New Orleans might never be the same, but French Quarter businesses are trying to convince the world that the food and fun are back.
Photographer Kathy Moore and I spent New Years Eve night walking the streets of a festive French Quarter that looked about like it did before Hurricane Katrina.
Bars and restaurants that were closed since the storm rushed to reopen for the city’s famous New Years Eve celebration.
Live jazz and blues thumped from bars, whooping throngs threw beads from balconies and a fair amount of revelers spent their closing moments of consciousness slumped against one of the many historic buildings along Bourbon Street.

Panorama: Bourbon St., New Orleans

In all, it was a pretty normal New Years celebration in that corner of the Big Easy.
But neighborhoods a few miles away were still without power and tens of thousands of families still have no home to return to. Hundreds of FEMA trailer sit in yards of storm-ravaged homes awaiting utility hookups. Some residents who have returned are still without their families, often in far off cities where their children are enrolled in school.
While a corner of New Orleans glowed like a far off star, a few miles away June Lacour went to bed early in a slightly damaged duplex a couple blocks from her home destroyed by flood.
“We didn’t have anything to celebrate,” she said. “Maybe this year will be better.”

Panorama: Cafe Du Monde/Jackson Square