The Spirit of New Orleans

No other story about New Orleans matches the efforts of citizens
who took the initiative to clean up the mess left by the Hurricane
Katrina and begin rebuilding their city. Likewise, people's
determination to return home turned out to be the driving force toward
recovery--even amid heartache, suffering, psychological trauma and
incredible inconvenience.

But this wasn't easy. Within a month after Hurricane Katrina tore
through the Gulf coast, questions arose in other parts of the country
about whether New Orleans could or should endure.

Known as the "Great Footprint Debate," three options emerged
regarding the fate of the flooded city: (1) abandon everything; (2)
maintain everything in favor of the social and economic assets of the
city despite its geological truths; (3) concede the risks and rebuild
the city on higher ground.

"Topography does matter," said according to Richard
Campanella, associate director of Tulane University's Center for
Bioenvironmental Research and a research professor with Tulane's
Department of Earth and Environmental Science. He pointed out that sea
levels have increased by four inches during the 20th century and
predicted that in another 100 years they will rise another 41 inches. He
spoke recently at the annual American Planners Association conference.

But, five years after Katrina, New Orleans and its people have endured. The question now is: how did they do it?

Tom Piazza wrote a wonderful, intimate book shortly after Katrina titled Why New Orleans Mattersin anattempt to answer this question.

The spirit of New Orleans, he suggests, arises from people's view
of mortality and their utter connection to the place where they live.
What it boils down to is a philosophy that espouses gratitude for
another day since no one knows what tomorrow may bring. It is not a
fatalistic or Pollyanna view of life but rather one that is
present-oriented and open to all possibilities, something very difficult
for most Americans to understand because of our rushed, busy and
controlled lives.

This Weltanschauung has its roots in Caribbean and African
nature religions that believe creation generously gives of its abundance
so that human beings can respond to the Creator with expressions of
thanks and by extending their generosity to othersin imitation
of Nature. Such a view is different from the New Englander's Calvinism
of judgment and renunciation or the fundamentalist's notions that God
selects a chosen few and then rids the world of sinners. Orleanians
consciously give thanks for a new day, a deep friendship, a neighborhood
picnic or spontaneous parade or just simply being alive.

Nothing illustrates this view better than the famous jazz funeral.
As strange as it may seem, there is a profound soulfulness that begins
the procession in a slow, solemn dirge as the grieving family leaves the
church and heads to the cemetery. "Second liners" join in and
eventually the music turns to lively jazz with dancing and strutting.

This is not silliness, says Piazza, but rather "the triumph over
the pain, the recognition of life's brevity." And the message is that
everyone attending the funeral has escaped death today so let's
celebrate that.

Katrina left Orleanians with incredible hardships that make daily
living extremely stressful, especially for the poor. There isn't enough
public transportation, and neighborhood stores are sometimes two and
three miles away. Roads are still in disrepair and the recognizable
landscape has been drastically altered as commercial and residential
buildings were destroyed and removed. Many shopping centers remain
vacant. This is all emotionally and psychologically draining and
disorienting; depression and suicide rates have jumped since Katrina.
So when a store re-opens, people indulge in a great celebration amid
their grief, anger, joy, worry and hope, according to city officials.

"Even in its most desperate precincts [New Orleans] is a city of
deep and powerful humanity, of endurance, resilience, humor and
affirmation in the face of adversity," says Piazza.

The HBO series, "Treme," which takes place in the aftermath of
Katrina in the famous neighborhood of the same name, also illustrates
this soulfulness. In the first episode people are feeling sad, tired and
devastated, so they take up their musical instruments and start a
parade. Such a reaction is not an escape or a reluctance to face grim
realities. Rather, it's a spiritual response that comes out of the Black
gospel tradition of "No cross, no crown." In other words, you can't
appreciate the good if you don't know the bad. So you are obliged to
accept your burden, finiteness, and suffering and then connect to the
people around you. Actually, this is one major reason why neighborhoods
have been so strong in New Orleans and why so many people have strived
to return home.

Vera Triplett, a professor of counseling at Our Lady of Holy Cross
College, who is a "proud resident of Gentilly Neighborhood" responded to
the footprint debate with comparisons of the 1989 Loma Prieta
earthquake in San Francisco and 9/11 in New York City:

"I've never heard anyone ask whether their city would come back,"
she said. "I take that as an insult....This is my home. I have every right
to come back to it. And I'll come back no matter how many times it
floods."

But Triplett isn't just talk. She is one of many local individuals
in a number of different projects to step forward to lead the recovery
of her neighborhood. After starting the Gentilly Civic Improvement
Association, which aims to give residents a voice in the rebuilding
their neighborhoods, she later represented Gentilly in the Rebuilding
New Orleans Initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The
initiative developed the United New Orleans Plan (UNOP), which was
accepted by the city council and adopted as the city's master plan in
2007.

UNOP addresses specific actions necessary to facilitate the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans through input from local citizens instead of just the technicians, politicians and wealthy landowners.

"People came in with questions and concerns," said Triplett in an interview with American City magazineon the UNOP process. "That's when I first began to see some of the pain
and distress, frustration and sheer exhaustion. Not a lot of people
understood what the people of New Orleans were going through....We
provided practical things like public transportation, childcare and two
full meals....The other integral thing was that there were entertainment
breaks. Little personal dance breaks to make people feel better."

Many other good things have occurred over the past five years,
which have made Orleanians proud and outsiders amazed, according to city
planners. Various independent political entities (the city, parishes,
neighborhoods and the state) are now working together toward recovery.
The city's newspaper has improved its coverage and transparency. Schools
that were demolished are being re-built and re-organized into charter
schools and private schools with vastly improved curricula. Unemployment
is only five to six percent due to the vast amount of rebuilding and
thanks to the billions of federal dollars that have come in for roads,
housing and other reconstruction projects-although much more is needed.

City Park, a 1300-acre urban park, the seventh largest in the
country and bigger than New York's Central Park suffered $43 million
worth of damage. Katrina took down 1,000 trees including many live oaks.
Piles of debris, some measuring 30 to 40 feet high, were collected in
the park and later hauled away. The park's executive director, Bob Beck,
almost single-handedly raised millions of dollars to rebuild the park
and has succeeded in bringing much of it back to its former splendor.

Piazza does not shirk from acknowledging New Orleans' many problems, many of which were there before
Katrina: crime, corruption, bad schools, extreme poverty, racism and
the stark mismanagement of the city as well as the threat of violent
weather and the loss of wetlands. Things were definitely turning around
for the city although city planners admit that recovery will probably
take 20 years. Then came the oil spill, which threatens fishing, tourism
and the loss of wildlife in the Gulf and the bayous.

Clearly, a loss of New Orleans would be a tragedy so I pray that
Orleanians--and people in the entire Gulf region--get through this latest
dreadful crisis. I suspect they'll do it through deliberate citizen
action and participation and in the spirit of New Orleans that defiantly
declares: "I'm here, I'm still alive and I'm willing to take whatever
comes. What a model of recovery from disaster for all Americans!