Is New Orleans back to normal?

New Orleans is not really back to normal. If you've never been there before and you only visit the French Quarter then it's an okay place to visit, but definitively not what it was.

I visited there Feb. 28/March 1. I stayed in the French Quarter. Although the French Quarter did not flood, it doesn't seem back to normal. For one thing, it is not as clean as it used to be. There were not as many street performers as there used to be. Only saw one jazz ensemble on one corner - none of the other activities such as mimes, artists, fortune tellers, etc. Stopped for Cafe Ole at Cafe Dumond and there wasn't even any street performers there. Perhaps this is because Mardi Gras had just ended and everyone was taking a break. But I've been there before in the non-Mardi Gras season and there has been a lot more activity. During the day time it seemed safe enough. But at night, the streets did not feel as safe as they used to. There wasn't as much activity at night and there seemed to be people (non-tourists) with nothing to do hanging around on street corners. When I asked my hotel whether it was safe to walk around at night, they said yes. I later found out that supposedly the tourist businesses have been told to say that things are safe because if tourist feel unsafe, New Orlean's recovery is "hosed".

Another difference is that the street car system only works in the Quarter. The Garden District line has not been restored yet. There also seems to be more vacant office, residential, and business space in the French Quarter.

Only about 1/3 of the residents have moved back. I spoke with a frustrated business owner who was working the cash register at a cajun place in the New Orleans airport. He said that he owns two locations, one in the Quarter and one in the Airport and he wouldn't normally be working the cash register at the airport, but that there wasn't any labor available. He said that New Orleans lost their public housing with Katrina and that there wasn't any to replace it. "The people in the public housing were the ones who ran this City" he said. "And they haven't come back. People like me and McDonalds and Burger King and employers with other low end jobs are really hurting. There's no one to do the work."

I spoke to my cab driver. He used to live in a house that was flooded. He now lives in a trailer. His wife and kids are living in Florida until things more fully recover.

A CASA (child advocates) person that I know in Baton Rouge says that their caseload doubled overnight after Katrina because so many people moved to Batorn Rouge. Other Baton Rouge people say that the city is much more crowded than it used to be because so many people from New Orleans moved there and haven't returned.

Bottom Line: New Orleans is still an okay/sort of fun place to visit if you go to the French Quarter but it is not what it used to be

I hear Brad Pitt is living there now, so things must be better than it was, but not quite sure what "normal" really is. I think they are still one good storm away from being Atlantis.