NEwS + viEwS
bouquETS + brickbats ™
SCuT TLEBuT T 9 C O M M E N TA R Y 10 C L A N CY D u B O S 11 B L A K E P O N TC H A R T R A I N 13
knowledge is power
heroes + zeroes The National Endowment for the Arts
selected The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society, the Jefferson Parish Public Library, the State Library of Louisiana and the Louisiana State Museum for a Big Read project grant to increase readership among young people. The Faulkner Society selected Ernest J. Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying, and the grant partners will provide New Orleans area students with copies. Gaines also will lecture at the society’s annual Words & Music, a Literary Feast in November.
Commander’s Palace
was selected among CNN’s 10 “best historic restaurants,” noting its “stunning” Victorian architecture, the celebrity chefs at its helm, and a menu of “haute Creole dishes.” Other restaurants on the list include New York’s Keens Steakhouse (founded in 1885), Philadephia’s Ralph’s (the purported oldest Italian restaurant in the country), and San Francisco’s 100-yearold seafood bar Swan Oyster Depot.
The Five Days of isaac
By Charles Maldonado and Alex Woodward
A
t a noon press conference last Monday, Aug. 27, Gov. Bobby Jindal issued a final warning to anyone in Louisiana considering leaving town as Tropical Storm Isaac crept ominously toward the state’s coastline: “If anyone’s thinking of evacuating, today is the day to do it.” Jindal was prescient with that comment, but for some reason the state did not immediately activate contraflow, which would have opened both sides of interstate roadways to traffic going in one direction. Jindal noted that Louisiana and Mississippi state police were standing by to begin moving traffic, if needed, in an operation he dubbed “compressed contraflow.” “This is a serious storm,” the governor said. “People need to take it seriously.” Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu noted that the window of time to order an evacuation had passed — the “hunkering down” of New Orleans thus began. On Tuesday, Aug. 28, gray skies moved in as business owners and residents boarded windows and pulled down storm shutters before stronger winds rocked the city. Diners, cafes and coffee shops were packed. Bars and restaurants determined to ride out the storm announced their plans on social media: The Avenue Pub on St. Charles Avenue would be open through the storm. Kajun’s Pub on St. Claude Avenue, which typically is open 24 hours, made no exception for the weather (“Hurricane party at Kajun’s, we never close!” read a Facebook post).
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c’est How do you think the statewide school voucher implementation has gone so far?
Longhorn Steakhouse
donated $10,000 to New Orleans City Park during the restaurant’s annual leadership conference in New Orleans this month. The donation will benefit the park’s rebuilding efforts and improvements following Hurricane Katrina and the 2005 federal floods. The restaurant chain partnered with the National Recreation and Park Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to national parks and conservation efforts.
Rush Limbaugh,
on his radio show last week, suggested the National Hurricane Center conspired with President Barack Obama to alter forecast models for then-Tropical Storm Isaac as it eyed Florida during the Republican National Convention. “The Hurricane Center is the regime,” Limbaugh bellowed. “What could be better for the Democrats than the Republicans to cancel a day of this?” Hey, Rush, your paranoia is showing.
? Vote on “C’est What?” at www.bestofneworleans.com
80%
Not well at all
12%
Pretty well
8%
Good; a few bumps
THiS wEEK’S question:
Do you feel the City of New Orleans prepared adequately for Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac?
Gambit > bestofneworleans.com > september 4 > 2012
Public officials stay on top of emergency preparations as the huge storm advances toward then stalls over Louisiana.
The French Quarter was Shoppers lined up eerily empty. Because a few bars outside Rouses in remained open, tourists toting oversized novelty drinks spilled into Mid-City Thursday the streets. Cafe Du Monde closed and waited about 30 its doors “so our employees can be minutes before they were allowed in the with their families” in preparation store a few at a time. for Isaac. PHOTO BY Elsewhere in the city, residents CHARLES MALDONADO made final preparations and, in some low-lying neighborhoods, moved their cars onto neutral grounds (a move OK’d by the city). Isaac continued to churn slowly toward southeast Louisiana, and people grew less dismissive of it than they were a day earlier. Overheard conversations now inevitably included admonitions to “stay safe,” or “stay dry.” As the storm approached, but before its winds became too dangerous to venture outside, some families drove or walked to Lakeshore Drive as Lake Pontchartrain’s waves turned the lakefront green space into a dangerous swimming hole. “I’m somewhat dismayed that there are a lot of people out on Lakeshore Drive trying to experience what it feels like,” Landrieu said. “You won’t like how it feels if you get pulled in.” (Landrieu later announced that New Orleans Police Department [NOPD] officers had picked up “a bunch of knuckleheads” still on the lakefront late Tuesday.) Later that day, the National Weather Service upgraded Isaac
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