Did Katrina save the Saints for New Orleans?

I'm more surprised that the Hornets are coming back. They were in the toilet in attendance before Katrina. I can't imagine a metro area with a quarter-million fewer people and assumably a drop in an already low per capita income equals success.

 

Actually, I think there's been a rise in per capita income over there, if I remember correctly.

 

It couldn't happen to a nicer piece of shit than George Shinn

 

I guess that makes sense, since I'm betting that the people displaced are people who can't afford to rebuild. But will there be 14,000+ people with the means and the will to pay NBA prices at least 41 times a year?

Problem is, the NBA can't really expand or move anywhere else without taking a chance on a new market (Oklahoma City might have been okay, and they might have dried out in two more years). Plenty of nice arenas nationally, but either they've already got tenants or they're in small/untested/previously failed markets.

 

You are correct. As Mystery Meat said, most of the poor didn't come back. Also, wages at such places as Taco Bell and McDonald's are much higher than before Katrina, out of necessity.

 

IMO, I don't really care if Katrina kept the Saints from moving out. Hundreds of thousands of people are still without a real home or job and large parts of the city still look like Germany after the Allied bombing campaign in '45. Though the team and its success has helped lift the spirits of some of the New Orleanians (???), some of the problems have been glossed over. I get the sense that a lot of people are misinformed that the situation there is improving, but that just isn't so. Maybe if the Saints and possibly the Hornets took the time to put these blighted areas in the spotlight again, maybe that will speed the rebuilding process up. Since the Mets have their Triple-A affiliate in N.O. now, why not they kick in a couple million to the relief/rebuilding effort? It wouldn't hurt.

 

As someone who is regularly told "Move on, it's 2007" after starting a Katrina thread, I can tell you most people don't want to hear about it. I know people on this thread who know how bad it still is in New Orleans and surrounding areas, but they can only tell so many stories about it.

Charlie Weis and Notre Dame helped raise some consciousness about it during the Sugar Bowl buildup, but chances like that are few and far between. You'll have the Superdome hosting the Sugar Bowl and the BCS championship game this year, and then there's the NBA All-Star game soon after, so there will be more opportunities for journos to have a look around and tell the story.

I know someone who was in NOLA for the hoops regional and was shocked by how much devastation remains, and how widespread it is.

 

Trust me. I'm not misinformed. Nor did I intend to gloss over the problems by starting this thread. I just thought the story was interesting.

 

The Weather Channel is doing a 100 Greatest Weather Moments series (not sure where "Stephanie Abrams dons gray t-shirt for first time" ranks), and they did a thing on Hurricane Andrew. The survivors said they knew the Katrina recovery would be extremely long, because there were parts of South Florida that still looked like a war zone some 5 to 10 years after landfall. Hell, there's probably places now that don't look so hot.

But we're an instant-gratification society, so when New Orleans doesn't look better than ever after 18 months, we think something's wrong. When in fact the main issue is people outside the areas in danger don't grasp how affecting a strong hurricane can be.

 

You're right that it's a monumental task and to expect everything to be back to normal in 18 months is unrealistic.

However, there's a lot wrong.

 

Never said that you were. I just meant the general public at large.

 

It's amazing one of the things "the media" focuses on is whether two multimillion-dollar carpetbaggers, who both previously made very clear their willingness to pull up their tent stakes and move their franchises out of town, are again able to generate multimillion-dollar profits with their sports franchises.

Thousands still hungry and homeless, but for Christ's sake let's make sure George Shinn and Tom Benson are making plenty of money again.