The French Quarter merchants say their business is off 70% from pre-Katrina. When they re-opened following the storm, construction workers filled the gap. Months later, tourists came. Now that that’s slacking off, they’re turning toward the community, asking residents to help them stay afloat. For those who do not know, only a small portion of the French Quarter businesses are the sleazy joints you hear so much of. Most are restaurants, antique shops, t-shirt and souvenir sites, that sort of thing.

One store-owner said, “This summer will tell the tale as to how many businesses down here survive.”

The mayor and city leaders keep saying the city is able to host conventions now, and urge tourists to come in large numbers. I asked a friend who attended a convention in our city recently to tell me her experience. I’m editing it a little.

“The city was in better shape than when we saw it 6 months ago, but it’s plain to see there are still years of work to do here.

“Our room at the Hilton Riverside was $189 per night. We paid $22 per night to self park, leaving us a great distance to walk to the elevator, then even farther through the garage to find our car. The breakfast buffet was $19. The shops in the hotel were closed most of the time while we were there.

“A breakfast meeting where I spoke at the Hilton Garden Inn charged $12.50 for a continental breakfast, all pastries, no meat or eggs.

“The convention printed up a nice map marked with area hotels, restaurants, etc., for all of us. The restaurant list was very short!

“One night after supper, we decided to go to Cafe Du Monde for cafe au lait and beignets. We waited 45 minutes for the trolley and were pleasantly surprised to find it was free. As we walked back to the Hilton Riverside through some of the French Quarter area, we noted the many, many empty or closed businesses. I prayed that Christians would move into that area and put in wholesome stores. We stopped at the Jax Shopping area for the restrooms. Even though it was only 6 pm on a Monday night, the businesses were all closed and the restrooms were locked.

“There was only one time I felt threatened. As my husband and I walked along, a man stepped in front of me making me come to a complete stop. He came between my husband and me and started talked to me. He asked if the pin on my jacket was a fleur de lis. It was. I did not respond, and reached for my husband, who physically pulled me around the man. He continued talking to us as we hurried away. He was asking questions like, “What other city besides New Orleans does it represent?” I have no idea what was going on. His body language did not match his conversation. At that point, we decided to board the trolley and ride the rest of the way to the hotel.

“We bumped into some fellow conventioneers while we were at the Cafe DuMonde. They were just returning from an afternoon tour of the devastated area and had a shocked look on their faces. One lady held up her digital camera. She said she had expected to take a lot of pictures, but she got only two. ‘I was so stunned by what I was seeing, I completely forgot to take pictures.’ Their mood was considerably more subdued than when I had met them at breakfast that morning. The woman said, ‘The damage is so much more widespread than I had realized.'”

My quick assessment of what my friend wrote: 1) This city has always been expensive for convention-goers, particularly if you stay close to the convention center. 2) The downtown restaurants are sparse. When our friend Cathy Pate visited last week, she had sent a list of famous restaurants any one of which she’d like to take us to dinner. Only one or two was open. Commanders Palace is not open. Only one of the two Praline Connections is running. And 3) as in any convention/tourist city, one may expect to encounter a certain number of weirdos on the street. Even in lovely Indianapolis or friendly Nashville, you still keep your guard up walking the downtown streets.

I was in a meeting the other day where the leader said to the group, “Did you read the paper this morning?” I think I was the only one who had seen what he had noticed, a front page article on the stress the locals are experiencing. The headline was interesting: “Stressed? No, we’re OK, really, we are.” Reminds me of conversations I used to have with a longtime friend. She would ask, “How are you?” I’d say, “Fine.” She would hesitate, then say, “How are you, really?” Drove me up the wall.

The point of the article was that New Orleanians are battling depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the signs, say the professionals, are increased sales of cigarettes and alcohol, people drinking more when they go out, and prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs remaining the same as a year ago even though the area’s population has shrunk. Sleep disorders, anxiety, depression, uncertainty, a lot of fear–all are afflicting locals who do daily battle with contractors, electricians, building inspectors, insurance companies, and nature itself. Pre-Katrina, we had 400 beds for the psychologically disturbed; the number now is 65. One of the many results of all this is a community of stressed-out caregivers. A massage therapist at a fitness center admits to working on more medical professionals than ever.

The funny part was at the end of the lengthy article, the writer tells the reader if he or she is feeling stressed out, it’s normal, you’re not unusual. The remedy is to seek out a health caregiver. Oh, yeah.

With the plethora of FEMA trailers up and down the streets of this city, an article in Sunday’s paper brought up a related problem. How do you get rid of one after you don’t need it any longer? A lot of residents have had their home repaired and been able to return, only to find FEMA’s contractors seem to have little interest in returning to unhook the trailer and get it out of the driveway. For some, the trailers have gone from being a blessing to a curse.

After his re-election as mayor, C. Ray Nagin seems to have taken a victory lap around the country. He’s hardly been seen locally, but crops up in the news as speaking at a HUD conference in Anaheim or the Essence Festival in Houston. One is tempted to conclude that Mr. Nagin was more interested in the celebrityhood of the mayor’s position than doing the actual work of running the city. What he specializes in is making pronouncements. Like a lazy preacher, he sometimes gives the impression that if he has spoken on a subject, that amounts to actually doing something about it. Meanwhile, the city lies in ruins with rebuilding taking place in spots here and there.

I hesitate to mention this last item, but it’s part of the local picture.

Renee Gill Pratt lost her bid for re-election to the New Orleans City Council recently. And something really nice happened to her. Just an act of God, she says. Here’s what happened.

After the hurricane of last August 29, Daimler-Chrysler donated 17 vehicles to New Orleans for relief work. Ms. Pratt kept one of them for herself, a red Dodge Durango, and drove it ever since. Then, a couple of weeks before the election, which anyone could sense she was about to lose, she donated that Durango to a local charity run by the brother and family of embattled Congressman William Jefferson. She lost the election, as expected. Then, surprise, surprise, that charity employs her. She ends up being assigned that same Dodge Durango as her personal vehicle. She said something like, “It’s just like God to provide for us that way.”

The newspaper did some investigative work and found that when Gill Pratt was in the state legislature, she saw to it that this same charity received a large hunk of state money each year to help the underprivileged, and later took care of it from the City Council seat she occupied. However, there was zero accountability for the money given the agency and the administrator of the charity cannot give any figures of anyone they have ever helped (“Katrina destroyed our records,” he said.). In fact, the charity is not even listed in the phone book.

There’s more to this story, but none of it good. In Wednesday morning’s paper, readers are incensed. “I’m wondering what happened to the other 16 vehicles,” said Catherine Hunter. “She should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, so that others will think twice before taking advantage of…us,” said Kim Paulin of New Orleans. Daniel Poulin of Metairie urges, “Shine some light and embarrass these scoundrels. This is really just the tip of the iceberg.”

Most of us hate, hate, hate it when our local leaders reinforce the stereotype in the minds of Americans about the graft and corruption in our politicians. But there it is.

For what little it’s worth, I hope outsiders will give us credit for being outraged by it, for our newspaper not condoning it but exposing it, and for other leaders looking into this to see if charges should be filed.

When we asked you to pray “big” for New Orleans, I hope you did not think we were being trite. We have gigantic needs, starting with the very people who are supposed to be part of the answer.