Contrary to circulating rumors, VatulBlog did not perish over the weekend due to a heart attack of tragic proportions. In fact, the blog was so alive that it went on a fact-gathering mission in New Orleans at the end of Week 6. Yes, ladies and gents, this was my first weekend in 1.5 months spent wholly in New Orleans. There is something to be said about the power of home, friends and a place that needs help and hope like never before.

Quite a bit of time was spent riding around the city breathing in the real live air and snapping pictures of various neighborhoods including Uptown, Garden District, Lakeview, MidCity, CBD, French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, and Gentilly. The Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish are still off-limits to plebes.

Along the riverside portion of the Eastbank crescent (airport to Marigny), the damage is completely random, wind-related and very much in the process of being salvaged and recuperated. It is only when one travels through the lakeside portion of New Orleans that the ruin caused by the flooding is pervasive and recovery will take a while. However, homeowners, insurance assessors, building contractors and debris removal machines and trucks are almost everywhere in the dewatered areas. The sounds of hammers, drills, saws and instructions permeate the air of all of New Orleans.

While these pictures do no justice to the scope of the damage and subsequent recovery efforts, be warned that some of them will rip your heart out. For instance, there is nothing my camera could do to capture the ubiquitous sheet of powdery light brown that blankets Lakeview and the homes of close friends, save the treetops that remain green while their lower counterparts in foliage are dead and trunks are covered in mud from weeks spent in stagnant water. No amount of point-and-shoot may portray the amount of activity in the Quarter and businesses back in action along the streets of Metairie, Uptown and the Garden District.

My neighbors are back, most of their homes are cleaned up, and many are back to work or preparing for the beginning of the new year, when residents and city officials alike hope that New Orleanians are able to come back home for the long haul. Uncertainty grows and is scraped off like the mold in New Orleans – while some businesses, including law firms in the CBD’s PanAm and Bank One buildings, spring back to life, other companies still debate their “ifs and whens.”

Speaking of cleaning, I attacked the Refrigerator Of Doom with no more protection than clothes, shoes and rubber gloves. No masks or Vicks Vaporub for this girl (ok, maybe some Pier 1 Asian Spice room spray). While the Toxic Gumbo was the source of some dribble down the sides of the refrigerator, the real carcass was a bag of lettuce that had not only decomposed but liquified into a slimy puddle of stench. That green, leafy vegetables can smell like the products of animal putrefaction is amazing. I should have become a forensic pathologist, but that’s hindsight for another day.

From cleaning my refrigerator and organizing my home to being in Fahy’s and spending just an hour clearing plaster and fiberglass from a home, I felt more alive than I have in weeks. I was home! There are a lot more things I did and saw, quite a bit more that I observed and wish to share. However, one message stands out: The desire to go back, to help the city, itches more than the fiberglass still embedded in my arms. 

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Rebirth In Houston: (thanks, Komi and Kelda!) New Orleans’ own Rebirth Brass Band is on tour in Texas and will perform at The Engine Room in downtown Houston this Friday night.

Kelda says, “Though the Engine Room advertises the show starting at 8, Rebirth’s site says they’ll be playing at 10:00 pm, and being that they’re a native New Orleanian band, well, their hours tend to be from well after 10 pm to the hours of oh, say, sunrise. I’m planning to buy tickets at the door, unless someone has advice otherwise.”

Some NO Water Safe To Drink: nola.com says that tap water in New Orleans west of the Industrial Canal has been declared potable. “The Department of Health and Hospitals, the official regulatory agency for the State of Louisiana, certified the water quality, the mayor’s office said.”

This means all water in a small sliver of eastern Orleans Parish remains undrinkable. As for me, I’ll stick with the bottled water during return trips and then purchase a new filter when I go back. Anyone living on the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and the Gulf of Mexico should be drinking filtered tap water anyway. Chemical plants and refineries, anyone?

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Nagin’s Economic Townhall: Around 1500 business representatives attended a meeting convened by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on the economic future of the city. Nagin blasted business predators whom he likened to looters (call them “carpetbaggers,” Ray, it’s more cathartic) and suggested a reduction in no-bid contracts.

