Pictured From the Krewe du Vieux parade. Photos by Rex Wockner
Carnival season got off to a raucous and politicized start Feb. 11 with the Krewe du Vieux parade through the heavily gay Faubourg Marigny and French Quarter neighborhoods.
More than half of the 100-plus contingents took potshots—ranging from biting to lewd—at city, state and federal officials and agencies for their perceived mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The campy, gay-inclusive parade was the first of 59 Carnival parades that will take place in metro New Orleans this year—fewer than usual. The season ends with Mardi Gras on Feb. 28.
It is estimated that no more than 200,000 of New Orleans' 500,000 residents have returned to the city five and one-half months after a total evacuation was ordered, Katrina hit, the levees broke and 80 percent of the city was submerged in up to 20 feet of water.
All of the flooded parts of the city became uninhabitable but some people now have returned to many of those areas, often living in federally provided trailers next to their damaged residences or on undamaged second floors of their homes.
Basic utility services finally have been restored in all but the most devastated areas, such as Lakeview and the Lower 9th Ward, where the storm surge smashed through adjacent levees with tsunami-like force, totaling hundreds of residences.