Katrina clean-up lags as Mardi Gras moves in

LAURA VAN DE PETTE NEWS EDITOR LCV722@CABRINI EDU

With visions of colorful costumes, festive parades and thousands of notorious Mardi Gras beads covering the streets of uptown New Orleans and the French Quarter, many tourists and faithful locals would have been disappointed had the 150th Mardi Gras celebration been cancelled. But just one week before Fat Tuesday rolled in, the city was still debating whether or not to cancel the festive celebration in wake of the enormous postKatrina devastation that still has thousands roaming homeless.

Others argued that was, in fact, the reason to throw it; to not only uplift the spirit of the Crescent City with its time-honored tradition, but to also draw in an influx of tourists, eager and willing to spend their dough to boost a struggling economy.

“The Mardi Gras celebration was absolutely necessary, not only for the economy, but I think it was important for the spirit of the people waking up everyday who lost their homes,” Kristen Catalanotto, senior English and communication major and native New Orleanian, said.

Though the normally outrageous festivities were consider- ably downsized this year due to the lack of funds and police enforcement causing officials to cut the number of parades and shorten their routes, Mardi Gras persevered, but with smaller, more subdued crowds.

Mardi Gras also served as a much-needed break for locals who have spent countless hours repairing the ravaged city, where many neighborhoods still lie in ruins.

And, if anything, the Mardi Gras celebration would also shift the spotlight back on a region still in dire need of the nation’s help.

“I think it is embarrassing that in the United States so many people were and are ready to give up on a city that is so unique and lucrative to our nation’s history and economy,” Catalanotto said.

Many residents who have proudly called New Orleans their home have been disappointed by Bush’s inability to fulfill his lofty promises of rebuilding the Gulf Coast and fear that diminished news coverage and even the small-scale Mardi Gras celebration are giving the nation the impression that New Orleans is a recovered city.

While the administration can claim some clear progress, Bush’s ringing call from New Orleans’s Jackson Square on Sept. 15 to “do what it takes” to make the city rise from the waters has not been matched by action, critics at multiple levels of government say, resulting in a record that is largely incomplete, according to a Washington Post report.

The Washington Post reports that, the problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush’s handpicked recovery coordinator,

Donald E. Powell. In addition, the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees, and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.

With the onset of the hurricane season just three months away, there is no agreement on how to rebuild New Orleans, how to pay for that effort or even who is leading the cross-governmental partnership, according to elected leaders. While there is money to restore the city’s flood defenses to protect against another Category 3 hurricane, it remains unclear whether merely reinforcing the levees will be enough to draw residents back, according to the Washington Post.

“What’s the point of rebuilding the levees to category 3 stan-

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