Gay New Orleans Bounces Back
By Andrew
Collins
I gazed out
the plane window on the final approach into Louis Armstrong New Orleans
International Airport, eyeing the suburb of Kenner, and I immediately
noticed thousands of blue roofs. Kenner lies several miles west of New
Orleans, and it was largely spared the full brunt of August's devastating
Hurricane Katrina. But even this far west, roughly 100 days after the
storm, protective blue tarps covered the roofs of thousands of homes
beneath me. Still, I also saw neon restaurant signs, cars speeding along
Veterans Boulevard, airport hotels with full parking lots, and plenty of
energy in one of America's most dynamic, and gay-friendly, cities. New
Orleans looked wounded, but also very much alive.
I had flown in for a quick four-day visit, because I'm about to update and
revise my guidebook Moon Handbooks New Orleans, which actually
covers all of southern Louisiana. I planned one night in St. Tammany
Parish (aka New Orleans North Shore, because of its location on the north
shore of Lake Pontchartrain), which sustained major Katrina damage
especially in the easternmost town of Slidell. Then I set aside a night to
visit Lake Charles, at the opposite end of the state, which was pummeled
by Hurricane Rita just 25 days after Katrina. And finally, I saved my last
two nights for New Orleans itself.
Before I get into the specifics, let me assure anyone who loves visiting
Louisiana: Hurricane Katrina may have forever altered the appearance and
even personality of New Orleans, but the city's tourism-driven
neighborhoods - the French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, Uptown, the Garden
District, and the Central Business District - have already bounced back
with admirable, in some cases amazing, vigor. The city is absolutely ready
for visitors - hundreds of hotels and B&Bs, restaurants, shops, bars, and
even quite a few attractions are up and running, and dozens reopen each
day. And if you're interested in the rest of southern Louisiana, Baton
Rouge and Lafayette were spared by the storms, Lake Charles has almost
fully rebounded, and St. Tammany Parish is also making rapid headway.
Now for the specifics, as of December 2005:
Hurricane Katrina leveled the greatest wind and storm damage upon eastern
New Orleans, and as I drove east from Faubourg Marigny into the adjacent
(and historic) Bywater neighborhood, I noticed a dramatic difference in
the severity of damage. The floods that resulted from levee breaks caused
untold damage to all of eastern New Orleans, but flooding also destroyed
huge swaths of the city north of I-10. I spent a full afternoon driving
through the worst of the flood-damaged areas, and the magnitude of
devastation is unbelievable.
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