Delirious New Orleans

by Stephen Verderber

  Ronda DeForest, age thirty-six, is the proprietor, with her husband, Doyle, of Flour Power, in Chalmette, located on Paris Road near St. Bernard Highway, in St. Bernard Parish (Fig. 5.26). Flour Power is near the main entrance to the Port of St. Bernard, and is situated on some of the highest ground (3.5 feet below sea level) in the parish. They began their mom-and-pop business in 1998, working out of the garage of their home in nearby Meraux. Their coffee house–restaurant and account-based catering business specialize in pastries and assorted bakery goods. Chalmette is a suburb ten miles downriver from the New Orleans central business district. I interviewed Ms. DeForest extensively on May 22, 2006. Excerpts from our conversation follow.

  We bought this building in 2002. Before that, it had been a florist for twenty-five years. They were the ones who added on the back part of the building. The front part—the part that is raised—actually was a residence built in the 1920s. So we made all sorts of renovations to add the kitchen and the café. Before the storm, Paris Road in general was not the commercial hub it is now. The hub was definitely along Judge Perez [Drive]. But because this part of the parish got the least amount of water—we only got three and a half feet in the back and about six inches in the inside of the front part of the building. But it was enough to knock out a lot of our equipment. We lost our freezers, a refrigerator, a prep table, and a cooler, but nothing major. Luckily, most restaurant equipment is built with the motors on top because of the cleaning and the floors, so most of that stuff was OK. So we were very fortunate. We came back December 5. It took us until January 24 to get the place up and running. We are still fighting with insurance companies. We have gotten no money from homeowner’s or from business-interruption insurance—the same situation as everybody else.

  So we had no money to hire someone to come out and gut it, so we did all of that ourselves. That was after we came back. When we evacuated, we first started in Houston for the first three days, then we went to north Louisiana. And then when we realized that we weren’t coming back, then we needed to find something a little more permanent. So we were in Bastrop. My husband is from Bastrop—that’s where his grandmother and father are. They took us in. I’m from Chalmette originally. We have lived all over New Orleans and in Colorado over the years. But we always came back. My mom lived maybe two miles from here. Grandparents, everybody, was in this general vicinity. My mom and sister are in Thibodaux, which is not too terribly far from here. Cousins are in Pontchatoula, Hammond—other cousins live nearby. My dad passed away three years ago, and I don’t know if he would have done so well with all of this.

  He had worked for Entergy, so he would have been one of them in the middle of all of it. My mom and sister live in a FEMA trailer in Thibodaux. I have elderly grandparents—rather, my grandfather passed in January. That is what’s been happening with the older people (Fig. 5.27). At least once per week we host a funeral reception here. It’s really hard. It has been terrible. The elderly can’t cope with it. It’s terrible. It’s understandable, because there is nothing to come back to [and] because it looks nothing like it looked before. And that’s the thing about our place. I’ve had grown men come in and stare at my pastry case and begin to cry—you can see the tears streaming down their faces—because this [is] just about the only place that reminds them of before. The curtains are the same, therefore it looks like maybe nothing happened. And outside it’s not all that different. The oak trees are sparse compared to before the storm. The trash is bad, but we try to pick it up. People just don’t respect it as much as before. You know, we’ve had to put up this yellow caution tape because they roll their trucks up all over the grass and plants. You know, those are some of the issues we deal with now.

  We lived in Meraux. It was much worse down there. We lost the entire house and will end up having to bulldoze it. We lived there eight years. Since my son was born, we lived there. It [the devastation] was the same for most of our neighbors. In our subdivision, which was an older one, there were either mostly older people or starter homes for younger people with families. But there is a very large subdivision right next to us. That whole subdivision seems to be coming back—they have big two-story homes, and about a third are back in their homes, living on the second floors while they work on their first floor. There are also quite a few [FEMA] trailers there. What I’m thinking is that somebody’s going to come along in two, three, four, five years and knock down the house and build a big house there anyway.

