Rebuilding the Gulf

The French Quarter prior to
reopening on Sept. 30

Editor’s Note: In late September, just weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, M&C associate editor Brendan M. Lynch packed a bag full of bottled water and turkey jerky (“I was warned there wouldn’t be much food around,” he says) and, armed with a press pass, flew down to New Orleans to spend four days touring the ravaged area. He saw the road to recovery through the eyes of local hospitality leaders and obtained unrestricted access to areas of massive destruction and scenes of great hope.

New Orleans sputtered back to life on Sept. 30, 2005 a full month after Hurricane Katrina ripped, flooded and demoralized the city and surrounding Gulf Coast. This Friday morning, the mayor had reopened the still-enchanting French Quarter for business and pleasure. Now, scores of the city’s world-famous restaurants, boutiques and bars could get back in operation. It was an especially important occasion for J. Stephen Perry, president and CEO of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. Having recently recovered from a bout of post-Katrina laryngitis, today Perry had a lot to talk about.
    “Ralph Brennan and all those restaurant families are getting ready to open as soon as tonight,” he explained during a morning interview at the Morial Convention Center. “It was killing us that for the first few weeks, most of the food was white bread and bologna. And here you are in the gastronomical capital of the world. But let me tell you, the pots of étouffée and gumbo, the grilled fish... I mean, you can smell it already coming back.”
    Behind him, workers in white coveralls and protective respiratory masks swept carpet glue and water out the front doors of the convention center. This place had been the scene of much televised suffering during the height of what could be the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. In the storm’s wake, the 1.1 million-square-foot facility has emerged with image problems Perry and the city want badly to overcome.
    “Right now they’re doing cleaning that is hospital-level,” said Perry. “That means the highest degree of cleaning and sanitation possible. We’re resurfacing every carpet and wall covering to make it absolutely brand new.”
    Perry gazed along the beige edifice of the nearly mile-long structure, which he claimed would reopen by the end of next March. “We’re still planning on going ahead with our Phase 4 expansion, on schedule. There’s no slowdown on that.”
    The CVB executive, charged with marketing New Orleans to tourists and conventioneers, spoke with the same underdog spirit that has characterized this city since Katrina. After the hardships of the storm, the Big Easy’s community, business and political leaders were now rallying to meet what likely will be remembered as the challenge of their lives.

CVB chief J. Stephen Perry
says a “hospital-level”
cleaning is under way at
New Orleans’ Morial Center.

Wanted: $250 billion
By 10:30 a.m., Perry was late to a morning meeting with aides to Louisiana’s U.S. Senate delegation at the Hilton New Orleans Airport hotel. He soon was speeding west on I-10, past the police roadblocks that still prevented home and business owners from entering many outlying New Orleans neighborhoods. Unlike in the central core of the city, it would be at least another week before residents in heavily flooded areas like Eastern New Orleans, Gentilly, Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward could go back in to assess damage. Estimates varied, but many said half the buildings and homes in the city might eventually be razed. Business leaders in New Orleans were wondering where badly needed employees would live.
    Perry pulled into the Hilton. “Big day,” he said. “I get about five minutes with Senator Vitter to talk about the $1 billion that involves us; we’re going to break that number down.”
    For the State of Louisiana to make a comeback, it will require generous help from the federal government. Indeed, Louisiana’s two senators have proposed a $250 billion aid package for their state and other storm-stricken communities of the Gulf Coast. Of that, fully $1 billion would go to the hospitality industry a vital link in the area’s economic health. (In 2004, approximately 10.1 million visitors came to New Orleans alone, spending an estimated $4.9 billion and fueling hospitality jobs for more than 80,000 residents.)
    Perry proceeded to outline his CVB’s budget priorities in a closed-door meeting with Vitter. Afterward, he said the senators’ staffs also were crafting a tourism-specific aid request to introduce before Congress.
Continuing at the Hilton, Perry, Senator Vitter and local industry leaders assembled before the TV cameras to announce their commitment to “return to Louisiana all of our companies’ operations of whatever kind that were here prior to the recent hurricanes.”

