New Orleans Needs a Better Way to Do Mardi Gras
NEW ORLEANS—Standing in line at the hardware store on the edge of the French Quarter one December Monday, I overheard the cashier talking to a regular customer about manhole covers that had exploded just before dawn that morning a couple of blocks away. The metal discs had burst into buildings and crashed into the underside of a car, which in turn caught fire. Power outages and evacuations had ensued. This was just the latest addition to a cluster of troubling events. In the previous few days, a turbine powering the low-lying city’s storm-drainage system had also exploded, unrelated water-main ruptures had flooded neighborhoods on opposite sides of town, and a cyberattack had crippled City Hall. Not to mention the usual spate of shootings that punctuate the daily news in New Orleans.
The other customer, a longtime Quarter resident, asked the