  We have two children, ages eight and nine. Our son is in second grade and our daughter is in the third grade. That was really the catalyst for our coming back—the [opening of the] schools.

  We came back at the end of September. I guess they allotted my husband a special pass because we had a business here. It was look-and-leave at that point. It was terrible, horrible to see. Then we came back again to see the house in the beginning of October. And it was like, wait a second, when you’ve got water over your roof at home and only three and a half feet in your business, you begin to frame everything around your business. You can begin to wrap your mind around the business. And this area was minimally damaged by comparison. We were very fortunate: we are in a very small group [among St. Bernard residents]. It did not make it any easier. It was still terrible: the smell, mess, when you have water over your rooftop and nothing—I mean nothing—is salvageable… .

  We were still not sold on the idea of coming back. We continued to drive back and forth to Bastrop every week or so [a five-hour drive each way], and a friend of a friend called and asked, “What are you doing with Flour Power?” I said, “We don’t know. Why, do you want to buy it?” She asked if she could put a trailer for her sister on our property, because she needed a place, and I said, “Fine, go ahead.” We did not know her personally. But at that point, I told friends, “If you need it and we’ve got it, it’s yours. If you’ve got a trailer or an apartment, take our tables and chairs, because they’re just going to sit here or get looted, you know?”

  It was the first day the school was reopened, and it was wonderful to see the principal and all the teachers and the kids so pumped up. My husband said, “We can’t stay away from here.” North Louisiana, it’s lovely, the people are wonderful. But don’t think you can drink a beer around any of ’em. And believe me, after all we’ve been through, I mean, you NEED it [alcohol]. They didn’t get it, and still don’t get it. Because they don’t see the enormity of it [the devastation]. Pictures don’t tell the story at all, mile upon mile [of devastation] … [Her voice trailed off.]

  We decided to come back, and would have come back sooner but we were waiting for our [FEMA] trailer. Ours came through the Louisiana economic development program. We went back and forth with FEMA. Fighting happened. Finally, FEMA said, “Take ’em. Do what you want with ’em, but don’t call us until we come out [to activate them].” We got the trailers in December but had no idea that we had no water, no electrical, no nothing. Nobody helped us, and there was no one to call. You are responsible for everything yourself. We did the primitive camping thing in the trailer for about a week until we got a plumber and an electrician (Fig. 5.28).

  We made our decision [to return] early on compared to most. We were the first sit-down restaurant to reopen in the parish. Imagine, a place where you could actually come in and sit down and eat with silverware on real dishes. And that was amazing to everyone. They loved us, and people still come in to just say, “Thank you so much.” And I say, “Why?” I didn’t understand at first [but] … I just didn’t want to be anywhere else. It was so emotional. It was a good thing. It didn’t take long for the parish to inspect and recertify the kitchen. In fact, now he [the parish sanitarian] comes in here to eat every morning.

  5.25: Mountains of debris, Slidell, 2005 (post-Katrina).

  5.26: Flour Power, Paris Road, Chalmette, 2006.

  5.27: FEMAtrailer, residential installation, Jefferson Parish, 2005.

  5.28: Trailer configuration, Flour Power, Chalmette, 2006.


  On the status of Flour Power’s restaurant business in post-Katrina Chalmette:

  In fact, before the storm we never did a breakfast or dinner buffet. Most of our business was just in catering pastries to businesses. We had the Hyatt Regency [as an account]. It was one of our hotels. Also, the Audubon Institute and Martin Wine Cellar. It was all pastries. Here [in the coffee house–restaurant], it was just lunch for three hours daily from Tuesday through Thursday. It was just a side gig, because we served goat cheese and provided something different for [people], and that was cool. And now the Hyatt is gone, you know [laughs] … and you know they aren’t coming back for a while, and the aquarium just reopened—they just got their penguins yesterday—so their business isn’t much right now. For one thing, we don’t have a delivery van. This is a big problem because we lost our delivery van. We left our delivery van behind. It did not have liability coverage. Yeah, I learned a lesson. We had $125,000 in business-interruption insurance, but did not have flood insurance. We have yet to see a penny. If we had lost everything, we wouldn’t have come back either.

