Dear List(s),

Was asked by my friend and sister Laure how the French Quarter spared?

It is existing it seems, with polite theft, and leaders. How long one
might ask
in that the drinking, witchcraft and debauchery is their "motto" for living
at this
point.

One would think forced evacuation means ALL not just those crying out in
torture, bondage, and poverty.

Remember friends the fault of this disaster lies in Louisiana, where this
state
knew with perfect articulation that the levees could NOT withstand a Hurricane
3, and where experts advise that the actual deterioration due to the
overpopulation
and so forth was at least 5 to 20 feet LOWER than weather forecasters were
advised; this knowledge, damage, and cost to AMERICA is the fault of only
the government there; it had been prophesied a year ago this would happen,
and for literal purposes this state knew the dangers for over 20 years.

Again I am a resident of both Texas, and Louisiana and am in shock still
that the multidinous poor and poverty stricken, typically living under
abaondoned
trucks, et al. without the amenities DARED speak AGAINST the fine state of
Texas for offering them a "home" and the sacred means to life the had not
experienced during their sordid lives in New Orleans.

Peace to all,

Karen G.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04quarter.html


New Orleans
French Quarter Becomes Oasis of Wary Calm
By JAMES DAO
Published: September 4, 2005
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 - Marty Montgomery stood on his second-floor balcony on
Friday night, playing blues on his harmonica into empty French Quarter streets
that have never seemed so dark, so desolate - or so threatening.
Skip to next paragraph
Video Report





Storm and Crisis
Photographs and video from a devastated region.



New Orleans Update
Evacuation and cleanup efforts.
• The Region | Satellite Images


Interview With New Orleans Mayor
Mayor C. Ray Nagin's radio interview.
• Transcript



LAW ENFORCEMENT Reeling from the chaos, at least 200 New Orleans police
officers have walked away from their jobs.

RETRACING THE STORM Faced with a disaster of biblical proportions, everything
fell apart in New Orleans.

THE SCENE In the Houston Astrodome, restless refuge.

ECONOMY The region is battered, but there is little early effect on the
national economy.
• A Shock to the Oil Market

LEVEES BREAK, BARRIERS HOLD What the world saw exposed in New Orleans was a
cleavage of race and class.

THE FRENCH QUARTER The area is the oldest, rowdiest and, these days, driest
part of storm-battered New Orleans.

HOW TO HELP A partial list of relief organizations and other information on
the Web.

YOUR STORY Share your experiences via e-mail or in this forum.

On the table beside him sat a shotgun that he calls kindness.
"If something happens and I have to use it, I'll be killing them with
kindness," Mr. Montgomery said, laughing with a tinge of menace.
Life is not so easy these days in the French Quarter, the district of
all-night bars, historic homes and voodoo traditions that is the oldest,
rowdiest
and, these days, driest part of storm-battered New Orleans.
Outside, the Quarter's elegant 150-year-old buildings look relatively
unruffled, except for some loosened bricks, having been spared the worst of
Hurricane
Katrina's winds and sitting high enough to have avoided the flooding. Ceramic
flowerpots on every other balcony seem not to have budged, gaslights still
burn outside doors, Preservation Hall stands solidly intact, seemingly
undamaged.
But inside the gated buildings, the Quarter's few remaining residents feel
under siege. Yet their lives go on. And because this is the French Quarter, they
go on with a certain style.
Inside Mr. Montgomery's building at 519 St. Philip Street, five small loft
apartments built around a courtyard, 10 people have banded together with a blend
of military precision and New Orleans panache to create an oasis of civility
in a city with no running water, no electricity, a dwindling supply of food
and a spreading sense of chaos.
Every night they eat hot dinners, prepared over a barbecue grill and served
with white wine: ravioli with ragout one day, crab cakes and andouille sausage
on another. They have moved a yellow portable toilet from a nearby
construction site to the curb outside, scrubbing it clean after every use. For
baths,
they have filled spray bottles with water and a hint of bleach.
"I'd rather have burned skin than die of illness," said Stephanie McCorkle,
42, a voodoo devotee who led tours of haunted houses in the Quarter before the
storm.
And all night, every night, Mr. Montgomery, a former sailor who waited tables
before the storm, keeps watch over the block, his shotgun and harmonica to
keep him company. Except for a tavern next door, a corner hotel where tarot card
readers live and one house down the block, the street is empty.
Indeed, the block is so quiet these days that Mr. Montgomery, 49, has
discovered night sounds he did not know were there, before the music stopped:
the
croak of frogs, the chirp of crickets, the squeak of river rats.
Now he listens to the frogs for warning signs: when they grow quiet, he knows
people are approaching.
Though 519's residents knew each other from working at a nearby restaurant,
the Market Café, they were never particularly close - indeed, Mr. Montgomery
and the group's cook, John Tibbetts, barely spoke.
Now, they do everything communally, down to sharing the dry sneakers, clean
T-shirts, food and water they have taken from stores. They justify the looting
as necessary to their survival. "I'm not proud of it," Mr. Tibbetts, 50, said.
"But we do what we have to do."
Mr. Montgomery, a tall, wiry, intense and commanding man who rarely wears a
shirt these days, is tacitly accepted as the group's general, setting rules
that govern personal hygiene, security and access by "outsiders" to their
building. His reputation as an enforcer has gained him renown within the
neighborhood.
Friday evening, when looters broke into a liquor store around the corner, the
manager came looking for Mr. Montgomery, who chased the looters off,
shouting, "If you come back, I'll waste you."
Then he flagged down passing police officers, who briefly detained one
looter, scolded him loudly and then released him. Unperturbed, Mr. Montgomery
returned to the liquor store and helped board up the door.
"We call them the St. Philip's militia," said Dewanda Dey, the wife of the
liquor store manager.
There are signs of life elsewhere in the Quarter. At the corner of Bourbon
and Orleans Streets, Johnny White's Sports Bar remained open during the storm -
and all day, every day, since.
Early Saturday, three tipsy patrons sat at the elbow-worn bar under a ceiling
featuring photographs of bar regulars. Five others stood in the street
sipping warm drinks. To fight the city's gloom, its patrons plan to hold their
own
Decadence Day parade on Sunday to mark the annual gay Mardi Gras. "There won't
be feathered hats and tubas," said Joseph Bellomy, 24, a bartender. "But we'll
do the best we can."
Watching over them all is Ride Hamilton, a firefighter who splits his time
between Sioux Falls, S.D., and an apartment down the block from Johnny White's.
Though he does not drink alcohol, he hangs out at the bar because he adores
its clientele.
Like a supply sergeant, Mr. Hamilton, 29, has stocked his apartment building
with water, dry goods and bath products for him and his friends. Each morning,
dressed in his blue firefighter's shirt, black leather pants and black boots,
his right eyelid pierced with three silver hoops and his long hair pulled
into a ponytail, he drives his Ford Escort to go "shopping" for more.
At the stores, he sees looters with shopping carts who bid one another "good
morning." Like the residents of 519, he justifies his work as a necessary evil
to help friends survive deprivation that could last months.
"Call it 'gathering supplies,' " he said. "Just don't call it looting."
Several residents of 519 hope to leave New Orleans as soon as friends or
relatives can come pick them up. (None own cars.) But Mr. Montgomery says he
will
stay, confident that his beloved city, and particularly the French Quarter,
will rebuild.
"Someday," he said, "the lights will come back on. The music will start back
up. And life will go on. And I'll have ice in my glass again."


Karen Hallenbeck~Sikorsky~George BS,RN,UM,QC
Interqual Certified
Published Psychiatric Researcher
Advocate for those in CIP, HIV, Psychologic Pain

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