It's A Long Road Back To The Bayou After Katrina
Friday, April 14, 2006Video, photos and background information on The Gulf Coast: Road To Renewal
SUSIE GHARIB: The financial markets were closed today in observance of Good Friday. So tonight, we`re coming to you tonight not from New York, but from New Orleans. Last September, from here in Jackson Square, President Bush made a promise.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.
GHARIB: Now, seven months later the Gulf coast is still a long way from being back to normal. One of the main reasons is that hurricane Katrina forced thousands of residents and businesses to leave the region and even now, the city of New Orleans has less than half its former population. Midwest bureau chief Diane Eastabrook met with two individuals who left and talked to them about what it will take to get them to return.
JASON DRAGO, HURRICANE EVACUEE: When I first saw the storm, I just had a gut feeling that it was coming straight for us.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Chef Jason Drago has survived not one, but two Gulf coast hurricanes, Ivan in 2004 and Katrina last year. Both times he lost nearly everything he owned.
DRAGO: It makes me very afraid to go back, because I can`t afford to start over again.
EASTABROOK: Six months ago, Drago started a new job and a new life in Chicago. The 37-year-old left a job as a chef aboard an off-shore oil rig to man a 30-person cooking crew at a University of Chicago dining hall. The Gulf coast has always been home to Drago, but the anxiety of living in a hurricane-prone region, coupled with an uncertain financial future there prompted him to leave, possibly for good.
DRAGO: I was at a point where I didn`t want to work offshore anymore because I had been through two terrible experiences offshore and it really had me to a point where I didn`t want to do that anymore you know? And I wanted to be on land and I figured the snow and the cold was much easier to deal with than a hurricane every other week.
EASTABROOK: Chicago has become home to about 5,000 Gulf coast evacuees. Some like Drago, came with job prospects already. Others are finding work with help from social service agencies and churches. After Katrina, the musician Sidney Anthony and his wife, left homeless and jobless, were evacuated to Chicago. But he found that music gigs in the windy city were spotty and he hoped to find steady work again in New Orleans` French quarter. In late February, Anthony headed home to New Orleans to find work.
SIDNEY ANTHONY, HURICANNE EVACUEE: Basically that`s it, you know? I have a steady job, a good job that I love playing my music six days a week.
EASTABROOK: But wife Gwendolyn stayed behind.
GWENDOLYN GATLIN, HURRICANE EVACUEE: I don`t want to go back right now because it`s not safe to live down there right now. But you find a good gig, there`s no houses down there. I mean, where would we live?
EASTABROOK: In the past year, the New Orleans region has lost about 15 percent of its population. That`s a little more than 200,000 people. Many are evacuees like Anthony and Drago who miss home but aren`t sure home will ever be the same. But despite the severe losses to the city, New Orleans is fighting feverishly to revive itself and its business scene. In the metro area, about two-thirds of the businesses that closed after Katrina have reopened and more could open again in the months ahead.
MARK DRENNEN, GREATER NEW ORLEANS INC.: We`ve got maybe a third of our restaurants back open. The convention business is still very slow because the convention center was undergoing massive repairs. That`s almost done now. We`ll begin to see the convention business come back, which is critical to our whole region and our economy.
EASTABROOK: And there is optimism that by summer, families who relocated to other parts of the country will return to the Gulf coast.
SANDRA GUNNER, N.O. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: In June, you`ll have another flush of people come back because school is out and they chose to leave the kids in school for the rest of the year. They can use the summer, then, to rebuild their homes.
EASTABROOK: But Drago won`t be among them. He has already put down roots elsewhere. With help from a local church, he`s moved into a newly furnished apartment.
EASTABROOK: In the French quarter where Sidney Anthony hoped to find work, many bands like this one are struggling. There are few tourists to entertain and there is very little money to be made. That is why, after only one week in New Orleans, Anthony returned to Chicago. He`s settling into a home he leased with relatives and hopes for a more stable life.
ANTHONY: Got down there and I got offered two jobs. I said, well this is good. I did them two jobs but mainly everything on Bourbon Street, a lot of the clubs I played at out there, they wasn`t open.
EASTABROOK: But despite the disappointment, Anthony still hopes he can one day return to New Orleans for good.
ANTHONY: Sooner or later I`m going back. I know that`s for sure. I mean, that`s my home.