  I’ve got a staff of five people now compared to sixteen before the storm. They work hard. Everyone had to evac [evacuate]. I’ve been putting flyers around everywhere. I put the word out everywhere. Usually it’s a friend-of-a-friend kind of thing, and I say, “Oh, you know somebody who wants to work? Send them in.” High school students, college students, for the summer, for sure. I need them full-time. Absolutely. And you know whom I get a lot of help from? The emergency-aid community, what they [others] call the hippie tents [locally known as the emergency community]. They are separate from the Common Ground base camp, but they are over in the same area on Judge Perez Drive [a mile and a half away from Flour Power], across from the [now shuttered] Wal-Mart. [As mentioned in Part 3, Common Ground is a national activist political action organization, and its post-Katrina base operations were in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes.]

  They come from all over the country. I’ve got two or three of them working at any given time, and they are awesome people, especially if you’ve got a family. They won’t take anything from you. You don’t have to worry about any of that. They are just trying to help. They may stay for two days, two weeks, even two months. And I pay them daily, so if they have to go, whatever, you know? And they say, “OK, I’m leaving, but I’m going to send so-andso over to take my place.” And that is really great. Most of them live in tents [in a tent city], so it is really nice for them to be able to come inside and be in air-conditioning. [laughs] I don’t know how they do it.

  On the subject of the recent (March 2006) week-long parish-wide design charrette conducted by the high priest of New Urbanism, Andres Duany:

  I didn’t go to any of those [charrette] meetings [in the fabric-sheathed tent bubble behind the Chalmette civic center, the work site for the charrette]. I did go to the big one at the parish courthouse on that Wednesday night. You know, the plan with the streetcars running down the street and all of that. I think it’s a dream, a wonderful dream. But we just got our landline phone last week. He [Duany] did not want to deal with any of that. I mean, it is great to make all of the green spaces. And oh, “We’re going to buy you out of your house to make it happen” [quoting Duany]. The people say to each other, “Where are we going to live for the next five years, in the meantime? When will we be able to move back from Hammond? And how will we pay for all this? We need a place now to live.” It’s a big issue. But because we were near the river, all he [Duany] said was he wanted to convert the [St. Bernard] Highway into some sort of interstate kind of thing. And it would affect us because there is a stoplight right there at the corner and it’s wonderful. And people can look over here and say, “Hey, there’s a restaurant.” So at this particular juncture in time, do we really need that? This is the main thoroughfare, right here [points out the front window toward Parish Road and its intersection with the St. Bernard Highway].

  On the harrowing early days of the family’s return home:

  The hub of the parish is right here. This is it. The Merabeaux Food Store [across the street] was the first to reopen. They were open on the first of December. And of course the bars [across the side street from Flour Power], they never closed, and they were there before we were. And all the construction people here for the debris removal. All of that awful stuff. It’s gotten much better since we first got back here, because [pauses] … it was all hours of the night, all hours of the night. We had drunk people actually try to walk into our trailer, then say, “Oops, I’m sorry, I didn’t see y’all.” Others would bump into our trailer in the middle of the night. Usually [there were] drunken persons walking down the street, you know, [it was] noisy all hours. It’s gotten better from when we first got back here [post-Katrina] and since the population has increased. It really was anarchy when we first got back. There was nothing. We tell the kids, “We’re pioneers, we’re pioneers.” That’s the way we had to live. Getting the kids back in school was the most important thing. That was a really positive thing. Everything else remains weird.

  On the adjacent FEMA trailer and the main building’s restored kitchen:

  I’m really glad that we have this kitchen. We can cook and eat in here and then use the trailer mainly for sleeping, reading, TV, watching movies, and for office paperwork. We try to get the kids out as much as possible on the weekends, especially. We go downtown to a hotel, and they get to use the pool, and they can swim. And they’re so cute about getting in a bed, and they say, “It’s so cool to be able to sleep in a real bed again.” But they’re troopers. We have a double bed [in the trailer] and they have a bunk bed.

