ATLANTA – Standing in a borrowed auditorium 425 miles from home, the mayor of New Orleans implored displaced residents Saturday to keep the faith, put pressure on Washington policy-makers and come home soon.
“I miss y’all,” Mayor Ray Nagin told more than 2,200 people temporarily living in the Atlanta area. “I want y’all back in the city of New Orleans. Red beans and rice just ain’t the same without you. I want you back.”
But in a three-hour session marked by tears and outbursts, the response was not encouraging.
“Come home?” many yelled back. “To what?”
With most of New Orleans’ 500,000 residents scattered across 44 states, Nagin has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to find – and bring home – the people who cleaned the hotels, sang in the clubs, prayed in the churches and attended the schools decimated three months ago by Hurricane Katrina. Saturday’s session at Morehouse College followed similar meetings in Memphis and Houston.
Katrina and its floodwaters not only destroyed large swaths of the Gulf Coast, but also uprooted a record number of people – more than the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s or the Great Depression. Officials estimate 60,000 to 80,000 New Orleans families have moved to Georgia.
As Nagin struggles to repair streets, restore power and revive industry, he must also confront the harsh reality that many people – even those who want to return – say they are not convinced it makes sense now.
“My job called me back, but I didn’t have anywhere to live,” said Robert Miller, 39. After working 19 years at the Luzianne Coffee Co. plant, Miller is out of work. “I’m thinking about staying here and finding me a job.”
Miller, like many others, said the Atlanta area is enticing. His children are enrolled in a good school, and Atlanta doesn’t seem to have the sky-high murder rate of his native city. “It’s tough raising teenagers in inner-city New Orleans,” he said.
Nagin himself uttered conflicting views. On the one hand, he warned, “The Big Easy is not very easy right now.” But with fewer than 75,000 people living in New Orleans, there aren’t many criminals around, he added.
Despite his predictions of a boom in the coming years, Nagin conceded: “The city is broke. We don’t have any money. We’re begging and borrowing from anybody who will listen.”
“Tell the truth,” some in the crowd chastised Nagin. “Answer the question.”
They scoffed at the mayor’s assertions that the drinking water is safe, that 70 percent of the city has electricity and that Tulane Hospital is open. Tulane, in fact, has not reopened, and some environmental experts say arsenic and mold in New Orleans far exceed safety levels.
Betty Gaynor, reminding Nagin that he had grown up just around the corner from her place in the Lafitte housing project, told the mayor he had forgotten his roots. She eviscerated the decision to host a Mardi Gras celebration in February when some residents will still be waiting to bury loved ones.
“I’m with you,” Nagin replied, placing the blame on Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and tourism officials.
But Gaynor was neither convinced nor appeased. “The city is not up,” she said. “It is only up where the white folks are.”
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