Too long...and update from Scott

Washington, D.C.

I've been away from the blog way too long. In fact, I can't even remember the last time that I wrote. I was in training last month (in Orlando and Miami) and am now in full gear at Deloitte. I'm working on a project for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. I'm on a team that is writing a "lessons learned" on Iraq Reconstruction for Congress. Quite interesting...and to be honest, kind of ironic. Writing up the lessons from Iraq -- on topics like human resources, procurement, financial management -- implies that the U.S. would need to improve the reconstruction process...or that we'll be doing it again sometime in the future. Hmmm...

I'm off to Pittsburgh this weekend to visit Adam Newcomer, then heading up to Eerie PA on Saturday to see Willie (and a Gannon University football game). Had friends visiting from Germany (Pieter and Franzi) for the past week. Fun times.

Big game this weekend that all aware most probably aware of: LSU vs. Auburn. So there aren't any doubters: I am wearing a different Auburn tie every day this week. War Eagle!

Here is an interesting update that I got from my buddy Scott Hanna, who went to UT with me and now works in New Orleans. Enjoy.

##

I arrived back in New Orleans on Thursday afternoon by plane. In many ways, the flight and airport provided foreshadowing. Half of the passengers were residents, most clearly flooded with nervousness, anxiety, and concerns over what awaited them, and the other half were construction workers and FEMA personnel. As we approached New Orleans, I was struck by the quiet, and it wasn't just because I had removed my headphones (as apparently we were only one un-stowed iPod away from a bungled landing, let's only hope al-Qaeda doesn't figure this one out). The residents quiet with wonder, and the workers silenced in uneasy anticipation of the awful work that awaited them.

In the terminal, even more strange silence was to be found. The daiquiri shops, cafes, and music stores that greet arrivals to the Big Easy and provide a final chance for a taste of New Orleans to the departing were nearly all closed and quiet. Driving into the city, the normally congested I-10 looked more like the desolate Highway 10 in western North Dakota, except for the water marks 5-feet-high on the noise barriers.

New Orleans was worse than envisioned in some ways, better in others. I was struck at how much trash remained. While never keen on tidiness, the amount of junk and rubbish that remained in the city was astonishing. The news reported that trash collection wasn't happening, but this was much more than pizza boxes and beer cans. From fallen limbs to flooded furniture to weeks of uncollected rubbish, nearly every street corner was a makeshift dump. I'd seen many a junk-pile in my day though, so the far more conspicuous street-side decorations were the front-lawn fridges festooning with nearly every residence. The funk of the Technicolor food was equally as uncool as locust-like swarming of flies encountered with each passing.

My neighborhood was slightly less stinky than the rest of the city, thanks to the absence of flood waters, but it was just as eerie. The refined raucousness of the Garden District (open-containers are allowed but few women bare their breasts for beads outside of Mardi Gras season and the bars usually close by 3 A.M., mellow by this city's standards) was gone. Most businesses were still covered with plywood and promises in spray paint of future activity, and most homes were clearly vacant. Patrols by the National Guard and State Police gave a sense of security but further reduced any feeling of normalcy.

Arriving at my house, it took little willpower to suppress my urge to fish the fresh case of Miller Light from the duct-taped confines of my icebox, undoubtedly teaming with maggots and mess within. While my landlord had dumped it outside a week before, my house smelled way, way, way worse than usual -- thanks to the decay of my food. I needed to count my blessing though: no flooding, no looting, and no major infestations of rodents or roaches.

After cleaning my kitchen and burning roughly 353 sticks of incense, I found myself bored and lonely. My friends remained scattered across the country, and my office remained closed. In my bastardized version of Buzz's saying, I set my own charge, "Bourbon and beyond!"

While many of my French Quarter favorites were open, Bourbon Street had a very different bustle to it. In terms of demographics, the most conspicuous changes were the absence of African-Americans and females. Were any questions as to who populates the military and construction sectors in this country could quickly be answered in the lexicon of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, it's men and Mexicans (of course, the Hispanics who staff so many of the contracting crews are not exclusively from Mexico, or even immigrants -- that was just for literary effect). Before Katrina, the racial composition of New Orleans was nearly literally Black and White, with only pocket populations of Hispanics and Asians. After Katrina though, the minority population is absolutely dominated by Hispanics.

Because this is America and race continues to matter, among the interesting things to watch develop will be the racial composition of New Orleans. How many African Americans (who overwhelmingly populated the most devastated areas of the city) will return? As they do return, will tensions emerge over blue-collar jobs? Will this change the level of influence – political and otherwise - of the predominately white community of old money whose lives, aside from those in Lakefront mansions, remain fundamentally unchanged, though inconvenienced?

What is most clear about my return is just how daunting the challenge of recovery and how much work remains. What is most unclear is how New Orleans will respond to this adversity. Will this be a Horatio Alger story – a story of a city overcoming a long history of adversity and a devastating crisis to achieve great things through perseverance? Or will this become a sad story of fraud, big business feeding at the trough of no-bid contracts, and government-created trailer parks plans that appear to have forgotten all the lessons and ills of housing projects. My one political cheap-shot of this message: it seems strange that a party professing such fondness of markets is so terrified of letting them work. Sadly, while I've heard stories of both, the preponderance emerging is not the one the American taxpayer, footing the bill for so much of this, should hope for.

So, what now? Well, mostly I've been keeping busy by walking around the city to see what's going on. On Friday, I went to a daiquiri shop and noticed a staff dominated by cute ladies. Fond of both, booze and babes, and out of boredom, I asked if they were hiring (knowing they were, every business in this city is).

Since then, I've been slinging booze, chatting with folks about the future, and sharing mid-afternoon Mudslides to pass my days. I'll probably quit as soon as the newness wears off or as soon as I'd like to fill my evenings otherwise, undoubtedly impressing my GED-certified manager, but it's been fun so far and gives me something to do until our office opens. Plus, I'm not sure it really counts as living in New Orleans unless you work in a bar at least once.

That's about it. In general, it's what I expected: interesting and tolerable but not terribly pleasant in many ways. I'm curious to see what happens, and it's nice to be on the front lines.