I decided to take a trip to New Orleans last weekend to see how things were going and to visit the French Quarter which I've been wanting to do for some time now. So I booked a little weekend getaway at a hotel near the French Quarter on Magazine Street through expedia.com. I had heard the Quarter was not devastated the way parts of the city were and had been able to come back quite well and based upon what I saw that is true. What I didn't expect was the lack of crowds. On a Saturday morning the airport was strangely empty. At lunchtime the RiverWalk was sparse at best other than the food court and they shut the whole place down at 6:00pm. Of course, this made visiting the Quarter quite pleasant actually. No madding crowds to fight. Bourbon Street was quite crowded Saturday night as expected. It was very much like a spring-break crowd it seemed. But other than that it was quite easy to find a table at restaurants, even at Cafe' du Monde.

The Jackson Brewery is only about half leased. They've shut down the third floor and the second floor has many empty store fronts. Locals, who now mark time by "before the storm" and "after the storm", say there is a big shortage of workers and housing and that prices have gone way up on most things. Purportedly dish washers are making $10 per hour.

There was still plenty of music to be heard all around the Quarter both in the streets and in the clubs. There are far fewer artists around Jackson Square than I remember. They are being replaced by fortune tellers these days. The Garden District is beautiful as ever with it's stately homes.

If all you did was go to the French Quarter you'd be hard pressed to know the city had been so devastated nearly two years ago with one exception. Next to the SuperDome the Hyatt Regency hotel has not been touched since the storm. It is fenced off and remains a dilapidated shell. Also, you might notice that t-shirts and banners all over the area broadcast the "rebuild, renew" slogan that the city has implemented. Children's artwork on display at the RiverWalk expressed this theme in ways that only children could present.

As you get into the neighborhoods to the north and east you begin to see the devastation that still exists. House after house is in ruins and lies empty. There are still hundreds of FEMA trailers scattered throughout the city. An occasional pile of trash lies by the street. Eerily, many homes, even occupied ones, still have the cryptic markings of rescuers who came by in the weeks after the storm looking for survivors indicating the date of the search and the numbers of live and dead, humans and pets.

Money promised from Washington seems to have a hard time finding New Orleans. The feds blame it on typical Louisiana corruption. The "Road Home" program needs more money. Not enough schools are open for the residents who have moved back.

"The President cares more about Baghdad than New Orleans" the locals say. Some feel there has been a racist undertone to the lack of real effort and results to rebuilding the city. It's hard to disagree with those sentiments when you see how freely money flows to Iraq in tens of billion dollar chunks while still New Orleans struggles to get any.

So, I encourage you to visit the Big Easy and spend a little money to help out our neighbors to the east in what is easily the most unique city in the country. But don't just be a typical tourist. Talk to the locals and you'll get a sense of the incredible hardship that has been dropped on this city and it's people and offer them what help you can even if it's only your prayers.