New Orleans, Old Routines.

Hola compadres.
Well things are finally starting to look & feel normal again in Baton Rouge, after three weeks of intense cleanup and repair of the devastation caused by Hurricane Gustav. I have several thoughts and images of that monstrous storm's effect on our Capital City to share a bit later, but this post is dedicated to the one and only Chocolate City. Fortunately for the city of New Orleans, and his honorable Mayor Ray "Willy Wonka" Nagin, the flooding and subsequent chaos & disaster post-Gustav were nowhere near as catastrophic as what followed Hurricane Katrina. I still can't believe all that went down.
"I don't care what people are saying Uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day." --New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

While the 9th Ward and other areas did suffer flooding again due to Gustav's storm surge and heavy rains topping the levees, the Bayou Babylon was this time spared such grotesque and morbid flood-related scenarios as floating dead bloated bodies, rooftop helicopter rescues, waterlogged coffins set adrift, contaminated water, sludge-filled homes, and mob rules looting. And I won't even get into the unspeakable heinous crimes that evacuees-turned-refugees were exposed to when seeking shelter inside the Louisiana Superdome, which literally became a house of horrors with violence, theft, and even gang rape running rampant and unchecked. I am very thankful, to say the least, that for residents of Chocolate City, Hurricane Gustav seemed routine.
Kerouac's "greeneries and river smells of Old New Orleans at the washed-out bottom of America" weathered the storm, again. But it's still on the verge, a city in rehab. Garfish keeps reminding me of his old fave tune by the Tragically Hip, everytime another storm out in the Gulf of Mexico has New Orleans in its crosshairs. It goes a little something like this:

Bourbon blues on the street, loose and complete
Under skies all smokey blue-green
I can't forsake a dixie dead-shake
So we danced the sidewalk clean
My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in?
New Orleans is sinking man and I don't wanna swim.

Late.