How New Orleans is Cleaning Up Its Big Sleazy Reputation

Hurricane Katrina no doubt made us realize how much we'd mourn the loss of New Orleans — and losing it seemed a real possibility to me when I arrived there on a Marine helicopter after the storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005, and I found most of the city underwater. There are just a few places in this hemisphere that embody the New World's elegantly unruly culture. Rio de Janeiro is one, New Orleans another: jazz and jambalaya, it's our boisterous soul roaring from a wrought-iron balcony. It took a disaster as ugly as Katrina to make us appreciate the Big Easy's beauty.

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