After Hurricane Katrina floored this city, there was widespread hope that Mardi Gras would yank New Orleans back to its feet, helping to reclaim its spirit, its tourists and its economy.
The two weeks of Mardi Gras parades and parties have for decades been the city's binding cord, bringing together all segments of society and thousands of outsiders for a mix of the sacred and the profane.
But with planning for the February Carnival season now under way, Mardi Gras has been plagued by harsh financial realities, indecision, lowered expectations and the possibility that this year's parade lineup could be absent some of its most popular krewes, or social clubs.
After the city announced plans for smaller and fewer Mardi Gras parades, dissatisfied krewes protested.
Responding to the pressure, an advisory panel to Mayor Ray Nagin recommended on Wednesday that an additional weekend be included in an abbreviated Mardi Gras parade season.
The mayor is expected to agree to a pre-Lenten Carnival season of eight days, instead of the customary 12, culminating Feb. 28 on Mardi Gras Day [known in English as Fat Tuesday].
Yet while city officials and merchants are desperate for symbols of recovery and renewal, some residents are concerned about the message that will be projected when New Orleans holds a giant party in a hurricane's catastrophic wake.
The coming Mardi Gras will celebrate 150 years of New Orleans's parade tradition and, officials hope, provide a fiscal Bloody Mary for a hung-over economy that has suffered a shutdown of vital tourism and a layoff of half of the municipal work force.
Mardi Gras pumps US$1 billion directly and indirectly into the local economy each year according to city officials.
While Carnival is intended to signal that New Orleans is open for business again, residents say they also need the celebration for themselves, to affirm the city's essence -- a piquant improvisation evident in the food, music, irreverence and self-indulgence.
"If not one tourist comes to town, Mardi Gras will still serve its initial purpose -- entertaining local people," said Ed Muniz, founder and captain of the Krewe of Endymion, which holds one of the largest and most lavish Mardi Gras parades.
"I think the locals need a celebration of life. The funeral has got to end and the recovery has got to begin," he said.
City and Mardi Gras officials say they are confident that the Carnival season can be of high quality. But several issues, mostly financial, remain unresolved.
At a tense planning meeting on Monday, Warren Riley, the acting police superintendent, said his department welcomed Mardi Gras, understood its social and financial importance and could provide adequate protection for paradegoers.
But Riley also said there was no money budgeted to pay overtime to New Orleans's 1,442 police officers. All parades will have to follow one route, down St. Charles Avenue, and each day's parading could last no longer than eight hours, he said.
"We do not have US$5 for overtime," Riley said, explaining that such costs ran as high as US$300,000 to US$400,000 on weekends during Mardi Gras.
The city reconsidered that position on Wednesday, saying it was seeking to raise an additional US$1.5 million to extend Mardi Gras over two weekends and to pay for overtime on several days.
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