And people today think SELA is inconvenient

The first halfway decent digital camera I ever owned was a Nikon point and shoot Menckles gave me for Christmas in 2005. Here is the first picture I ever took with it.



That's the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles in front of a shuttered Rite Aid. The traffic signal had been blown down by Katrina in August.  Come late December it was still laying there.  And that's where it stayed for at least another two or three months after this photo was taken.  That seems kind of wacky now but, for post-K times, it was typical. Everything happened in slow motion if at all.

Despite what a Fix My Streets banshee may wail at you, things happen much faster than that now.  Heck, the Rite Aid isn't even there anymore. It's been demolished and replaced with an equally unexciting Capital One branch.  But this photo meant a lot to me so I went back to that spot anyway last week.  Here, roughly, is where the downed signal would be today had it remained in place as the world changed around it.

Open and closed

On Thursday afternoon we emerged from the hunker bunker eager to ignore the Mayor's admonitions against putting our own "boots on the ground" and check out the damage in the area. There were downed trees



The wind pulled the siding off of some of the buildings and ripped up overhead cables.



It even pulled these bricks off the side of a building at St. Charles and St. Mary streets.





Mostly what was evident in our neighborhood, though, was lots and lots of downed foliage mixed with Mardi Gras beads.



I've said this before but Hurricane Season is kind of a mirror version of Carnival. National media focus on but largely misunderstand what's happening in New Orleans while locals cluster in groups to overindulge in unhealthy food and liquor while ritualistically named entities parade through town spreading debris everywhere.

On Thursday we found an exceedingly unhealthy, but at least hot, meal at Fat Harry's on St. Charles Avenue.



The bar was the first place we found with enough power to offer something close to a full menu and run the televisions. It was the happiest post-storm memory associated with Fat Harry's since "Day 59"

And then this happened.

A Sunday morning fire gutted the bar area of Fat Harry’s, but the owner of the beloved gathering spot on St. Charles Avenue was already promising to rebuild before firefighters had even left the scene.

Maybe Kermit will play the re-re-opening.