George Bush has just asked Congress to add $4.2bn to the $6.2bn already pledged for reconstruction. This week, the Army Corps of Engineers said that by 1 June, when the next hurricane season starts, the levee system will have been repaired at least to where it was before Katrina and perhaps a bit better than that.Every week, meanwhile, sees more people trickling back into town from the places they fled to, mostly Texas. The huge Harrah's Casino at the bottom of Canal Street finally reopened a week ago. That hasn't happened."Indeed, Mardi Gras this year may turn out to be more little more than a spasm of hilarity in a patient that is otherwise suffering an extended nervous breakdown There are a few signs of progress. For the first 30 days after Katrina we thought God and the President would shower us with billions and we'd be back in six months' time. The only responsibility we have is that we are open all night and we can get you drunk.
It took Manhattan that long and it was easier there because it was responsible for the economy of the nation. At the very least, those tourists who do come will see that the French Quarter is alive again and spread the word back home Yet he is sanguine about what lies ahead once the party's over."I am thinking it will take us three to four years to get back. They should be, because we are suspect," said Damon Hartley Davis, a consultant at the high-end Bryant Art Gallery on Royal Street. He is glad Mardi Gras is happening - the gallery has lost virtually all foot-traffic and overall business is down about 40 per cent. There is a worry, approaching paranoia, that if Washington DC has seemed slow in pledging dollars to rebuild the flattened homes and broken levees, it is because it doesn't approve of the city and its louche ways and doesn't trust it to spend the money properly."Are they suspicious of us? Of course, they are. And the "krewes" - the private clubs that lay it all on - have lost members and funds.It will be tamer too, or that, at least, is what the city is fervently hoping.
A local association of business has published a top 10 list of golden rules for enjoying Mardi Gras, printed on pamphlets and posters everywhere It is aimed at tourists more than locals. Rule No 5: "Respect the fact that public nudity is against the law." In other words, no more flashing of flesh for beads in the French Quarter.New Orleans once celebrated its sense of apartness from the rest of America But no longer. There will be eight days of parades instead of the usual 12, they will have fewer floats and the Mardi Gras balls will be smaller, if they happen at all The city doesn't have the police to deal with more. But it's still Mardi Gras and I love it."To be sure, this is a scaled-down version of what New Orleans normally sees in February. Like most people here, she left New Orleans for nearly two months but managed finally to make it home. "There is too much tradition in Mardi Gras to let a little hurricane stop it I knew it wasn't going to be the way it used to be.