Just got through to my long time friend Bill Roberts on the phone tonight. He survived Hurricane Katrina! The electrical power just came back in St. Charles Parrish where he lives, and his home survived. Located a bit west of the city of New Orleans, he was fortunate not to be flooded. He just returned after evacuating north, finding the last motel room in a rundown place not listed on the internet.
In the early 70’s Bill moved from Miller Place, L.I., New York to New Orleans, with a head and heart full of ideas to write poetry and literature. He worked at the Brennan family’s Commander’s Palace restaurant and later transitioned into oil and gas related service companies. He invited me to come down and visit, so I did, a number of times.
For a New Yorker, the city is magnetic, possessing many similarities: old world charm, a great coastal seaport, famous food and entertainment, struggles between rich and poor classes, and international flavor attracting tourism and late night partiers.
On a long visit in 1978, I stayed from early January working at Commanders Palace until business slowed down after the Mardis Gras festival. The town is very dependent upon conventioneers and tourism. During that Mardis Gras, which was cold and wet, I shot these black and white photos with a 16mm Minox “spy” camera. Bill was Harpo and I was a Clockwork Orange Clown.
Later on in the 90’s I returned to New Orleans as a SIGGRAPH computer graphics conventioneer twice.
I stayed at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Piano Bar in the French Quarter too late, overslept and missed my flight home the next morning!
The visiter to New Orleans tends to forget about such things as punctuality, while releasing stress, and then not wanting to leave. That is, while the place is enjoying good times, not when under attack of a gigantic storm.
From what Bill told me tonight, this is devastation of Biblical proportions, and large pieces of coastal waterways have been taken away by surging ocean waters. Although he sounded as though things were getting back to normal, he also warned that all kinds of food and materials normally imported through New Orleans will be delayed and in short supply.
I hope this event draws more attention to preparing our own fragile infrastructure at home in the United States. The storm exposed many neglected problems and created more. There is much work to be done. New Orleans and much of the Mississippi coastline will come out better for it.
People’s Photos of Hurricane Katrina on Flickr.
Interesting quotes from the media, asking why our government failed to do more.