Nagin called for full public disclosure of all recovery spending, holding no-bid contracts to a minimum, hiring Louisiana residents instead of importing “Mexican workers” and an end to minority set-aside contracts, which have long been a source of abuse in the city.

Also, Nagin called for fair worker wages: “If you’re hiring people below the 8 to 10-dollar range, you’re not going to be playing the game for long.”

Let’s see. Our president temporarily suspended the minimum wage in storm-ravaged areas after Katrina. This will only aid in the hiring of super-low-income workers into the no-bid contract system, usually not New Orleans residents but these “Mexican workers” Nagin refers to. So, which contractor/employer is going to pay more than $8-10 when they are not expected to by the law? Can someone help me out here?

FEMA To Hurricane Victims: “Go Home!”: FEMA acting chief, R. David Paulison, recently suggested to a Senate panel that the victims of Hurricane Katrina must be urged to return home. The main reason appears to be that many remain in shelters despite housing availability (temporary or permanent) back home.

… hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims remain in hotel rooms and emergency shelters ” despite more than $2 billion already spent by FEMA for 120,000 temporary trailers and mobile homes. Only 109 Louisiana families have been put in those homes, while tens of thousands of state residents remain in shelters …

… victims still in shelters face an Oct. 15 deadline, set by President Bush, to find more stable housing ” including apartments, trailers and in some cases, hotels. Meanwhile, FEMA is weighing whether to extend a program that reimburses the American Red Cross for the cost of hotel rooms for victims. That program is set to expire Oct. 24.

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Charity & University Hospitals Condemned: Hurricane Katrina has left these two medical centers “dangerous, dangerous places.” Charity, opened in 1939, needed a major overhaul even before the hurricane, and this is an opportunity to build anew and up to code. Residents of New Orleans fear the resulting job losses. When the new hospitals are built, the jobs will be back, too. This isn’t as dire as the layoffs at City Hall.

The two hospitals treated more than 500,000 patients a year … “We are going to build newer, more modern facilities that will withstand the test of time. They will withstand the next storm, and the one after that,” said [Donald Smithburg, chief executive officer of the Louisiana State University Health Care Services Division.] “Charity and University have anchored the health care system of southern Louisiana for over one-hundred years. We believe they should be replaced quickly to ensure they provide health care for the next one-hundred years and beyond.”

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Nagin Announces Individual And Business Tax Relief Proposal: Along with requests for improved travel and hurricane-protection infrastructure measures, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has handed the federal government a proposal for “a package of tax incentives designed to fuel the repopulation of a city.” Remember: it’s only a proposal.

… anyone who lives and works in New Orleans would be eligible for a 50 percent federal tax credit on total taxable wages [with] a cap of $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for couples who file joint income tax returns.

The program, which Nagin has dubbed the Katrina Tax and Jobs Incentive Zone, also would offer a break for companies that operate in the city now or decide to locate in New Orleans in the future [with a] 50 percent federal income tax credit on their total payroll for employees who live and work in the city. That credit would be capped annually at their total tax liability, which means a business would not be able to save more than it owes in taxes … the tax credit could not be transferred to a third party or credited to a prior or future year.

This proposal is similar to the one offered up earlier this week by Governor Kathleen Blanco. New Orleans residents wonder what will happen with state taxes.

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FoodFoodFood: New Orleans restaurants are coming back sooner than you can say “Wanna muffaletta?” Already, 80 Orleans Parish restaurants have been certified by state health inspectors. The big challenge to restaurant owners now is finding employees.

Burger King seems to understand that New Orleans is still fertile consumer ground, with higher wages and end-of-month bonuses to attract workers back. If BK wants to stay in New Orleans, I don’t understand what any other company’s problem is.

Undrinkable water or not, muck or not, people want to eat!

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The Politics Of Failure: Elsewhere in the nation, the CIA will not hold accountable those federal agencies responsible for the security failures leading up to 9/11. To an American citizen and a resident of New Orleans, this news does not bode well for the inquiry that is almost certainly needed in the wake of Katrina. As long as elected officials and their appointees are not held answerable for their decisions, such oversights will continue to occur across this nation and in areas we occupy. America will only suffer again and again by not learning from previous lessons in (mis)communication and lack of cooperation across federal (and state and local) agencies.