Huge sigh of relief from me

While doing my nightly read of nola.com, I actually read a few things that made me heave some serious sighs of relief:

"I know New Orleanians, and once the beignets are in the oven, once the gumbo is in the pot, and red beans and rice are being served on Mondays, they'll come back," Mayor Ray Nagin said.

As he spoke, helicopters occasionally clattered overhead and fire engine sirens wailed in the distance - a soundtrack familiar to the roughly 3,000 people still burrowed in the city's unflooded homes and buildings.

"I'm tired of hearing these helicopters," the mayor said. "I want to hear some jazz." (Me tooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And some Zydeco in the Quarter...and some Acadian on Frenchman Street...)

Water continued to drain from the city. (Always good news.)

New Orleans police said they were prepared to issue passes to business owners permitting entry to the Central Business District. (Yes, plese, can we get some industry back into the town?)

Entergy officials reported that about a third of their 790,000 customers around metropolitan New Orleans were back on the power grid. (Power is good, power is very good.)

The Associated Press reported a plane carrying equipment to rebuild New Orleans' mobile phone networks took off from Sweden on Monday after waiting more than a week for a go-ahead from the United States. The shipment included network equipment donated by the Swedish cell phone giant LM Ericsson. (Wow, phone service, what a novel idea! ;-))

The military was to begin widespread spraying for mosquitoes to keep down the threat of mosquito-borne disease, particularly St. Louis and equine encephalitis and the West Nile virus. (Yay, disease prevention!)

The federal government is preparing to provide temporary housing for as many as 200,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina for the next three to five years, FEMA's housing area coordinator, Brad Gair, said Monday. (It will be awesome to see these displaced folks return to some sense of normalcy after losing everything.)

Gov. Kathleen Blanco's spokeswoman, Denise Bottcher, said there currently aren't enough people retrieving bodies, which means the dead aren't being taken care of with appropriate "dignity." (Yay, finally someone is going to care about the same dead bodies that we've been seeing over and over in pictures for two weeks now!)

Most of the property records in the basement of Orleans Parish Civil District Court are salvageable from floodwaters and may be ready to use within the next few weeks, said Stephen Bruno, the custodian of the notarial records, on Monday.
Stored in the courthouse basement, which took on nearly a foot of water during Hurricane Katrina, moisture was the biggest enemy to property records. Abstractors, who conduct title searches before a real estate transaction closes, should have access to them within the next few weeks, Bruno said.

Bruno said that he has made arrangements to store the conveyance and mortgage records at the old Jefferson Parish Courthouse in Gretna once clearance is received from the state fire marshal. (Sweet! Not only can Barry and I now buy property down there, I will also have a job that will continue past the next storm!)

During a visit to New Orleans on Monday, President Bush gave support to the idea that the city should chart its own future.

"My attitude is this: The people of New Orleans can design the vision, the people of New Orleans can lay out what New Orleans ought to look like in the future, and the federal government will help," Bush said. "I think the best policy is one in which the federal government doesn't come down and say, 'Here's what your city will look like." (Holy sheepshit, Maynard, I actually *liked* something that Bush had to say! Please people I beg you NOT to make my city into New Orleans Town at Disneyland! Side note: special thanks to Tammy for summing up what I had been thinking about the reconstruction project...)

I am so happy right now that I think I will actually sleep better than I have in weeks. I feel a strong sense that my city has not been destroyed and will come back again better and stronger than ever. Happy happy joy joy. :)

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