Outwester.com

Katrina: Two Years After, New Orleans reflects

It hasn't entered the lexicon of infamy quite like 9/11 (perhaps since events spanned far more than one day), but today, Aug 29, marks the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast.

Unlike Manhattan, where herculean efforts got the disaster zone cleared faster than expected, the recovery of New Orleans and surrounding Louisiana and Mississippi has progressed far more slowly.

Reasons abound: the sheer size of the disaster; politics of ineptitude at nearly all levels of government; enormous costs and uncertainty surrounding the feasibility of rebuilding; fearsome crime.

Whether the federal response has been hindered by some Rovian scheme to deny a blue state, or the far less machiavellian reality that US resources have been stupidly bogged down in Iraq (where was the Louisiana National Guard two years back?), it remains that the efforts to restore the region were punted by the Bush administration, and have yet to be run back.

With a new election pending, politicos will leverage Katrina. They'll pledge not to forget it, develop grand plans, even in the case of John Edwards stoop to kicking off his campaign in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Regardless, what you'll find in New Orleans if you visit yourself - and please, do - is a populace accepting the fact that they can't rely on their government, that if they wish to rebuild they need to do it themselves. They're hardened, assuredly, at times depressive and mad. But they are New Orleaneans, still, and by nature lovers of life, quick to shake off the demons with a concoction of regal cuisine, pure hospitality and the most ass-shakingest music scene anywhere in America.

Do yourself and them a favor, and get back on down to New Orleans, hear?

Downtown LA's Comeback

  Rooftop blue 
  Originally uploaded by Divwerf.

Once an urban blight, Downtown LA is now red-hot. Home to top restaurants, hotels and art centers, it's become a Hollywood success story: as A-list neighborhood.

Jay Cooke covers Downtown LA's ascendent mix for the May 2006 Business Traveler Magazine.

He traverses mixed-use neighborhoods, canvassing Chinatown galleres, the American Apparel home factory, the LA basin's last winery and the Downtown Standard Hotel rooftop bar.

A travel writer and change journalist, Jay Cooke covers California and the West for VIA, the San Francisco Examiner and the San-Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. He profiled socially responsible businesses in San Francisco for Business Traveler in September 2004.

Back to the Big Easy

As Commissioning Editor - US East at Lonely Planet, my terrain includes New Orleans and the American Gulf South. It also covers Florida, so I was aware of that class one hurricane that ripped across the state, toward the Gulf of Mexico and class 5 infamy as Katrina.

I wrote LP's breaking news dispatches during the week of Katrina, and hosted a Lonely Planet podcast discussion of post-hurricane Louisiana with Lonely Planet author Pableaux Johnson.

  New Orleans Protest Car 
  Originally uploaded by howieluvzus.

In November, I returned to New Orleans to report on its progress, three months post-Katrina. I toured the neighborhoods, with an eye toward the reopened few outposts amid the bathtub ring.

  Debris 
  Originally uploaded by emmajane82.

The city has far to go but many believers and a hearty defiance. To survey and spread some love, go now.