Three years after Hurricane Katrina, the world's media has lost sight of the ongoing misery in New Orleans. Richard Holledge picks up the story
Anyone hungry for the big news story might be underwhelmed by a newspaper announcing that it was restoring the ratings for restaurant reviews.
But that was “a big deal" for The Times-Picayune, the New Orleans daily paper, according to its editor Jim Amoss. “It signalled a degree of return to normality and recovery that everyone here understood immediately. We had stopped reviewing restaurants critically since Hurricane Katrina because we felt it was impossible for the restaurants with their staff shortages and limited facilities to achieve the standards our critic would apply. Now we have decided that the restaurant scene is robust enough to withstand critiquing. The New York Times wrote a piece about it which shows they understood how much a bread and butter issue like that means to the city."
Very few outsiders understand how enduring are the effects of Katrina - which swept through the city three years ago this Thursday (28 August), flooding 80 per cent of New Orleans and killing almost 1,500 people. Very few observers write about it. One of the world's most cataclysmic natural disasters, one made worse by official incompetence and corruption, is almost forgotten.
The visitor to the rackety bars of the French Quarter and restaurants such as Brennan's, Mother's and Bayona would have no idea that, even now, there is mile after mile of blighted housing a few minutes from the commotion of Bourbon Street. One third of the city's population has yet to return, their homes wrecked or demolished, thousands still live in trailers, thousands more are waiting to be paid their rehousing allowance or insurance money. A recent survey published by The Times-Picayune showed that increasing numbers were thinking of leaving the city for good, citing increasing stress, poor health facilities, crime and corruption.
Anyone hungry for the big news story might be underwhelmed by a newspaper announcing that it was restoring the ratings for restaurant reviews.
But that was “a big deal" for The Times-Picayune, the New Orleans daily paper, according to its editor Jim Amoss. “It signalled a degree of return to normality and recovery that everyone here understood immediately. We had stopped reviewing restaurants critically since Hurricane Katrina because we felt it was impossible for the restaurants with their staff shortages and limited facilities to achieve the standards our critic would apply. Now we have decided that the restaurant scene is robust enough to withstand critiquing. The New York Times wrote a piece about it which shows they understood how much a bread and butter issue like that means to the city."
Very few outsiders understand how enduring are the effects of Katrina - which swept through the city three years ago this Thursday (28 August), flooding 80 per cent of New Orleans and killing almost 1,500 people. Very few observers write about it. One of the world's most cataclysmic natural disasters, one made worse by official incompetence and corruption, is almost forgotten.
The visitor to the rackety bars of the French Quarter and restaurants such as Brennan's, Mother's and Bayona would have no idea that, even now, there is mile after mile of blighted housing a few minutes from the commotion of Bourbon Street. One third of the city's population has yet to return, their homes wrecked or demolished, thousands still live in trailers, thousands more are waiting to be paid their rehousing allowance or insurance money. A recent survey published by The Times-Picayune showed that increasing numbers were thinking of leaving the city for good, citing increasing stress, poor health facilities, crime and corruption.
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