The Conference is over and its 5pm on Wednesday 24th August. Hot and cloudless sky. I am on the way to the airport. The news on the radio is on...

'Hurricane Katrina developing in the Gulf, is expected to hit US mainland in a few days. Exact course not yet known. We will keep you posted...'

Its Friday night and and I am passing through New Jersey stopping off to say hi to Jasvinder, Birinder & Jessie. Hurricane Katrina is headed to New Orleans and panic has set in. By now it would have been too late.

Sunday Morning Jasvinder calls me and suggests I call Mom and thank her for all the prayers she has made on behalf of all of us and perhaps helped me with my miraculous escape from the Hurricane and New Orleans.

But...

New Orleans was a great experience before Katrina.

Many of the Buildings in the photos alongside will now have been completely submerged. The tour through the Swamp is now closed, this was in Slidell, which was directly on the route of the Hurricane. After almost two weeks I finally managed to talk to the owner by phone, and he informed me that the Lake road was closed and they had been submerged but were all alive. The Swamp has changed its shape and the Pearl River now takes a different route. The Driver who picked me up from the hotel, is now in Houston, lucky to be alive.

The French Quarter was full of life when I was there, with really great restaurants and lot of loud music, and a 'movida' (or 'movement' which implies night life) that many Spanish cities would have been proud of. There were still one or two traditional Jazz places, like the Preservation Hall, which were still trying maintain a tradition in the midst of a lot of Blues and other styles of music, which appeared to be taking over Bourbon Street (I suspect named by the Spaniards after the famous Borbon name from France & Spain). And as you might suspect Louisiana is named after the then French Royals Louis and perhaps his wife.

The Garden district, where the rich planters mansions still exist, is probably still intact and I hope the Commander's Palace is still dishing out gourmet meals with a wonderful setting, just like the ones I was treated to.

Click here to goto a huge slide show of Hurricane Katrina on Yahoo, so you can compare with what I saw!

Arvinder

September 2005.