The Big Blank Canvas

By Richard Lacayo, Cathy Booth Thomas / New Orleans

They still love to party in New Orleans. It's just that lately the laughs come kind of hard. The Mardi Gras season that wraps up this week will have consisted of just eight days of parades and whatever gamy fun goes with them. In most years, it goes on for 12. Marching bands have been in short supply, their members still scattered to Houston and Atlanta. The crowds along the parade routes have been sparser too. On the bright side, that has made it easier to score the strands of colored beads flung by people on parade floats. Hustle, and you could grab 50 or so in just a few hours. Making the most of misfortune--that's a very New Orleans thing to do.

Certainly it's what many people in this still struggling city are doing. Six months after Katrina, wide stretches of town remain dead zones, testimony not only to the power of the storm but also to the failure of politicians and bureaucrats to think on their feet. In the mostly deserted Ninth Ward, where many of the city's poorest African Americans lived, Barbara Hamilton is searching for an affordable apartment while trying to find financial help to rebuild her house. "The water's not safe to drink. We don't have no lights," says the 67-year-old great-grandmother. "Everybody's talking about they're gonna do this and they're gonna do that. Instead of talking about it, do it."

But as the city crawls back to life, people will tell you that it wasn't just old neighborhoods that the wind and water dislodged. It was also old ways of thinking. "This crisis forced us to rev up our adaptability," says Carol Bebelle, director of the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, which showcases African influences in New Orleans culture. "Grandmothers who had never gotten on a plane before did, just to get out of town. We've learned to accept change." In the same spirit, you keep hearing about how the storm created a clean slate to draw a new city on. New Orleans these days is full of planners, people coming up with schemes for a smarter, richer, better-organized city, all of them determined to prove that catastrophe is just another word for opportunity.

So the levees are being reconsidered, the schools reimagined, the whole region rethought, with ideas for riverfront parks, light-rail systems and everything short of whirlycopters filling the sky. Some of it may even happen. Not all the plans mesh, and most of them require dollars that may not all materialize, but in a city that has suffered like this one, the power of this wholesale reinventing is a sign of life in itself.

And in one crucial area, there has even been what looks like an important breakthrough. After months of inaction, the pieces have come together for a real plan to get money to homeowners for rebuilding. Two weeks ago, George W. Bush promised to ask Congress for an additional $4.2 billion for that purpose. That would come on top of $6.2 billion allocated last year. Within days, Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco proposed a $7.5 billion plan that relies on the federal money. It would make available to the owners of storm-damaged homes a combination of grants and affordable loans worth up to $150,000, depending on the prestorm value of the house, minus whatever insurance payouts and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) aid a homeowner might get. In New Orleans alone, the payouts could apply to about 108,000 homes. The Governor also wants to earmark $1 billion to encourage construction of mixed-income housing, mostly apartments. That's a must in a city where most of the poor rented and rents have risen 50% or more since Katrina.

Of the 455,000 people who once lived in New Orleans, only 144,000 have returned. The hope behind the new scheme is that the combination of more money and clearer formulas for distributing it will create real incentives to draw people back. "The last two weeks have been more than encouraging. They've been awesome," says Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of TIME who is vice chairman of the Governor's Louisiana Recovery Authority, which holds the purse strings for all federal recovery funds. "There's more money, and most importantly, there's a plan."

It's one that could help defuse the fraught racial politics of the rebuilding process. Those grow out of the fact that many of the city's most flood-prone areas, like the Lower Ninth Ward, are home to a substantial number of its African-American residents, who look long and hard at any sign that the city may forbid them to return. The city has been eager to discourage piecemeal redevelopment, in which a handful of residents here and there try to re-establish themselves in vulnerable neighborhoods. But after Mayor C. Ray Nagin hinted last year that he would consider declaring certain neighborhoods off limits, the angry reaction of black residents and politicians got him to back down. For now, his Bring New Orleans Back Commission (BNOB) has been content to go on supervising a process in which residents in heavily damaged neighborhoods are being paired this month with planners and other specialists to determine how--or even whether--their area can be brought back to life.

Governor Blanco's new housing formula, which improves on one put forward by Nagin, has the advantage of allowing people to rebuild pretty much anywhere. But there's one important catch: wherever they build, they must meet stringent new state building codes and FEMA rules that require houses in low-lying areas to be raised several feet above ground level. The most flood-prone neighborhoods, many of them poor, will probably require the most new protections, at a cost that could discourage residents from going back to the same spot.