WHO WILL GO BACK?

With images of devastation still lingering, will planners shy away from the hurricane belt during peak storm season?
    The DOIM/AKM Conference, a U.S. Army information technology convention, is not intimidated. The 3,000-attendee event, sponsored by the Fairfax, Va.-based Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, met in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in late summer 2004 and 2005. Both years, a hurricane forced organizers to end the meeting early. Yet, the association is coming back in 2006, again in August.
    Some of the exhibitors were a bit wary, admits Steve Strippoli, director of events for AFCEA. “But I don’t hear many people complaining. The price is reasonable, and it’s a nice place to be.”
    “Thousands of meetings are held in hurricane season, and we might see eight or 10 storms, not all of which will make landfall,” notes Victor Lopez, above, the Coral Gables, Fla.-based senior vice president, field operations, for Hyatt Hotels Corp. In terms of meetings being affected, “As a percentage, it doesn’t even register on the radar,” he says.
    However, Bjorn Hanson, New York City-based global industry partner, hospitality and leisure, for PricewaterhouseCoopers, says planners are cautious, especially after tumultuous years like 2004 and 2005. But time heals those worries, he adds. “If there’s not another major hurricane for one or two generations of job turnover four to eight years this effect will diminish.”
    Lopez points to Grand Cayman as evidence of such resilience. A year after Hurricane Ivan devastated the island, hotel business was again booming, even in hurricane season. “It’s amazing how fast things get back to normal,” he says. -- JONATHAN VATNER

Hotel revival
Stephen Perry’s next stop: a luncheon downtown with J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott Hotels International. Marriott was in New Orleans to celebrate reopening the 487-room JW Marriott New Orleans. The hotel on Canal Street sits kitty-corner from looted shops and two cars crushed by a building collapse. But because the property emerged from the storm in pristine condition, today dozens of chefs, maids and front-desk workers in Marriott T-shirts were celebrating outside on the street. Theirs would be the first of 15 local Marriott hotels to come back online.
    Hotels are perhaps the most important industry to New Orleans’ recovery. During Katrina, they were lifeboats in the flooded city; afterward they gave beds to rescue workers and volunteers. Soon, the Crescent City’s hotels once again will accommodate tourists and business travelers whose dollars are acutely needed.
    During the reopening event, J.W. Marriott Jr. told M&C he had a message for planners: “All our hotels in New Orleans will be open soon. So start thinking about meetings in New Orleans for next spring and summer. We’ll be ready to take good care of you.”
    The hotel workers cheered as Perry took to a podium to buck their spirits higher. “We want you to know that we have total commitment to you to get these tourists back, to help every one of you keep your jobs going strong,” he said. “By spring, we’re going to have back the New Orleans we love!”
    The Marriotts were to be just a portion of the hotels reopening around the Crescent City. By the end of October, functioning properties were expected to include the Doubletree New Orleans, Hotel Le Cirque, Hotel Monteleone, Loews New Orleans, Le Pavillon, Sheraton New Orleans, W French Quarter, W New Orleans, and all Hilton, Omni and Sonesta properties.
    New Orleans’ flagship hotels have revived faster than expected. “It’s unbelievable,” said William Langkopp, executive vice president of the Louisiana Hotel & Lodging Association, at the Marriott event. “This is my first trip back, and to see the life, to see the people it’s more than I expected. I know we’ll be back.”

