With parade names like Pegasus, Caesar, Mona Lisa and Sparta, a reviving New Orleans kicked off its Mardi Gras celebrations on Saturday -- the start of the city's official comeback from its devastation by Hurricane Katrina six months ago.
There were some hiccups: the Atlas and "Bards of Bohemia" parades, slated for Friday and Saturday respectively, were canceled "due to insurance problems", the Times Picayune newspaper reported online.
But the weekend's 16 remaining parades moved through the streets of the French Quarter and nearby Jefferson Parish with Bugs Bunny-and-Carrot figures, orange-clad bands swinging their instruments, and riders on large floats tossing beads into the thin crowds, according to broadcast video footage from the city.
PHOTO: AFP
The Mardi Gras celebrations will culminate on Feb. 28, or Fat Tuesday, the last day of a period of revelry, feasting and dancing before Ash Wednesday that marks the beginning of Christian Lent leading up to Easter.
New Orleans is struggling to stand on its feet after Hurricane Katrina swamped the region last August, killing more than 1,300 people and driving the city's 462,000 people out of town to safety.
Only one-third have returned because there's no place to live: the debris of their destroyed homes, where some bodies are still expected to be found, has still not been removed, and there is no electricity or drinking water in large sections of the city.
Some of the 300,000 evacuees still waiting to return, or making new lives for themselves, however, have been organizing their own celebrations from their dispersed lives across the country, according to Web blogs on the Times Picayune Web site.
"Like icing spreading out over a king cake the size of America, new and old Mardi Gras traditions have travelled with displaced New Orleanians," the Web blog said.
Among the cities celebrating new festivals are Louisville, Kentucky, and Chicago, Illinois -- where the Children's Museum was hosting a party for displaced kids.
Most of the celebrations in New Orleans center on the renowned French Quarter, whose higher ground helped it survive with less damage, and where clubs like the Cats Meow just barely got operations going again in time for Mardi Gras.
The club is symbolic of recovery because it sits at the geographical center of the French Quarter, at the corner of famous Bourbon Street and St. Peter.
"The relighting of the Cats Meow sign ... is a special sign of renewal," the Web blog said.
The city has trimmed down the celebration this year from 12 days to eight days, and for the first time in Mardi Gras' 150-year-history, was searching for a corporate sponsor to help cover the US$2.7 million in police overtime and fire protection for the festival.
A city law bans such private sponsorship under normal conditions. But a search by a private firm -- MediaBuys -- engaged to find one came up empty-handed because the effort didn't begin until late last year.
Getting approval for such sponsorships often takes six months, the Times Picayune reported.
Some of Katrina's victims are angry about the push to celebrate Mardi Gras when the losses are so fresh.
"We don't need Mardi Gras, we need to rebuild the city," said MacArthur Samuels, who recently visited Washington to petition the federal government to help his city.
"Don't put up lights for Mardi Gras if there is no lights in my neighborhood," he said.
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