Despite ongoing struggles, New Orleans ready for AAO

While the city still faces numerous problems with reconstruction, population loss and crime, the convention and tourism business is firmly back on its feet.

NEW ORLEANS — The American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting is returning to New Orleans this year, despite the damage caused to the city by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The last images broadcast around the world of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center here in the late summer of 2005 were ones of devastation – residents trapped by the flooding, waiting for food and water, displaced from their homes.

Today, some semblance of the once-thriving city has been restored – meeting venues, hotels and nearby restaurants are back in business. The convention center now hosts a full roster of events, from corporate meetings to association conferences. New Orleans has extended a warm welcome to the AAO and other groups; the convention industry has come back to life.

“In many ways it’s a tale of two cities,” J. Steven Perry, the president of the New Orleans Tourism Board, said in an interview with Ocular Surgery News. “Historic New Orleans and the central business district are not only intact, but in many ways fresher.”

Mr. Perry speaks proudly of the city and the work that has been done to welcome back the major events and conferences that have made New Orleans so well loved. The Sugar Bowl in January hosted an estimated 800,000 visitors in the city. New Orleans also recently celebrated Mardi Gras again with hotel reservations up 20% to 25% over the previous year, according to Mr. Perry.

“The French Quarter looks cleaner than it has looked in about 30 years. We are very excited about the Quarter and how it looks,” Mr. Perry said.

“For someone coming in to town for a meeting, they won’t notice any difference, except lots of renovations and restorations and newer and fresher products.”

As for restaurant-goers, Mr. Perry said if anything there has been an improvement due to the storm, as it brought back many of the major chefs who began cooking in their restaurants again as opposed to running the restaurants from afar.

The convention center itself has gone through a $60 million renovation.

“Everything has been replaced, and it is literally like being in a new convention center,” he said.

The convention center has undergone a complete $60 million renovation. Images: Mullin DW, OSN

A challenged city

In the other New Orleans, outside of the historic district, reverberations from the destruction and anguish caused by Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flood can still be felt. Abandoned houses, littered streets and a faltering economy are reminders that while the city is on the mend, it continues to need the country’s support, attention and involvement.

“The good news for us is that conference and tourist venues are fully restored; the French Quarter is back, and the hotels are back,” said Stephen D. Klyce, PhD, of the department of ophthalmology at Louisiana State University. “But the city really isn’t open now; the city isn’t back. It will be a number of years before it comes back, and it is going to be a different city.”

One of the most significant challenges facing New Orleans is that of retaining residents. Many of the residents who fled the city after Hurricane Katrina have not returned, and many who returned or did not leave previously are leaving now.

The 2006 Louisiana Health and Population Survey Report, released in January 2007, estimated there were only 191,139 residents in Orleans Parish, which covers the downtown area, down from 444,515 in 2004. This number had dropped from a previous report in November of 200,665.

“Sixteen months after Katrina, 285,000 homes are still destroyed or unlivable,” Dr. Klyce said during the Hawaiian Eye meeting. “Less than half of the population is back. The government grants, the billions of dollars of your tax money meant to help rebuild New Orleans, are basically in limbo.”

In an effort to better understand the needs of its residents, the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center conducted a November study titled “Keeping People: The 2006 Quality of Life Survey in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.”

According to this study, a large number of residents in these two districts are considering leaving the city. The study identified the issues that must be given high priority in order to retain these residents, including:

• Controlling crime;
• More proactive government and curtailing of government bureaucracy;
• Fixing levees and flood prevention; and
• Fixing infrastructure.

According to the study, a lack of jobs and career opportunities are also among the factors that may influence residents to leave. While the study reports that residents are less worried than they were in April 2006 and that “everyday life is not as difficult as it was in April,” the study also found that the mood and depression level of residents have not improved. Residents surveyed said they considered crime to be the biggest problem in both parishes. In Jefferson Parish, other issues rated negatively by residents were traffic, drainage and flood control, and the availability of housing.

In the April 2006 study, two-thirds of the survey respondents said they were worried about what would happen to them in the future. By October, that number had dropped to approximately half of all residents, but this was data was still concerning to the researchers.

“Having one-half of the residents worried about what is going to happen to them is still rather high,” the report stated. “Americans are normally fairly optimistic about their futures.”