“What do I tell conventioneers and planners?
I say, ‘Plan to come back, because we’re
coming back.” Mayor C. Ray Nagin

The mayor speaks
Following the JW Marriott reopening, Perry hurried along Canal Street, past big whirring dehumidifiers and a Salvation Army food truck, to the 1,110-room Sheraton New Orleans. There, Mayor C. Ray Nagin was holding court to announce the members of his “Bring New Orleans Back!” advisory commission. 
    The Sheraton was a good symbol of the city’s resolve to recover. During the storm, the staff at this skyscraper hotel was cool under fire, with a large, nonprofit meeting in-house. Too late to evacuate the group, the hotel instructed guests to move to interior rooms and fill their bathtubs with fresh water. A security firm, Blackwater USA, actually rappelled onto the scene from helicopters to secure the hotel.
    In the storm’s aftermath, the Sheraton gave rooms to FEMA, contractors and news organizations. The hotel’s staff was living at the property, too.
But, like other functioning New Orleans hotels, the Sheraton was losing money. “It’s $30,000 a day just to bring in water,” said a spokesperson. “It’s a matter of keeping the hotel open, keeping mold out, preserving employment and helping the city to get back up.”
    Outside the mayor’s press conference, Stephen Perry embraced Blaine Kern, a man better known as “Mr. Mardis Gras,” whose firm manufactures elaborate Mardi Gras parade floats. “I just had a conference with the five biggest krewes,” Kern excitedly told Perry. “Everybody is on go, from Rex to Orpheus, to Endymion and Alla. I’m asking everybody to please come to the Mardi Gras, ride a float for a time they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.”
    Back inside with the press, Mayor Nagin emerged to announce the members of his commission, including jazz great Wynton Marsalis and more than a few business players with ties to the White House and Congress.

Damage from Katrina along
New Orleans’ Canal Street

    Along with housing and other issues, Nagin stressed the importance of the local hospitality industry: “We’re committed to returning the hospitality and restaurant sector and will definitely do whatever it takes,” he told M&C. “We’ve got crews cleaning up, and we’re reopening the convention center. What do I tell conventioneers and planners? I say, ‘Plan to come back, because we’re coming back.’”
    Days later, the mayor asked the state for a zone on Canal Street where hotels with more than 500 rooms could operate Las Vegas-style casinos. The measure would greatly benefit the Sheraton, the large Marriott across the street and other major properties operating at a loss. At press time, the legislature was weighing the idea.

In the French Quarter
Perry ended his working day in the French Quarter. Just 24 hours earlier,
this world-famous party neighborhood was more or less a district of ghosts, patrolled by National Guard units and the New Orleans police. While power and water were partially restored, there were still piles of debris and trash bags full of reeking, rotten food along the sidewalks.
    Yet now, Perry was optimistic about finding one of the many restaurants set to reopen. First he ducked into Bacco, a well-known Brennan family restaurant on Chartres Street. Alas, the eatery wouldn’t be ready for another 24 hours. “We’ll do an abbreviated menu, one meal through lunch and dinner,” said Chris Montero, chef de cuisine. “We’re looking to help the people who are helping the city. Luckily, we have very strong relationships with key suppliers.”
    Perry achieved his goal at the Desire Oyster Bar in the Royal Sonesta hotel on Bourbon Street. Tonight’s supper would be the first served since Katrina. The CVB chief watched eagerly as the staff brought out a hot buffet of Big Easy classics: shrimp Creole, red beans and rice, and a steaming pot of gumbo.

A casino barge atop a
Holiday Inn Express
in Biloxi, Miss. 

East of Orleans
New Orleans’ tourism infrastructure the French Quarter, Garden District, central business district, airport, seaport and big cultural institutions escaped total destruction from Katrina when the storm jogged to the east just before landfall. The worst damage in the city was from failed levees, largely a man-made catastrophe. If Katrina had hit the city with its full-force 145 mph winds and 28-foot storm surge, there might have been nothing from which to rebuild.
    The Gulf Coast tourist and group travel destinations of Gulfport and Biloxi, 105 miles east of New Orleans, were right in Katrina’s bull’s-eye. These coastal resorts in Harrison County, Miss., bore the brunt of the hurricane’s right hook the most powerful part of the storm; 87 area deaths and untold damage were the results.
    Prior to Katrina, people flocked here for white sand beaches and casinos, returning for the friendly locals, good restaurants, historic homes, deep-sea fishing and golf. A flowering hospitality industry sprang up along both sides of Highway 90, the area’s main drag. By 2004, local casinos, hotels and restaurants employed 17,000 residents and represented 10 percent of Mississippi’s tax base.

