Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 27, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba Waves crash against a boat that washed onto a Highway As katrina hits the Gulf coast in Gulfport miss. Cheryl Gerber / Chicago Tribune Antoine a general manager Michael Guste stands in the restaurants wine cellar last october where thousands of bottles of wine were feared ruined. Most of the restaurants Veteran staffers have returned to work. The murder rate is rising and so Are suicides new uneasiness settles on broken City by Howard Witt n new Orleans ? the food a timeless presentation of French gourmet classics is As savoury As Ever. The service is attentive and flawless. The dining rooms freshly polished and filled with historical artefacts Promise a luxuriant meal. The Veteran waiters Are hard at work As Are Many of the longtime Cooks and Kitchen workers. Nearly everything at Antoine a restaurant one of the oldest and most renowned institutions in new Orleans looks just the same As it did on aug. 28, 2005, the Day before Hurricane Kat Rina slammed into the Crescent City. That is As Long As you Don to look too hard. The restaurant it turns out is Haemorrhaging Cash losing nearly $5,000 every night that it swings open its heavy wooden front door. That puts the historic 166-year-old French Quarter icon whose fortunes the Chicago Tribune has been following for much of the last year on track to lose More than $1 million by the end of december if things Don to soon improve. All it takes is that one Hurricane to make for a bad year by Josh Frank South Florida Sun Sentinel f Ort Lauderdale Fla. ? Don to be deceived. This years Hurricane season May seem slow but its decidedly average. At this time last year Hurricane katrina the 11th named storm was forming in the Bahamas. So far Only three named storms have formed. In a typical season which sees a total of 11 named storms the average Date for the fourth storm to be named is aug. 29. This is like trying to predict the Ball most of the restaurants employees behind the warm smiles they offer their customers Are worried about finding a permanent place to live staying for the moment in camping trailers temporary apartments or the carcasses of flooded Homes they Are struggling to repair. And Many of the tourists and conventioneers who have Long accounted for More than 80 per cent of Antoine a business Are nowhere to be found. One year after katrina burst new Orleans decrepit levees and flooded four fifths of the City driving its residents into exile across the rest of the United states this place Long known As the big easy is anything but. The murder rate is rising blight is spreading rebuilding is stalled and suicides Are on the increase. Rot weeds and tangled Brush no longer kept at Bay by Dili gent homeowners have colonized entire blocks. In some ruined neighbourhoods the Only humans in sight Are the demolition Crews Clad in White Bio Hazard suits to protect them from the toxic houses they Are tearing Down. Repair work on the 241 Kilometres of levees and flood Walls that Are supposed to protect the below sea level City from hurricanes wont be completed until 2010. Even then the Walls will not be High enough to protect against the worst category 5 storms. Just half of the 485,000 people who lived in new Orleans before the Hurricane Are estimated to have returned. And it often seems As if All of them like the owners of Antoine a Are holding their breath eagerly awaiting any sign that their wounded City can recover from one of the worst natural disasters to hit the . In modern times. A year has gone by and most of new Orleans has been reclaimed by the Jungle and it looks horrible lamented Rick Blount Antoine Sceo and the great great grandson of the restaurants founder. If new Orleans does not grow if there is no Rosier future for this City then i be made some very bad decisions in reopening this certainly not All the news in new Orleans is Bleak. The French Quarter the Garden District and downtown new Orleans ? the areas most familiar to tourists and Visi tors ? were not heavily damaged by the Hurricane and Are largely Back to Normal. Repairs to the super dome and the convention Centre Sites of some of the most wrenching Post katrina misery where tens of thousands of flood victims huddled for Days awaiting Rescue Are nearly Complete. And the City a crucial convention business is looking up after being forced to cancel All conventions from last sep tember through March convention Centre officials say 70 per cent of traditional bookings will return in 2007 and 93 per cent in 2008. Meanwhile water Gas and electric service have been restored to most of the City a neighbourhoods although out Ages and interruptions Are frequent. About half of the City a schools managed to reopen for the fall. And owners of flooded Homes will soon Start receiving cheques for up to $150,000 to help them cover uninsured losses under a $4.6 billion Federal reconstruction program that City and state officials Hope will kick Start rebuilding efforts. Many Hurricane seasons have had slow starts Only to see the tropics churn out storm after storm. Early to mid september usually sees the Peak activity. All it takes is that one Hurricane to make for a bad year Mayfield said recalling aug. 24, 1992, when the seasons first named storm Andrew slammed Miami Dade county As a category 5 Hurricane. With winds of 165 Mph Andrew is still one of Only three category 5 storms to make landfall in the United states and it was the costliest Hurricane in . History until katrina hit last year. In the Days before then i remember the Media kept calling and saying when Are we going to have a Hurricane Mayfield said. The rest of that season was nondescript with Only six named storms of which Only tropical storm Danielle made a . Landfall. By this time in 1998, there were three named storms with tropical storm Charley making land fall in Texas on aug. 22. Less than one month later on sept. 20, Hurricane Georges neared category 5 strength with winds of 155 Mph. There a positive news at Antoine Sas Well. Half of the restaurants pre katrina staff of 132 employees Are Back at work including nearly All of the Veteran waiters Cooks and managers whose experience and institutional knowledge Blount deemed critical. Another 