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Haves, Have-Nots Play Out In New
Orleans
By Brad Parks
09/04/05 "NNS" -- -- NEW ORLEANS -- At the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter, dinner the last few nights has consisted of grilled tilapia, bow-tie noodles with tomato basil sauce, a T-bone steak and a nice red wine to wash it down.
It's being prepared by two of the Bourbon Street hotel's chefs, who are using propane grills to prepare meals for the 31 staff members who have stayed behind to protect the 500-room hotel in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"We're eating like kings," said Gary Davis, the hotel's electronic technician. "We've got to eat it all before it goes bad."
Less than half a mile away, at the New Orleans Convention Center, Sadique Jabbar's first meal Friday was a bag of Cheetos someone gave her around 11 a.m.
"You know the only reason we've been fed?" Jabbar said. "Some men out of prison have been breaking into buildings, getting food for us and bringing it back here."
Even under normal circumstances in this city -- like most cities -- the disparity between the haves and have-nots is broad. After Katrina, it's cavernous.
The Convention Center has become the symbol for the failure of authority in this city. Evacuees there went days with no water or food. Children are crying. People are passed out from the heat. A dead body has sat outside in a chair for days, baking in the sun until someone finally put a bedspread over it.
The Royal Sonesta is the opposite extreme.
The lobby looks as if it could receive guests at any moment. Generators keep some of the appliances in operation, including a refrigerator, a television and several large air circulating fans. They even have ice for cold drinks.
The director of security, Joel Smith, spends his nights with a gun in his hand on guard against looters, but his days taking quick dips in the hotel pool.
"Yeah, we have it pretty rough," he said. "All we need is the pool bar opening up and we'll be great."
At the Royal Sonesta, when they need to use the bathroom, they use a bucket full of pool water to make the toilet flush.
At the Convention Center, the stench from the bathrooms is overpowering. Feces covers the floors. After five days, no one bothers using them anymore.
"I'm urinating on the street in front of people," Constance Ray said. "It's like we're animals or something."
At the Royal Sonesta, the hotel employees and two German tourists still there are sleeping on thick mattresses covered with clean sheets.
At the Convention Center, Diane Lee and her family have been sleeping on the sidewalk rather than sleep inside near the dead bodies.
"We're living like dogs," Lee said. "And we're being left to die like dogs."
At the Royal Sonesta, the security is well taken care of. They locked and nailed shut all the entrances except for the main one, which is covered by chains at night. During the day, two employees stand outside to discourage trespassers.
"We have weapons," said Hans Wandfluh, the hotel's general manager. "And we are prepared to use them."
Police arrived in the French Quarter in force on Thursday, manning nearly every intersection with a pair of armed officers. While a Walgreen's around the corner from the Royal Sonesta was cleaned out, most of the French Quarter was spared from serious looting. Some hotels, like the Royal Sonesta, have a few employees guarding them. Others, like the St. Louis across the street, have been abandoned and taken over by the homeless.
There has been no such police presence at the Convention Center.
"Last night, two girls were being raped," Valerie Keen said. "They were screaming, `Help, help,' but no one helped them."
At the Royal Sonesta, they were able to evacuate all the guests -- except for the two German tourists who wanted to stay -- by late Tuesday night. Wandfluh said he "moved heaven and Earth" to get two buses in from Houston, and the rest left in their own cars. During the guests' last dinner at the hotel, Wandfluh made sure there was live music.
"For the fun of it, I asked the piano player to play the theme song from Titanic," Wandfluh said.
At the Convention Center, there has been no escape. A few buses came in early Tuesday morning and were quickly overwhelmed. As of Friday afternoon, no more buses had shown up.
What's more, the people say they have not been allowed to leave. If they try to walk up the ramp to the West Bank Expressway, they say police with guns shoo them back down. They are literally trapped.
"We got kinfolk who would come down here and get us, but the police won't let them in," Lavan McDonald said. "This is worse than the penitentiary. At least there, they give you a glass of water."
At the Royal Sonesta, they don't particularly want to leave.
"We're living in a beautiful palace," Wandfluh said. "We really have nothing to complain about."
Brad Parks is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at
bparks@starledger.com
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