Treme Premiere

There are probably a dozen Treme blogs out there (and countless more New Orleans ones), so I don't feel like I need to burden you with summaries of each episode as they go by. You can check out a few great resources at nola.com, or if you are looking for lists of the various songs and artists featured in this great show, there are plenty of places to look.

This is a personal journal of watching the first fictional television show to seriously address New Orleans after the greatest disaster to ever hit that city. I live in New Orleans. I lived in New Orleans through Katrina, although I was lucky enough to evacuate on Sunday before the first rain drops began to fall.

The point of this blog is to give people who've never seen New Orleans, or who maybe don't really remember it all that well, to get an idea of the places mentioned in David Simon's HBO show, Treme. I plan on visiting the bars, restaurants, hotels, and other areas that play a role (big or small) in this show.

I remember praying the night before the storm was to make landfall. I'm not religious. I reserve my chats with God for times when I really think that he would be interested in the topic of conversation. I probably caught Him at a bad time---no doubt his line was ringing off the hook that night. But I asked if He could please spare New Orleans; please let the storm pass by, not hit the city directly in the face like a haymaker balled around a roll of quarters.

God has a sense of humor. The storm actually missed by the narrowest of margins and made landfall to the east, between New Orleans and Gulfport. A few hours of cautious relief went by that morning until I realized that while my prayer may have been answered, like most sweetheart deals, the devil is in the details.

Treme has done one thing perfectly well. I don't recall even once hearing anyone mention the name of the storm. That bitch don't deserve to have a name, and besides, we all know what you're talking about. Did you evacuate? You get any water? You comin back for good?

That old trick of parking on the neutral ground---"New Orleanian for median"---didn't work out so well for everyone.

This shot should explain why the pilot's pristine white Superdome, seen when Lambreaux (Clarke Peters) and his daughter are crossing the GNO bridge, elicits a few chuckles from locals. The Superdome was a mess and stayed that way for months. Like many other things in the city---the streetcar, functional traffic lights, fresh produce---the dome stayed out of commission for many months into 2006 and beyond.

(Even now, when you look up at the ceiling from your seats inside the dome, you can see holes in the interior lining.)

Check this floodmap out. It's pretty essential to understand exactly what parts of the city got ruined.

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/depths.swf