  When we first got here, we used the trailer’s kitchen a little bit, because when we first got back we had to completely redo all the wiring in the building. So we had a temporary generator for the trailer. We keep the A/C on all day, and leave it on 75. They don’t have much insulation. The shower is very small, and there is no tub, so that is another exciting thing about going into the city [to a hotel]. We do that every couple weeks to maintain sanity. We’re taking the kids to Universal Studios [in Orlando, Florida] right after they are out of school. Our vacations used to be where we closed the shop on January 1 every year because everyone gives up sweets for their New Year’s resolution. So our vacation was always to go skiing over New Year’s Eve [through] the first week in January. And of course this year we’re pioneers. [laughs] This year it will hopefully be just a false-alarm evacuation.

  On the spirit and outlook of the relatively few who have returned home to Chalmette:

  The people who are here are pumped to be here. The people who are not here cry at night because they are not here. And of course there are the people who say, “The hell with the place.” They just aren’t up to going through all that again. They are throwing in the towel, absolutely [pause] … Absolutely. They made their mind up back in October [2005]. But many people who made up their mind [not to return] have changed again and again since, and still are [confused].

  On the profound dislocation and loss of community experienced by the 67,000 exiled residents of a parish where all but six of the buildings were ruined by Katrina:

  5.29: Burger Orleans, St. Claude Avenue, Ninth Ward, 2005 (post-Katrina).

  For example, my sister, who was dead set [against returning] bought a house in Thibodaux. She didn’t want to stay there, and then moved to the north shore [of Lake Pontchartrain, in St. Tammany Parish]. So after living on the north shore and realizing that she’s not finding Chalmette anywhere [else], she had already sold her house in Chalmette. It was near the Murphy oil spill, which is a whole different can of worms. Her home was covered with muck [she and her husband are among the plaintiffs embroiled in a class-action lawsuit against the refinery]. Now they are looking in the subdivision behind me [in Meraux], where the bigger homes are. So, you know, no one knows [what to do]. Some seem to go through three or four changes in the same week. [laughs]

  A strong bond exists in the parish. It is he
artbreaking to see what has happened to the city (Fig. 5.29). It’s very sad. We had my son’s birthday party here on Sunday. So of course I don’t have anyone’s addresses anymore, so I just e-mailed out invitations, which was just mortifying to me. I was always the party person—you had to have a theme, you know, the whole thing. And I even called people on the phone who were living wherever to try to find out where the kids were in school, and the party turned into a big crying session. We had a cry session here on Sunday. One mother sobbed that she now had a beautiful house in Madisonville, and the kids were in such a wonderful school, but it wasn’t Chalmette. You know, someone else bought a house in Abita Springs, but it wasn’t Chalmette. Another was up in Ponchatoula, and although they may on the surface appear happy, they’re not happy at all. They are all homesick [for Chalmette]. We are talking about people who are in their mid-thirties; my cousin, who is forty-eight; my mom, who is fifty-eight; and my grandmother.

  They were all here [at the restaurant–coffee house], and they all feel the same way.

  I am the fortunate one, in their eyes, because I am here. I’m living in a FEMA trailer, but I’m here. People make it a point to get together often. They are always here. They drop in to eat lunch. They hang out. My personal opinion is that many people are waiting to decide if they’ll return until this first [post-Katrina] hurricane season passes, because if everything turns out fine, it will instill in them the trust that they can live here once again. If something happens, or even a close call [occurs], that will be it for many. We unfortunately have no knowledge of what Mother Nature has in store for us. The prediction for this year is not encouraging. I was listening to the TV the other day, and they said we are in a twenty-year cycle. It will be an active period, and we’re only in the tenth year. That was all I wanted to hear. I mean, I don’t need to hear it. I’ve got enough to worry about.