Steve Richer of the
Mississippi Gulf Coast CVB
surveys the ruins of his office.

    Steve Richer, executive director of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau, oversaw this stunning growth. On this early October day, however, he was tallying the losses, beginning with his own. “Three big trees fell onto my house,” he said over coffee at one of the few area restaurants to open since Katrina. “A foot and a half of water came in, ruining furniture and my library.”     Yet Richer thought himself lucky. Of 26 staffers at the bureau, five had no homes left at all. “As for our board of directors,” he said, “four of nine lost their homes totally. Our attorney did, too.”
    After coffee, Richer drove down past the National Guard checkpoint and the railway. There, along Highway 90, the enormous scope of the catastrophe revealed itself. “There were all kinds of hotels, restaurants and businesses all along this strip that we’re passing now,” he said. “And obviously, you can see that there’s nothing there.”
    Besides the gutted frames of buildings and heaps of twisted steel, the first jarring sight in Gulfport was the enormous Copa Casino barge, which had come a full half mile from its offshore mooring to land in a Chiquita fruit off-loading lot. Nearby, Harrah’s Grand Casino Gulfport looked bombed-out from the storm surge, while the property’s 36,000-square-foot Grand Events Center was stripped to its frame.
    “We’re on the boulevard of broken dreams,” said Richer, driving past the downed power lines, splintered trees and ruins of antebellum homes. Unlike modern event space or hotels, these 19th-century houses, filled with antiques, were irreplaceable and gave the area its historical identity.
    “There’s a tremendous amount of people without homes,” Richer explained. “Of the 150,000 buildings extant on Aug. 28 in the six southern counties of Mississippi, 50,000 are gone and 85,000 are damaged. Considerable rebuilding needs to take place.”
    Much of the tourism infrastructure and a good deal of the 500,000 square feet of meeting space along this beach front was obliterated, too. On top of that, $1.5 billion in new development  for Gulfport/Biloxi now was in doubt. A new Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, scheduled to open this past September, was completely destroyed. Also, the nearly finished $32 million Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, designed by noted architect Frank Gehry, was substantially bulldozed when the Grand Casino Biloxi barge blew ashore.
    “We had billions in planned new development,” Richer said. “Condos, expansion of the convention center, new piers for the replica schooners in Biloxi. Now, just to get back to the starting point is going to take billions.”

The Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum and Convention Center

The casino controversy
The most surreal sight on Highway 90 is where the barge comprising the President Casino Broadwater Resort traveled a half-mile from its moorings and took aim at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center.  Luckily for the center, it was guarded by a cluster of historic live oak trees which, because of their extensive root system, withstood the onslaught. But the oaks caused the rampaging barge to ricochet along the highway and crush the 148-room Holiday Inn Express Biloxi Beachfront Coliseum next door. 
    The gaming industry was understandably reluctant to rebuild in the waters off Biloxi and Gulfport, and the Mississippi State Senate for a time was deadlocked on a dry-land casino measure, which met resistance among the state’s religious and social conservatives. Yet, the onshore casinos bill passed the senate and was signed by Mississippi’s Governor Haley Barbour on Oct. 17.    

CVB in ruins
Steve Richer pulled up to the offices of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitor Bureau or rather, the place where the bureau’s building once stood. He stepped onto a concrete slab left behind and pointed out where his office used to be. “Our desks, computers, media kits and promotional materials that’s all gone,” he said. “Our photo images of the coast were saved on off-site computers. The only problem is a lot of them are images of things that aren’t here anymore.”
    Steel frame and sheet metal that once constituted the CVB building covered several wooded acres behind the site. Furniture, insulation, appliances, boats, automobiles and other detritus lay strewn in the woods as well.
    Richer peered under a bent I-beam. “There’s very little that’s retrievable,” he said. “This is a massive mess; everything is all broken up. I’m sure a lot of it was washed into the Gulf of Mexico, too.”
    But there will not be much in the way of CVB work anyway until hotels here are rebuilt and running. Most properties have canceled group business through 2006; in the meantime, lost business due to Katrina is expected to total about $2 billion a year.
    There were bright spots: The 1,086-room Imperial Palace in Biloxi was not badly damaged and should open by the end of this year (although FEMA is taking up many rooms there); likewise, the 750-room Isle of Capris hotel complex should reopen soon. But for most properties here, the road back is long.
    “We’re going to see a lot of losses in terms of meetings, conventions and leisure travel,” said Richer. “Right now, we have about 2,000 hotel rooms of what was previously about 18,000.”

