Mayor tells New Orleans get off rears and rebuild

By Peter Henderson

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told
citizens of “The Big Easy” city to stand up and take destiny in
their own hands as hurricane season opened on Thursday and he
started his second term in office.

Nagin began the day in the high spirits typical of the jazz
city, sweeping through the historic narrow streets of the
French Quarter in a white horse-drawn carriage surrounded by
brass bands and costumed Mardi Gras dancers on his way to be
inaugurated for a second term.

The timing of the swearing-in was symbolic for many — June
1 is the beginning of the hurricane season. One forecaster said
New Orleans, still full of wastelands of houses twisted and
destroyed by Hurricane Katrina last year, is the most likely
major U.S. city to suffer a direct hit by a storm.

But in his inaugural speech, Nagin cast the battle for the
city’s future as a challenge for individuals rather than a
question of government support or a waiting game with nature
and exhorted the city of ‘survivors’ to rebuild.

“This is The Big Easy, and sometimes we lay back a little
too much,” he said.

“Get off your duffs,” he said to shocked but welcoming
laughter from a crowd that frequently broke into applause.
“Control your own destiny … We can do this,” he added as
members of the audience shouted back, “Yes!”

He urged the press to find the good things after Katrina.

Nagin also listed a litany of complaints, from damaged
schools and lack of housing to a post-storm increase in crime,
but he challenged residents to do for themselves rather than
rely on federal, state or city leaders.

HURRICANE SEASON STARTS

Tens of thousands of people who were New Orleans residents
before Katrina have not yet returned, and some of those left in
the city voiced a mix of hope and fear about what loomed ahead
in coming months.

“God is not going to be mean enough to give us another
one,” said fortuneteller Bruce Wilson, 58, sitting in a white
straw hat outside St. Louis Cathedral before the early morning
parade.

Inside the cathedral, religious leaders asked for divine
support for Nagin’s second term and called the disasters behind
and possibly ahead a test of leadership and faith.

“We are a great city and a great people,” boomed Rev.
Michael Jacques. “We are not God’s forgotten people.”

Repairs have made the levees which broke and flooded the
city nine months ago as good or better than before Katrina hit,
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says.

The Corps built the defenses and was heavily criticized
after the storm, which killed more that 1,500 in Louisiana, but
city leaders have been more complimentary of late of the
engineers’ dash to complete repairs.

“This will probably be the safest place on the Gulf Coast
at the end of the day,” Nagin said.

Antique salesman John Hmurcik, 55, said he was not so
confident about repairs. “It all boils down to the levees,” he
said. “We’re all kind of tense, of course.”

But he said the parade showed the Mississippi River city’s
nature. “It is not unusual for New Orleans to celebrate, even
in hard times,” he said.

Although jobs appear plentiful in some sectors, the massive
destruction of housing limits who can return. Many are still
repairing houses.

One is Chef Nathedra White, 35, who lives in a trailer
while rebuilding. She might not come back to her native New
Orleans if it takes another direct hit. “I don’t know if I’m
going to stay here or leave forever,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Laura L. Myers in Florida)