Big uneasy: Rebuilding

About half a year after Katrina, there is eveidence of recovery in New Orleans, but parts of city look left behind

BY J. JIONI PALMER | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

March 12, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - It took Darrell Foy and his friends only a couple of days to rehabilitate the Bienville Street duplex where his aunt Leola Lions died after floodwaters inundated her Mid-City neighborhood.

In anticipation of another relative moving in, the men hauled the waterlogged furniture curbside and replaced the mildewed walls with new Sheetrock.

It'll be a while before the home has an electrical hook-up, but cosmetically the damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina is no longer visible - including the spray painted "X" near the front-door with a "1" indicating the presence of a dead body.

"There is nowhere for people to go. Some people have no choice but to get their stuff together," said Foy, 40, himself a construction worker.

A homeowner in the badly flooded New Orleans East neighborhood, Foy said he's been living on the second floor of his home while he guts and renovates the first, which was under 9 feet of water. It's taking longer than he'd like, he said, for reasons ranging from insurance money that hasn't materialized to building supplies being out of stock to the need to work.

He's determined to make a go of it in the city he loves and the home he owns, but even that is fraught with unknowns. He has obtained permits to work on his house despite a proposal to turn his neighborhood into a floodplain.

Scattered improvement

Roughly six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Crescent City and sent residents fleeing around the country, evidence on whether the Big Easy is on the mend is mixed.

The greenish-brown water that swamped about 80 percent of the city has receded. The constant hum of military helicopters swooping overhead are memories. The odors of sewage, trash and chemicals that lingered in the air have faded. Life flourishes along the narrow cobblestone streets of the French Quarter, the stately tree-lined avenues of Uptown and the quaint lanes in the Garden District, despite the occasional boarded-up business.

But while these neighborhoods struggle to regain the vibrancy that made this city one of the country's most distinctive, many areas - like those in the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East - look about the same as they did in the weeks immediately after Katrina.

"What you won't see is people on the streets," said Harold Asher, an accountant who works with business owners struggling to get their insurance claims processed promptly.

Infrastructure in tatters

Even in those parts of the city that have been repopulated, major intersections that once were regulated by stoplights and turn signals have four-way stop signs because of electricity problems.

Blue tarps cover some roofs and home construction debris sits out front, indicators that homeowners - even if one by one - are starting to rebuild their homes and their lives. But most come back to neighborhoods that still lack schools, grocery stores and post offices, the basic infrastructure necessary to sustain a community.

"We don't have a drug store or a workout facility," Asher said. "I find it hard to believe this is the United States of America."

Almost half a year after a sluggish federal response to the initial disaster, the slow pace of everything from the delivery of Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers for temporary housing to construction supplies to money from insurance claims are cited as some of the reasons why parts of the city look as though they've been left behind.

"In order to rebuild you need to have substantial net worth of your own," Asher said. "There is no institutional assistance."

The federal government has appropriated $62.3 billion for emergency response and recovery needs, but that is a fraction of what most officials say it will take to restore New Orleans. Congress, at the urging of the White House, last month shot down a proposal by Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.) that would have created a Louisiana Recovery Corporation funded by $30 billion in treasury bonds.

"I like to say I was living in the 'Untied' States of America because it sure ain't united," said Garland Robinette, a popular New Orleans talk-radio host. "It stuns me to this day that we're still having trouble getting help."

Not giving up on city he loves

Mid-City resident Noel Wright, 43, said he and his wife Gina have drained their life savings and their credit cards are near the limits.

An artist and massage therapist, Wright wants to get back to business. But with the city more than half empty he's got no clients. Instead, he spends his days refurbishing their two-story duplex on Cortez Street.

It's a risky proposition in this city, let alone in his neighborhood, he concedes. How and where New Orleans redevelops at this point is anyone's guess - the city won't decide for a year which areas to develop based on how individual rebuildng goes - but Wright said he isn't ready to give up on the city he loves. Even though none of the dozen restaurants within walking distance of his home has reopened, there are signs that life is coming back, like the cardinal couple - whom Wright named Red and Lucy - that have begun to feed in his garden again.

"I'm betting we won't have another storm like that and the levees won't break. The pioneers take the most arrows but reap the most riches," he said. "New Orleans is not going away - it just may have a smaller footprint."