All the same, the promising new housing formula comes just in time for the beleaguered Nagin, who faces a tough election set for April 22. Last week Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, brother of Louisiana's Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, announced his candidacy. Although Mitch Landrieu is white and Nagin is black, the racial politics of the mayoral contest, which includes seven other white candidates and one other African American, are not clear cut. Nagin came to office four years ago with strong support from the white business community--maybe too strong, in the eyes of lower-income black voters. Landrieu's father Moon, who was mayor of New Orleans in the 1970s, was widely popular with black voters, who have continued to support the younger Landrieu throughout his political career.

By the time of the election, there will have been another big development in the city's life. FEMA is expected to issue its advisory floodplain maps in March. Those will identify the most flood-prone parts of town, where homeowners must obtain flood insurance. Until the maps come out, it's hard for people to calculate the cost of returning. Construction worker Mike Reed was gutting a wood-frame house last week in Lakeview, a prosperous neighborhood on the lip of Lake Pontchartrain that was devastated when the 17th Street levee broke. "Most people have had their places gutted," he says. "But if you drive around, you'll see nobody putting up Sheetrock or restoring houses." Plus there's one other major unknown. "Everyone is waiting to see if the levees are going to be ready for June," says Reed. "That's when hurricane season begins."

All around the Big Easy, that's the other big if. Task Force Guardian is the group within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers charged with making short-term repairs to the levee system by the start of storm season. To date, the Corps has signed nearly $400 million in repair contracts. All around town its crews can be seen working to restore levees, fix flood walls and install interim floodgates and bypass pumps. But for months the mantra around New Orleans has been that in the longer term, the city must have more--namely storm protection sufficient to resist a Category 5 storm. (Katrina was at most a Category 4 when it hit land.) "We have got to feel confident the city is safe from floods, or businesses won't return," says Tom Oreck, head of a New Orleans vacuum-manufacturing company and a member of the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region.

Last week, speaking to the city's business community, Bush's Katrina czar, Donald Powell, promised that the levees would be rebuilt "better and stronger" before hurricane season starts in June--thanks to $1.5 billion Congress approved in December for levee-repair work and temporary floodgates on Lake Pontchartrain. Will it be enough? To find out, the Corps, using a supercomputer and a centrifuge, is running simulations on 1,300 storm possibilities to calculate risk. East New Orleans is its test case, and its report is due later this month. "If there is another Katrina, the system is not built to deal with it," admits Ed Link, head of the Corps team assessing risk. That's why Bush last month asked Congress for an additional $1.46 billion to boost hurricane protection and restore wetlands in the New Orleans area.

One thing that seems sure to improve is levee maintenance. For decades, the levee system was overseen by a multitude of local boards that were packed with political appointees, few of them experts in flood control. By the time Katrina arrived, the boards had a reputation for being more effective at handing out sweetheart contracts than at maintaining levees. Last month a special session of the state legislature succeeded in consolidating the boards into two bodies (one for each bank of the Mississippi) consisting of engineers and other specialists. The consolidation, which must still be approved by voters in September, was an essential signal to Congress that money sent to Louisiana would not drop down a sinkhole. "These boards will operate to the highest ethical standards," promised Blanco. "No politics. No patronage. No brother-in-law deals."

If there's one area of New Orleans life in which catastrophe is most likely to mean opportunity, it's education. The city's public school system was a perennial disaster, always ranking toward the bottom among U.S. schools in student performance. In the weeks just before Katrina hit, a federal audit found that $69 million in federal education funds had not been properly accounted for. By that time, the FBI had a field office in the school-district headquarters.

Then came Katrina, which left 99 of the city's 117 public schools destroyed or badly damaged. Of the 60,000 students enrolled before the storm, just 9,831 have returned (that number is expected to more than double by fall of 2007, when a lot of children will find themselves crammed into temporary classrooms). The devastation created an opening for Blanco and the state legislature to achieve a longtime goal of education reformers. During a special legislative session in November, the state took control of the 102 schools that had been performing below state standards. The state now has the power to decide which schools get rebuilt, how much is spent to rebuild them and how to run the ones that are back in business.

Only 20 schools are up and running in Orleans Parish, the majority of them charters. By their nature, charters favor spreading decision-making authority away from central boards. That's roughly in accord with the philosophy growing out of an exercise conducted by the city to rethink the school system as it comes back to life. Under the direction of Scott Cowen, president of Tulane University, the BNOB education committee interviewed 20 national experts, examined school programs from New York City to Oakland, Calif., and called in the Rand Corp. for advice.

If the committee's recommendations are adopted, the old district offices would be reborn as strategic centers, setting academic standards, analyzing data and imposing accountability for a network of schools. Cowen says schools would have more autonomy, with principals hiring teachers and controlling 80% of school dollars.

