The Rebuilding: Starting from Scratch

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As bad as things may seem, it is hard to imagine just abandoning a 1,329-sq.-mi. strip of bayous inhabited since the 1700s. The locals certainly have no intention of beating a hasty retreat. After all, they have a history of resilience: the famous Battle of New Orleans, which decisively ended the War of 1812 and sent the British home in defeat, was fought here. Indeed, by the end of the week the region's take-no-prisoners attitude seemed to be bearing some fruit on Capitol Hill, with Congress hastily approving $1 billion in disaster loans to help devastated Gulf Coast communities pay salaries when tax payments dry up. One beneficiary: New Orleans, where Mayor Ray Nagin last week had to lay off 3,000 employees. At the same time, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman was publicly saying Congress should ante up for higher levees to withstand Category 4 or 5 hurricanes--a stance long taken by St. Bernard and Orleans parishes, where Katrina's winds and waves ripped away another 5 ft. of protection.

With water and sewers still iffy onshore, the 30-year-old ferry Scotia Prince serves as St. Bernard's meeting place and dormitory. Inside, Red Cross posters (STRESSED?, they ask) compete with the hand-scrawled signs of the parish (ST. BERNARD PARISH'S REBIRTH: RETURN, REBUILD, REMAIN). Council meetings take place in the worn-looking casino, under signs for the $1 and $5 card tables. Only a handful of people show up for meetings, but the news gets out online: where to file insurance and compensation claims, when schools might open. Employees, used to sleeping on the floor and eating packaged meals ready to eat for the past month, now live onboard and dine on hot food. Every once in a while, a celebrity chef like Paul Prudhomme sends over a dish or dessert. (The warm pralines were a big hit.)

Aboard the ferry, local businessmen wheel and deal and sometimes talk like visionaries. Henry Smith, the man in charge of federal No Child Left Behind programs in St. Bernard, daydreams about building schools on stilts with dorms above them for shelter during hurricane season. Right now, he's just hoping to turn an old Wal-Mart into classrooms for some of the parish's 8,500 students. Builder Terry Tedesco, who sold pricey half-acre lots in his Woodlands development before Katrina flooded him out, is pitching ready-built homes for $150,000. "Why rebuild a house that's 60 years old with aluminum wires and termites?" he asks.

All over the devastated parish, families are trying to decide whether to stay or move on. "At first, people think they're going to fix their homes," says councilwoman Judy Hoffmeister, shaking her head as she watches a friend, Calvin Melerine, 66, shovel mud from his two-story home and ditch one piece of furniture after another. "They come in with U-Hauls, and they're lucky if they leave with a garbage bag full," she says. At her house around the block, Hoffmeister plans to rescue some bronzed baby shoes, but she turns away in tears at the door after realizing someone has already rummaged through her ruins. "There's nothing left to save here," she says. Her family, whose members lived within six blocks of one another, is scattering. Now in her 60s, she faces yet another mortgage--that is, if she can get a title search done and record it with the parish. There is no clerk at the courthouse; even the parish's legal stamps were lost.