Difficulty in getting medical care was one area that had not improved from the April study. Making home repairs was cited as the greatest difficulty in everyday life.

Another well-publicized problem facing the city is the crime rate. The crime rate has been on the rise due to numerous factors, such as a reduced police force and overloaded jail and judicial systems. Mayor Ray Nagin has requested that the 300 National Guardsmen and 60 state troopers assigned to help patrol New Orleans remain there through the summer.

Mr. Perry counters that New Orleans’ crime problems have virtually no impact on tourists.

“It is still one of the safest cities in the world for tourists,” he said.

“My wife and I often walk from our house in the Warehouse District [the convention center location] to the French Quarter, and we haven’t had any problems,” he said. “Like any urban environment, you need to use common sense at night.”

In the French Quarter, while sleepy during the day, the majority of businesses and restaurants are open and are getting back on their feet.

Remembering the storm

Dr. Klyce, a longtime resident of the city, recalled the moment he realized that he and his family would need to evacuate New Orleans.

“The morning before landfall, we got up early, about 6 in the morning, and I got online and started to look at the weather patterns and steering currents,” he said. “It took just one look at this picture to know that we really couldn’t stay there.”

The storm at that point had strengthened to a Category 5 and was about 350 miles in diameter. Dr. Klyce and his family gathered some clothes and left within the hour.

“The next morning, the storm came ashore, producing a devastating path of destruction three states wide,” he said. “The storm – as had been predicted 10 years before – overtopped the levees, went over to the east, and the winds came down and pushed the water up into the lake. Then it pushed it down into the city, flooding most of New Orleans.”

Dr. Klyce was lucky to live on high ground, so his house was largely intact. He said it was difficult to get into the city in order to find out the status of his home.

“One of the problems was that after this storm hit, the New Orleans officials kept everybody out of the city, and so even the Red Cross was not permitted to enter,” he said. “This was the biggest frustration.”

Dr. Klyce’s country home in Pass Christian, Miss., sustained significant damage and was bulldozed, he said.

“Our neighbor’s stairs were in our front yard,” he said. “Everything in the house was basically destroyed.”

Dr. Klyce’s sailboat, Dom Perignon, was also badly damaged by the hurricane. The boat was found a few hundred feet from where it was supposed to be docked, he said.

“When we were allowed back in, we were able to retrieve the boat, haul it off the boat it was sitting on and put it in the water,” he said. “We were eventually able get it to a boat yard, where even 16 months later, the boat sits being repaired.”

The only visible remembrance of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is this memorial, directly across the street from the convention center.

Bowed, but not broken

Dr. Klyce said the loss of residents and the profound economic setbacks caused by Hurricane Katrina have impeded the city’s progress toward recovery.

“The economy is so collapsed that Marguerite had to search around for a new place to move her refractive surgical practice,” he said, referring to his wife, OSN Refractive Surgery Section Member Marguerite B. McDonald, MD. “But Marguerite and I are back, and we are still going to our meetings and living our lives.”

Dr. McDonald has joined Henry D. Perry, MD, and Eric D. Donnenfeld, MD, at Ophthalmic Consultants of Long Island, Dr. Klyce said. He added that Hurricane Katrina provided a powerful wake-up call to the entire country about emergency preparedness.

“It took a major storm to hit our country to make us realize how incredibly unprepared we really are for such disasters,” he said, “but it takes more than a storm to still our spirits. New Orleans is bowed, but not broken. Please come to New Orleans to AAO this fall, and see for yourself.”

Mr. Perry is even more positive about the prospects for New Orleans.

“The mood in the city is incredibly upbeat,” Mr. Perry said. “You can see it in the faces of people in the streets and people in the restaurants. You have a sense that New Orleans has turned the corner.”

For more information:

• J. Steven Perry, president and CEO of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, can be reached at 504-566-5049; fax: 504-566-5087; e-mail: sperry@neworleanscvb.com.
• Stephen D. Klyce, PhD, can be reached at LSU Eye Center, Suite B, 2020 Gravier St., New Orleans, LA 70112; 504-412-1329; fax: 504-412-1315; e-mail: sklyce@klyce.com.

• David W. Mullin is Executive Editor of the international editions of OSN.