Emerging from the eye of the storm

New Orleans is fighting to get back on its feet after Hurricane Katrina, reports Helen Taylor

Driving into New Orleans, one of the first things you notice are signs for the four Rs: "Recover, Rebuild, Rebirth, ReNew Orleans."

Throughout the French Quarter, T-shirts proclaim "New Orleans - proud to swim home", "New Orleans is coming back", "We're home". Families and businesses are getting back to "the new normal" eight months after Hurricane Katrina struck. But hurricane season begins on June 1, and there is talk of deserted wards, unsecured levees, empty federal funding promises, a population halved, a return of drugs and violent crime, and a dearth of tourists.

New Orleanians share a powerful sense of community. For them, the Katrina disaster feels like a bad family tragedy. Wynton Marsalis, a musician and member of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, says the hurricane was "like somebody violated your mama". Around town, a much-cited book is 1 Dead in Attic , by journalist Chris Rose. Its title refers to the scribbles federal agencies made on flooded house fronts. Rose claims many people won't name Katrina: "She is the woman who done us wrong."

Visiting New Orleans feels like bursting into a close family's home after multiple deaths. Each person you meet is in post-traumatic shock, apologising for lapses of attention, memory and humour. It is a city of dramatic narratives, often told casually. Robert, a librarian, says in passing: "I lost my whole house. I'm thinking of going to live on top of a hill somewhere real high, like Arkansas." Jerry, a contractor, recounts a story told by one hitherto-silent worker. When the waters rose, he carried his family to the loft, breaking the roof with his bare hands. His young niece was swept away while his 75-year-old mother, denouncing him for failing to swim after her, died in his arms and was later retrieved from the house, which had floated from its foundations and was caught between two trees. He told Jerry that the later nightmares of the notorious Superdome were nothing compared with this experience.

Everyone lost someone or something, and the accounts of death and destruction are hard to absorb. Many are angry that the mayor refused to allow people back home earlier to retrieve their effects. Dozens of musicians, as well as the renowned Tulane University Music Department, lost lifetime collections of instruments, sheet music, archives and memorabilia to water and mould.

Families who, in the days after the hurricane - when there was no electricity - had to make do with Army rations are cooking in trailers, on temporary stoves in living rooms or bedrooms, or relying on the kindness of neighbours and strangers. Restaurants are reopening slowly and are packed out. In this most food-obsessed of cities, people are desperate to eat well again and so wait patiently in line.

The city faces a profound restructuring, possibly changing in character from Afro-Caribbean European to Hispanic. Thousands of construction and service workers from Latin America have poured into the city to clear and rebuild, as well as to service hotels and restaurants. "Now Hiring" signs are ubiquitous, and Hispanics are prepared to work long hours, sleep in the park and, because many are illegal immigrants, they will accept poor wages and working conditions. Residents mourn the loss of the culturally and economically vital black majority, though Mayor Ray Nagin (narrowly re-elected for a second term) controversially referred to this when claiming that New Orleans would rise again as "a chocolate city".

The city's universities are also undergoing significant changes. New Orleans has long had a great higher education tradition, though its school system is poor (a major factor behind many families' failure to return). All universities closed as the hurricanes hit, and students were relocated across the country; some have stayed away, but the emotional attachment to New Orleans is strong. "I went to the University of Texas, Austin," one international relations major told me, "and the programme was terrific. But it just wasn't the same as New Orleans, and I was glad to get back." While such sentiments have encouraged most students to return, there is real alarm at the reduced numbers enrolling for 2006-07.

Two fine black universities were heavily flooded. Dillard, whose students are being taught at the Hilton Hotel in the French Quarter, faces an uncertain future, while Xavier, the only Catholic black college in the US, laid off all teaching staff and rehired only a small proportion. Fortunately, the Qatar Government has pledged money, which should help revive it.

Loyola, the Jesuit liberal arts university, discovered the joys of instant restructuring. As one of its senior managers said: "A crisis is an opportunity too good to miss." Despite experiencing little flood damage, it closed for the autumn term while its exiled administration raised funds. Lost fee revenue and continued payment of staff salaries hit hard. Ninety per cent of students returned for the spring term but everyone is still in shock. Loyola has been forced to close its renowned adult education centre, City College, and some prestigious undergraduate and graduate programmes. Faculty have been offered early retirement or relocation.

Tulane, a world-class research university that was badly flooded, is taking even more draconian measures. To howls of protest, it is closing its School of Engineering and Newcomb College, the first all-women college in the US. It is also laying off more than 100 doctors from its medical school.

The eventual impact of this diminished university presence may have much wider ramifications than are currently apparent, especially as New Orleans is experiencing a shortage of medical personnel ("No city in which to have your first heart attack," people joke), and it badly needs to nurture and retain a professional class to lead the revival.

Nonetheless, the passion everyone shares for New Orleans has produced new energies and cultural vibrancy. The Times-Picayune , a daily newspaper widely regarded as third rate before the hurricane, has just won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the disaster, undertaken on the hoof, in temporary quarters, and online since August 29, 2005, with information, contact and survivor lists, and daily obituaries. Books galore, from local and international writers, have appeared with titles such as New Orleans, Mon Amour and My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by her Sons, Daughters, and Lovers . Tony Dunbar, author of mysteries featuring Crescent City lawyer Tubby Dubonnet has just published one of the first post-Katrina novels, Tubby Meets Katrina . Loyola's New Orleans Review has produced a tribute issue, and there is a publication memorialising the maggot-filled, slogan-covered refrigerators that lined the streets for months after the storm.

Most of all, the music is returning. The annual Jazz Fest hit the town with style earlier this month and was closed with a wave from a rather sickly-looking Fats Domino - pulled alive from his Lower 9th Ward attic last September to international delight. Warm tributes and specially composed songs came from a range of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen.

For, whatever "criminal ineptitude" (Springsteen's words) allowed the levees to break over this magical city, New Orleans has many admirers as well as besotted residents. That said, there is fierce criticism of the effort by local and national bodies to rebuild the city and encourage its population to return, and of the continuing incompetence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The danger is that the city may gradually decline and lose its unique qualities. But amid the gloom there are signs of rebirth, and everywhere you hear the song Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans?

Helen Taylor is a professor at the School of English, Exeter University.

She visited New Orleans, funded by the British Academy, to investigate archives and libraries relevant to her research.

ACADEMIC EXILE

Like many of her fellow New Orleans residents, Connie Atkinson was evacuated after Hurricane Katrina. The associate director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans returned to find her uptown rented apartment not flooded, but burned. The flat had caught fire when the electricity was restored a month after the hurricane hit, and there were few fire fighters around to tackle the blaze.

Since November she has stayed with friends and is now living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer on the university campus teaching students who are also homeless and traumatised. Like many others in her position, the formaldehyde with which the trailers are saturated has given her severe allergies. Rent for unflooded apartments in the city has doubled. Atkinson is uncertain of her future.