The Big Easy: Mardi Gras spurring a comeback?
Revelers came to New Orleans’ famous Mardi Gras this week in much smaller numbers than normal but city officials are hoping the celebration sends a signal that reconstruction has started at the worldwide vacation destination.
“We’ve got to prove to the world that we are open,” said Jim Funk, executive vice president of the Louisiana Restaurant Association.
This year’s scaled back event is having only eight days of parades instead of the usual 11 days. All parades are being restricted to one route to hold down public costs.
The usual floats with 18-feet-high images of kings and giant animals were on hand, as were the usual bead-throwing participants for the city’s scaled down 150th anniversary party.
But there were also reminders of the hurricane, including a float with a human body floating in floodwater.
Krewes that run the floats often take their names from Greek and Roman mythology. But FEMA floats also were on hand, including one with a giant head of a Roman emperor who proclaimed: “The federal government. They fiddle while we drown.”
Reporters on hand for the event found the older sections of town that hug the Mississippi River that did not flood are rebounding. But they also found much of the city a deserted mass with mountains of debris.
Estimates are that less than half of the city’s pre-Katrina population of just under a half million people are returned since the storm.
About 25,000 hotel rooms are available for Mardi Gras, compared with pre-Katrina totals of 38,000.
Roughly 760 restaurants are open compared with 3,414 prior to the hurricane.
Mardi Gras usually generates more than $1 billion in business and accounts for 40% of the city’s annual tax revenues.
Estimates were that Mardi Gras would generate only half that amount this year.
The event will end on 28 Feb., which is about six months since Hurricane Katrina.
“There’s been a flurry of recovery activity in recent weeks,” reported USA Today.
Slot machines at Harrahs’ Casino started ringing again last week. And the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where thousands of storm victims sought uncomfortable shelter, held its first convention last weekend.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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