It certainly looks like the human geography will change for good. It's crazy to think such a seemingly permanent entity as a CITY could be so hugely affected by a relatively brief weather phenomenon.

On preview, it seems I am having trouble with striking the appropriate conversational tone today. Too much schoolwork I spose.

About 2,500 evacuees are going to be sent to Massachusetts. Plus the college students who are going to be scattered all over.

I hope the city bounces back and it's spirit is the same. I wonder though if the events of the past few days have irreparably damaged the social fabric of the city?

buses are enroute to LA to bring families to Jenison, MI, a suburb of Grand Rapids. People there have volunteered to put families up, and enroll the kids in the local schools.

I'm sure it won't die; the French Quarter wasn't destroyed, which means a lot of the tourism draw is still there, and the port is vital. There is going to be a lot of employment for reconstruction, and it makes sense to me that people originally from that area should get first dibs on those jobs. Many, many people who can go back and work at all will do so. It will be a long time, and it will of course never be the same place it was before, but it will come back... and knowing New Orleans, I feel optimistic that it will never cease being a fascinating place.

I have friends who are talking about getting an RV and going back to be close to family in areas that weren't wiped out... They're working out a plan, and the plan is to go back. I'm sure there are thousands more just like them.

Apparently we've got evacuees coming to Phoenix, AZ as well. Which hopefully means I'll be able to volunteer and solve my arguably selfish feelings of frustration and helplessness without self-dispatching to the disaster area.

Ironically, this may be a good thing for the survivors from New Orleans in the long run. New Orleans has long been afflicted with staggering levels of poverty and crime, but racism, corruption, and complacency has caused the problem to be long ignored. Not only has Katrina put a spotlight on the problems, but the most affected citizens of New Orleans will be spread across the country, and perhaps they will find more opportunity for work and life. It's too bad that so many people had to die before everyone else started to take notice.

As for the city itself, I'm not so sure. Although it's true that much of the city, including the French Quarter, was not destroyed outright, the water that filled most of the city was filled with corpses, raw sewage, and potentially deadly industrial contamination. The cleanup effort will take years.

I think there will be a New Orleans but it will have a different face. I expect the population of Jefferson Parish an on into Baton Rouge to increase (a western movement of population). I don't know how the people relocated to points north are going to deal (Mass., Colo., Mich.??) There is a significant portion of the population of NOLA who are barely aware that anything north of the lake even exists. The notion applies across the population regardless of race or economic class. It's an insular city.

Oh yeah. And just to get technical the New Orleans based French are Creoles rather than Cajun. Cajuns are the French who came down from Canadian Acadia and settle south and west of NO (admittedly there are Cajuns in NO and on the MS gulf coast but those aren't thier population centers).

Thanks. I'm more familiar with the northen end of the Acadian migration. We spent a week in Nova Scotia on our honeymoon and got a pretty education in that end of it; I've never been to New Orleans and its environs; the closest I got was this summer when we went on I-20 through Shrieveport and northern LA.

I wasn't being snarky. I'm related to a bunch of Cajuns and Creoles but am not a member of either tribe. Just be warned though, neither group much likes to be identified as the other. Insinuating that a Cajun is a Creole might even get you in a fight (the citified Creoles will just look down their noses at you.)

I have a sinking feeling that N.O. will end up "gentrified". Disnified, if you will. I'll place my wager that after the clean up, the folks that were there before, won't be able to afford to go back.

They're gonna Vegas up the place, I betcha. Clean and sterile for the tourists, baby. Push the "uncomfortable" part back into the swamps a bit so the white folks don't have to see it.

But the port is geopolitically one of the most important places in the U.S. It's the terminus of the Mississippi River, and without the barge traffic on Ol Miss, the country shuts down. The vast majority of our agriculture depends on the Miss river, the northern industrial cities depend on the barges that bring metals and whatnot upstream...New Orleans is vital to the survival of the country, it'll be rebuilt.

But, it won't be the same. It'll never be the same. There's too much money, and this is the perfect opportunity to "clean it up".

with Eminent Domain now allowed for no reason, i think you're right.

If this occurs, it truly will be every bit as soulempty as a theme park. As a former resident, I can definitely tell you that just about everything interesting about the city has arisen from the poor and middle class populations. The best things that the culturally involved rich New Orleanians do is put the money into the Mardi Gras parades and support the zoo, but all the joi de vivre, all the atmosphere, all the fun comes from the common folk of all stripes, and this cannot be faked.

In other words, the entire city would become something like Bourbon Street, which, in terms of the tourist-travelled part of it, is just a tacky, faux-titillating facade that has less than zero to do with the real city.

Whoah!!! Here's something freaky: I was just checking on the web to see if a certain old article I had written might be on the web somewhere, because it addresses some of the stuff I was talking about in that last comment... And I found myself on Amazon! I had absolutely no idea.

I found myself on Amazon!

Would it were I could afford you '-)

Did your parents skimp when naming? I thought the girl version was Wilhelmina?

Wilhelm brings to mind Colonel Klink.

I can't afford me, either! Also, it's kind of a strange collection... since there were hundreds to choose from. Oddness.

Anyway, no, peacay, it was a marriage thing. And now I have a completely different name. Also a marriage thing. It's tough being a girl.