Down, but not out
Richer drove east on Highway 90 to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, where county officials and local residents had set up a distribution facility. There, under tents, volunteers handed out ice, water, food, diapers, toiletries and clothing to families victimized by Katrina. Some of Richer’s CVB staff was deployed here, and upon arriving, he joined them in the relief effort.
    Like the hotels in New Orleans, this convention center and coliseum facility served as a lifeboat for its community. Although the 11,000-seat arena sits along the beach, it was declared a shelter of last resort by authorities. During the lead-up to Katrina’s landfall, many locals, failing to heed evacuation warnings, arrived here.

“Large banks of heavy
glass doors were exploding&
It was constant fury.”
Bill Holmes

    Bill Holmes, the center’s executive director, moved as many people as possible to shelters on higher ground. But at a certain point, the onrushing storm made escape impossible. “We had approximately 50 people here, babies and pets, too,” Holmes said. “We were charging our cell phones, topping off our emergency generators. Storm chasers were showing up and telling us we were at ground zero.”
    Before long, Holmes recalled, “Large banks of heavy glass doors were exploding, the wind was whipping the siding off and tearing at the insulation between the walls. It was constant fury.”
    Next, a 28-foot storm surge engulfed the building and flooded the first floor to 51 inches. The facility suffered about $20 million in damages.
    Once the storm passed, the center became a staging area for military relief efforts. “We had the Mississippi National Guard,” Holmes said. “We had the Seebees from Norfolk, Va. We had three Canadian ships parked 25 miles off the coast, and they brought us 84 people the first day. They were like ants, walking in lines, moving our kitchen and pulling our office equipment out of the mud.”
    Holmes, dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt, strode through the damaged coliseum into the 180,000-square-foot convention center, where bags full of donated clothing were piled up. “We had beautiful carpet in here and a dance floor,” he noted. “But when I came back after Katrina, it was covered in water, and massive sea nettles with four-foot tentacles were floating in among our tables.
    “This whole area had been fine-tuned like an international prize fighter,” added Holmes, a former boxer, recalling the pre-storm days. “We were going to the top. This area went from 6,800 rooms to 18,000 rooms, with another 7,000 condo/hotel rooms already approved. We had three or four more casino projects ready to come online. We were humming. And then, all of a sudden, we got knocked out and put into a coma. That’s the best way to describe Katrina.”

Katrina tore fine Biloxi
homes to splinters.

The new normal
As Holmes toured his facility, cars packed with families pulled along, their drivers calling out and asking where to get water and ice. Holmes directed everyone to the distribution center on the front lawn. Then he walked to the tents to check in on the operation. He found Steve Richer working alongside his convention sales manager, Mike Chamberlain. Here was the recovery work of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau.
    “Our CVB background lends itself well to this,” Chamberlain said, as he, Holmes and Richer handed out supplies and assisted a local women named Kathleen Smiley, who had organized mountains of donated clothing into what looked very much like a retail store set up in a tent. Smiley said she did this “so people would have dignity” when looking for clothing, rather than having to scrounge though trash bags.    
    “Right now, people feel like they can bring everything back,” Richer said. “People are taking strength from each other and the people here helping us. The size and scope of this disaster are so mind-boggling, you can’t really digest the vastness. Right now, we’re in what people call the ‘new normal.’ It’s a pretty tough new normal.”