But the rethinking of city schools goes beyond that. The state is examining whether schools in every neighborhood of New Orleans should be brought back as part of what's called a community nexus. Each school would be part of a fabric of facilities that could include a library, recreation center, health clinic, performing-arts space and even a community catering kitchen. All of them would serve students and other people from the surrounding neighborhood. That would avoid the duplication of costs when cities build, say, public libraries and school libraries. Other cities, including Chicago and Providence, R.I., have adopted the approach in individual neighborhoods, but no other city has thought about attempting it across the board. "It will be a quantum leap," says Steven Bingler, head of Concordia LLC, a New Orleans--based architecture and planning firm that has been spearheading the effort. "And it will be one of those things that it took a hurricane to get there."

Something else the hurricane may produce is what Nagin predicts will be "the biggest construction boom this country has ever had." While the poorer districts may be languishing, in some areas there are signs the boom may be happening. Deals are popping up around downtown and along the Mississippi riverfront. KB Home, one of the nation's largest home builders, is racing to start up to 10,000 Orleans-style houses just across the parish line, as well as 58 lots downtown. Bruce Karatz, CEO of California-based KB Home, promises that the houses "will have the New Orleans feel. New Orleans has a certain charm, a unique style and colors."

Talk like that makes some of the locals crazy. What they fear is that the city will come back as a Disneyfied version of itself, full of national-brand replicas of its homebred culture--a giant House of Blues. The city's delicate cultural ecosystems may be the thing hardest for government intervention to preserve. There are plans all the same, so far mostly unfunded, to help get artists and musicians back to work in a city where the arts were both a spiritual lifeblood and a significant source of revenue. Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, a New Orleans native who co-chairs the BNOB cultural committee, has put forward a proposal recommending, among other things, a public-works program that would subsidize musical performance and public art. "Let's get them working because they will stimulate the economy," Marsalis says. "They'll give people something to come back and see."

Among architectural preservationists, the greatest fear six months ago was that developers eager for large tracts of open land would push the city to bulldoze whole neighborhoods of traditional housing, like the long, narrow "shotgun" houses that produce the intricate streetscape rhythms around large parts of the city. Because replacing them with cookie-cutter suburban development would destroy the heart of the city, the National Trust for Historic Preservation teamed with the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans to help finance the restoration of a number of flood-damaged older homes. The point was to show that it was entirely possible to bring them back to life. "I don't worry about wholesale demolition anymore," says National Trust president Richard Moe. "The biggest problem right now is just the lack of rebuilding funds hitting the street."

With the Governor's new plan in place, maybe those funds really will start getting there. Meanwhile, the street has been rebuilding itself without them. Noah Chiasson, 58, lives in Lakeview along the rim of Lake Pontchartrain. He and his wife bunk on the undamaged second floor of their house. They have no gas, no phone, no TV, no postal service. But they're O.K. With few lighted houses around him, it gets so dark after sundown that it's possible again to see stars in the nighttime sky. "But every night I look out the window now, there are less stars," he says. He knows why too. "The lights are coming on again."

HAZARDOUS WHEN WET

Although people can try to return to any part of town, a city commission has issued maps showing the areas where rebuilding is recommended--and where it might be more complicated Construction projects*

Levee to be repaired

Levee with no significant damage

NEIGHBORHOOD-PLANNING AREA

These parts of town suffered serious flood damage in Katrina's wake. The city is working with residents to develop plans for how best to bring these sections back to life wherever possible.

IMMEDIATE OPPORTUNITY

In these areas, Katrina inflicted minimal damage. The mayor's commission says whatever rebuilding is necessary can begin right away--and in many of these neighborhoods, it's under way.

URBAN IN-FILL AREAS

Even before Katrina, many of these were underutilized parts of town, including empty lots. The city now sees the areas as having potential for large-scale commercial or residential development. Lake Pontchartrain

Mississippi River

Louisiana Superdome

Metairie

Jefferson Parish

St. Bernard Parish

Orleans Parish

Downtown

Convention Center Tulane University

French Quarter

Ninth Ward Lower Ninth Ward

Algiers

Orleans Ave. Canal

17th St. Canal

London Ave. Canal

N 2 miles 2 km

TIME Map Sources: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; *Goal is to restore levees to pre-Katrina strength by June 1, 2006 Wallace Roberts & Todd LLC's Action Plan for New Orleans

With reporting by Theo Emery, Russell McCulley / New Orleans, Amy Lennard Goehner / New York