Back in the Crescent City for the first time in a month. In the populated zone, the piles I had grown to recognize in front of certain dwellings seem to have taken up permanent residence. Although the city, justly famous for post-NYE and Mardi Gras street cleanup, did its usual fine job early in the morning of Jan 1, those debris piles seem to be someone else's -- or no one else's -- responsibility.
The populated zone -- what most people here now call "The island" -- did well this past week. Christmas season is usually the quietest time of the year, a lovely period when the city belongs just to the locals. By Dec. 28, tourists are flocking back for the Sugar Bowl and New Year's Eve. This year, nobody wants to see empty streets. There's plenty of emptiness just beyond the line where the electricity ends. So the fact that the French Quarter appeared teeming with tourists was welcome. The sight of the ultimate New Orleans fashion faux pas -- wearing Mardi Gras beads during any time except Carnival season (like the guy who leaves his Christmas lights up till Valentine's Day) -- was, this year, a welcome sight.
Yet even on the island, even if you ignore the debris piles, there are always reminders that Something Else is happening. Walking down Chartres St. yesterday, I heard a bulky bearded guy saying loudly into his cellphone, "I'm still living on my generator." In Jackson Square, just as the fog was settling in to kill the fireworks show, I saw a sizeable crowd gathering and, right in front of St. Louis Cathedral, six -- count 'em, six -- unoccupied Humvees.
The intractability of the housing problem continues: even if FEMA were quick off the blocks with trailers, the locally bankrupt Entergy utility is very slow in providing hookups, without which the trailers cannot be occupied (sewage hookups, also necessary, are reportedly easier to get). And, given the opportunity to diddle, local political leaders are seizing it -- both in New Orleans and in neighboring Jefferson Parish, there's an outbreak of NIMBYism, city councilpersons rejecting plans by executives to site large groups of trailers on available land. Some of the objections are justified, some are the eruption of longstanding rivalries between, say, the NO council and mayor. None of it is getting the people who want to come home back any sooner.
And, as I greeted friends who are opening up one of my favorite restaurants, and they shared stories of their adventures in exile, suddenly the maitre d' stopped and glanced into the middle distance. "It's only six months until hurricane season," he said.