else seeks information about my book. During all this time I witness the respect and friendliness Luisa Chinchilla (standing with me in the photo) and her assistants give people who enter Hudson Bookstore, even those simply looking for airport information.

I felt quite at ease throughout the book signing, because these connections and others with airport employees and travelers were easy. There is a culture of openness to each other here. As resident Marilyn O’Connor says in Why People Live in New Orleans, “People are friendly. I can be at a shopping center and hold a conversation with almost anyone.” That obviously holds true for the airport, even the day after Mardi Gras!