IT comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that a popular pastime in New Orleans is the hurricane party.
As the clouds build over the Gulf of Mexico, they watch, drinks in hand, as the storm looms bigger and blacker.
The preferred drink-in-hand is, of course, the Hurricane, a rum-based creeping stunner which has been a port in every storm since long before Katrina became an ugly word.
The way one French Quarter barman tells it, this ritual meteorological defiance happens because in New Orleans, nothing - I mean nothing - stops the party.
“And y'awl better believe it," he adds.
Less than three years have passed since Katrina swooped on this party town. First came the damage from rain and wind. Then the surge cracked the levees, the protective rim of the New Orleans saucer, flooding 150,000 low-lying homes.
Not the first hurricane, and won't be the last, they say.
But hey! This is New Orleans - they must have near invented optimism right here.
As the waters ebbed, there began a flood tide of returning evacuees - the population is now back to about two-thirds of the 450,000 it was.
The recovery is happening largely because in the city's jewel, heart, soul and party central; the French Quarter; the levees held.
The French Quarter, about eight blocks by 12 blocks, is what makes New Orleans tick.
The original French colonial town absorbed African slaves, Cajun refugees from French Canada, a brief flirtation with Spanish rulers and, finally, English-speaking “Americans" after Napoleon sold Louisiana to the US of A.
Most of what we see now was built in the 1800s: adorned with modest elegance, encrusted by intricate iron lace, unified by the royal French symbol of the fleur-de-lis and huddled under the levees of the muddy Mississippi, still crowded with world shipping and sturdy barges muscling their way upstream to the American heartland.
The French Quarter, the “Creole side", held proudly to its traditions, and played the major part in the development of New Orleans' gift to the world, jazz.
Even today, the other side of Canal St is sometimes referred to as the “American side".
As the clouds build over the Gulf of Mexico, they watch, drinks in hand, as the storm looms bigger and blacker.
The preferred drink-in-hand is, of course, the Hurricane, a rum-based creeping stunner which has been a port in every storm since long before Katrina became an ugly word.
The way one French Quarter barman tells it, this ritual meteorological defiance happens because in New Orleans, nothing - I mean nothing - stops the party.
“And y'awl better believe it," he adds.
Less than three years have passed since Katrina swooped on this party town. First came the damage from rain and wind. Then the surge cracked the levees, the protective rim of the New Orleans saucer, flooding 150,000 low-lying homes.
Not the first hurricane, and won't be the last, they say.
But hey! This is New Orleans - they must have near invented optimism right here.
As the waters ebbed, there began a flood tide of returning evacuees - the population is now back to about two-thirds of the 450,000 it was.
The recovery is happening largely because in the city's jewel, heart, soul and party central; the French Quarter; the levees held.
The French Quarter, about eight blocks by 12 blocks, is what makes New Orleans tick.
The original French colonial town absorbed African slaves, Cajun refugees from French Canada, a brief flirtation with Spanish rulers and, finally, English-speaking “Americans" after Napoleon sold Louisiana to the US of A.
Most of what we see now was built in the 1800s: adorned with modest elegance, encrusted by intricate iron lace, unified by the royal French symbol of the fleur-de-lis and huddled under the levees of the muddy Mississippi, still crowded with world shipping and sturdy barges muscling their way upstream to the American heartland.
The French Quarter, the “Creole side", held proudly to its traditions, and played the major part in the development of New Orleans' gift to the world, jazz.
Even today, the other side of Canal St is sometimes referred to as the “American side".
For more information contact All About Jazz.