32 new employees have been hired. Sales Revenue in july traditionally one of the restaurants slowest months was More than double what managers had projected and most waiters report that their monthly income from salaries and tips is Back to what it was before katrina hit. But the problem for both the restaurant and the City is How much further there is to go. Before katrina Antoine a was a Behemoth featuring 15 Din ing rooms that could seat More than 850 diners every night. But wind and rain from the Hurricane caused More than $14 million in structural damage to the restaurants historic build Ings forcing the closing of the main dining room and leaving Only 400 available seats. Just to break even Antoine a needs to fill 260 of those chairs each evening. But the average daily customer count for the first seven months of the year was 186. What a More nearly All of those diners have been local customers Many of them Well heeled longtime patrons who come As much for the tradition As the food. But Blu bloods Are not a growth Market in new Orleans at the moment and while awaiting the return of the usual out of town expense account thousands homeless in the Caribbean. But Georges was mild compared to Hurricane Mitch that seasons worst storm. At its Peak Mitch had winds of 180 Mph and sat off the coast of Hon Duras for several Days in late october causing catastrophic flooding and mudslides. There were More than 9,000 confirmed deaths from Mitch with another 9,000 missing. No final casualty total has been released. Not All Active Hurricane seasons feature Cata strophic storms. In 1984, the first storm formed on aug. 28, but the last one Hurricane Lili lasted for 12 Days finally dissipating on dec. 24. There Are signs this season is about to get More Active. The Hurricane Centre is monitoring a depression that could become tropical storm Debby and a tropical wave near the lesser Antilles. While the depression is not expected to hit land forecasters say it is possible the wave could develop As it approaches the Windward islands. Wind Shear which inhibited development earlier in the season has begun to decrease according to Jeff masters who runs the internet a popular waiter Cedric Davis serves a couple from Nashville during a pre wedding party. Unfortunately for the restaurant much of the usual out of town business has dried up. Clientele Blount is marketing Antoine a to local doctors lawyers and accountants ? the kind of customers who wont balk at the restaurants average $65-per-person Tab. That puts Antoine a into unaccustomed Competition however against a Host of trendier restaurants in an epicurean City still renowned even after katrina for its food. We re just never going to be the venue where people will just Stop by on their Way Home for a Quick boiled Chicken said Blount. You have to want to come to among the most worrisome developments in new Orleans for Blount and others in the tourism Industry is the alarming resurgence of the City a notorious crime problems fuelled by a growing drug Trade. Despite having Only half its previous population the City suffered More than 80 murders through the end of the july which translates to a murder rate of More than 60 per 100,000 residents according to Peter Scharf a sociologist and crime expert at the University of new Orleans. That rate if it holds through the end of the year would rank new Orleans right Back where it was before katrina As the nations murder capital. Although few of those crimes have occurred in the areas most frequented by visitors tourism officials fear the Nega Tive perceptions ? perceptions that were Only reinforced when earlier in the summer Louisiana gov. Kathleen Blanco heeded a plea for help from new Orleans mayor c. Ray Nagin and sent National guard troops into the City to help patrol the year Means we get a lot of hurricanes he said sea surface temperatures have increased to 1 degree celsius above Normal meaning there is More Energy available to fuel a developing Hurri Cane. All of these factors have led Mayfield to Call for awareness. He said he is still scratching his head Over a study that shows 60 per cent of coastal Resi dents from Texas to Maine do not have a Hurricane survival plan. Mayfield said that while forecasters Are still Call ing for an above average season he Hopes they re wrong. Believe me no one would be happier on the face of the Earth than if i got up in front of people at the end of the season and said we messed up the forecast. Sorry about that we re going to try and figure out c 2006 South Florida Sun Sentinel. Visit the Sun Sentinel on the world wide web at distributed by Mcclatchy Tribune information services. John Hoffman a dish Washer at Antoine a Waves to a Security guard outside his new Home ? a trailer assigned to him by the nations emergency measures organization. Streets. For Charles Daroca who is rebuilding his 4,400-Square-foot Home in the Middle class Lakeview neighbourhood where floodwaters Rose 10 feet High the concern about crime is overshadowed by another Post katrina menace blight. When Daroca the chief financial officer at Antoine a started gutting and reconstructing the entire first floor of his House in january he knew of 10 Neighbours in a two Block area who were also planning to rebuild. Now the Barocas Are living on their second floor while they work on their renovation which is about three quarters com plete. But Only one additional Neighbour beyond the 10 has shown any signs of moving Back in. In the absence of any comprehensive planning Effort by the City Daroca a once attractive Block like hundreds of others across the City now suffers what Urban planners Call the Jack of lantern effect rows of rotting abandoned houses interrupted by occasional inhabited Homes resembling the ragged Teeth of a hollowed out halloween pumpkin. You stand Here with your Coffee in the morning and look out the window and All you see is blight and ruin said Jodee Daroca Charles wife a lifelong resident of the Neighbour Hood. Its going to take a lot longer than we thought for the neighbourhood to come Back. But it will. It has ? Chicago Tribune this is like trying to predict the ballgame in the second or third inning Hurricane katrina barrels toward the East coast of the United states in this photo taken aug. 26, ;