Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/new-orleans-celebrates-reopening-of-superdome Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Monday night's kickoff between the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints will mark the first regular season game at the Louisiana Superdome since Hurricane Katrina turned the stadium into a haven for people fleeing the floodwaters after the storm. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Little more than a year ago, the Superdome was a singular metaphor for the misery that consumed post-Katrina New Orleans. The shelter of last resort housed 30,000 evacuees, but its roof leaked, its electricity and plumbing failed, and it was left a wreck.Tonight, the Louisiana Superdome is back in business after a $184-million-dollar renovation; the city's beloved New Orleans Saints football team returns home. Chris Rose, a columnist at the Times-Picayune, says this is about a lot more than football. He joins us now from the Superdome.Hi, Chris. CHRIS ROSE, New Orleans Times-Picayune: Hello, Gwen. Please pardon the business casual outfit today, but it was decreed by the powers that be that we're supposed to dress in black and gold, so I'm doing my best. GWEN IFILL: You're doing your best. Well, you know, when the saints come marching in tonight at the Superdome, how will they be received? CHRIS ROSE: Well, the Saints will be received by a bunch of crazy fans who have been partying all weekend. It's almost like Mardi Gras meets the Super Bowl down here.I suspect it will probably be one of the emotional capstones of what's happened since this all began last August. You know, we've had big events. We had Mardi Gras; we had Jazzfest, many things that have brought us together. But nothing has ever put 67,000 people in one room to sort of celebrate who we are, and our hopeful recovery, and bring in the "Star-Spangled Banner," and the Saints, and all that stuff. It's going to be a night like no other here, I can tell you that. GWEN IFILL: How much of this is about the game? And how much of this is about the symbolism of revival, I guess? CHRIS ROSE: Well, a little bit's about the game. We're 2-0. Of course, everyone wants to win, and that would be the nice cap if that happens, if we win. But obviously what this is about, this building is such a symbol for what happened here, our sort of national and local shame.So to have it return for the purposes for which it was built is very reassuring, very comforting. I know a lot of people elsewhere are probably thinking the money could have been used somewhere else to build houses for folks, but you have to realize what drives the economy here.The two buildings that had to be put online before any others, after Emeril's restaurant, of course, would be the Superdome and the Convention Center. They drive our economy.Football games isn't the only thing that happens in this building. Although I think they've started with a football game for the symbolic purposes, I think having a boat show or a gun show or a home show probably would have been a sort of irony that we didn't want to project tonight.