As I read more and more about Katrina and New Orleans, one of my favorite books keeps coming to mind: The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California by Curt Gentry (and my copy is missing: ixixlix? ellipticcurve?). This book is mostly an analysis of the 1966 race for Governor, examining the fates and foibles of such luminaries as Pat Brown, Sam Yorty, and some guy named Ron Reagan. Actors… they’ll never make it in politics, especially as Governor.
Anyway, the book ends with a twist: A massive earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, that starts in the Imperial Valley, and ripples all the way up the coast with syphathetic quakes, until all of California west of the Fault falls into the ocean. No more Los Angeles, no more Santa Barbara, no more Hollywood, no more San Francisco. Governor Reagan is killed sitting on the john in the capitol.
The end of the book has a whole litany of things we would miss if this happened, from the Hollywood sign to agriculture to the Venice Boardwalk to… I think you get it.
Why am I thinking of this? I think, after Katrina, that New Orleans will never be the same. Historic structures will be gone. The French Quarter, as we knew and remembered it, may be trashed. No more “Inn of the Seventh Sister”. No more “Preservation Hall”. Think of the numerous historical artifacts that have been lost. Think of the trolley cars that have been damaged beyond repair. Numerous old and historical houses will have been destroyed. The history of a city lost in the blink of an eye. The city may never be the same.
So here’s to you, old Big Easy.
