Dawnsinger

Our take on the Slidell Jesus War.

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Phoning this one in . . .

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Phoning this one in . . .

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testing

A hit and run motorist plowed down a Smokey the Bear sign in rural Folsom, La. and the local fire chief wants to know "who done it?"

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Theresa put on a performance for the kids at the LA Children's Museum in 2006.

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This video is compiled from audioblogs and video coming into and leaving from New Orleans on Aug. 28-30, 2005, and photos from me, my colleagues and citizen journalists before, during and after the disaster. The music is the Tragically Hip’s “New Orleans is Sinking,” which was my mental background music that day, and “Orphans of God,” which is still our life soundtrack.

I’m posting this for those who haven’t seen it. This is the only video footage of the evacuation of The Times-Picayune at about midday on Aug. 30, 2005, as New Orleans was beginning to fill up with water from the breached levees. At the time we evacuated, water was just about to enter the raised first floor of the building. A riot was in progress at the Orleans Parish Jail, just across the interstate from the Times-Picayune building. As the video shows, at spots on Howard Avenue, the water was washing over the headlights of the Times-Picayune delivery trucks carrying out the 200-plus Times-Picayune and NOLA.com staffers and some family.

At the point of evacuation, I had lost contact with my daughter Sarah for more than a day. Last contact was about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 29, as we lost phone connection as Hurricane Katrina was reaching its pre-eye peak in downtown New Orleans. Sarah had evacuated from her Ninth-Ward apartment, but was only a block from the lakefront in Mandeville on the North Shore. Her account of the storm on the North Shore is recounted below.

I was being interviewed by NBC Nightly News several days after evacuation about my missing daughter, when she walked into our temporary offices in Baton Rouge, after being rescued from our Mandeville home. Both I and the news anchor shared an emotional, teary reunion.

Like most of my staff, I have not recovered. We are surviving.

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Today is Twelfth Night . . . Epiphany . . . the first day of Mardi Gras (or Carnival, to the purists).

There’s an almost obscene irony in the air today, in this city whose mystique derives from historic juxtapositions of deep miseries and joys.

On Friday, two items illustrate this perfectly.

From MSNBC, commenting on the numbing bloodbath ongoing in New Orleans:

In the last week more Americans have died in New Orleans than in Iraq. Since Dec. 29, there have been eight military deaths. In the Big Easy, there have been 14 murders.
(read full story)

We did the math here, too, based on the national “shock” over the American death toll in Iraq reaching 3,000. On a per-capita basis, one of every 100,000 Americans have died in Iraq. On a per-capita basis, from 60 to 80 of every 100,000 New Orleanians died in the past year. Just to put things in perspective.

And now 14 slayings in a week. Seven slayings within 24 hours. That’s just the dead. And scattered geographically in a way that proves there are no safe neighborhoods. The fear in the city, and in our office, is palpable.

Friday morning’s lead headline in the Times-Picayune had to use lurid terms even to approach a description of the situation: Killings bring city to its bloodied knees

This headline also noted grabbed the attention of MSNBC

And in the middle of this bloodbath, it’s Mardi Gras.

While the Times-Picayune was describing a city under siege, Mayor Ray Nagin’s office issued this release:

MAYOR NAGIN KICKS-OFF 2007 CARNIVAL SEASON

NEW ORLEANS, LA (January 5, 2007) - Mayor C. Ray Nagin will kick-off the 2007 Carnival Season with the city’s annual King Cake Party on Saturday, January 6, at 10 a.m. in Gallier Hall. The University of Maryland at College Park Marching Band will perform at this year’s event . . . Carnival begins with the Feast of the Three Kings (Epiphany) on January 6 and concludes at midnight on Mardi Gras Day (Fat Tuesday), February 20, 2007.

So in a few hours, the Mayor and the monarchs of Mardi Gras will meet to slice king cake. At the same time, the first parade of the season, Alla, kicks off in Gretna. And at roughly the same time, the jazz funeral of a band leader gunned down earlier this week will step off.

At 7 p.m. Zeus rolls in Metairie, and the Phunny Phorty Phellows “hijacks” a streetcar for its traditional Mardi Gras kickoff event. On Sunday, there will be a march on City Hall to demand action on the slayings that are the last straw for many residents on the fence about whether to leave, stay or not return.

At NOLA.com, which slugged its way through Katrina and its aftermath, staffers are seriously discussing leaving town. What Katrina left standing, the post-apocalyptic killing frenzy is tearing down. And as Jose Narosky wrote: “In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.”

Last year, Carnival was a show of determination to survive and rebuild. Today it feels like a desperate act of denial.

Let the good times roll. Let them eat king cake.