Archived Article By Tom Fitzmorris Originally published September 2, 2008 Deja Vu Well, this is certainly a moment of deja vu. Three years ago, like many New Orleanians, I was living in a relative's house several hundred miles from my hometown, watching its disintegration. I wrote messages in this newsletter about all that, and kept at it as the situation bottomed out and the restaurant and food world led the recovery of the city. The last thing on my mind then was that such a thing would ever happen again. But. . . Two days ago, my family and I were on the run again, en route to the home of a friend in Dallas. We listened to WWL as we traveled, and heard each forecast for Hurricane Gustav grow more dire than the one. Then Mayor Ray Nagin made his speech, calling Gustav "the mother of all storms" and "the storm of the century," and telling the citizenry to "get your butts out of New Orleans." It was the indelicacy for which the mayor is infamous, but in this case he must be forgiven: those overstatements were necessary to scare people so they really would leave, and so hundreds of people wouldn't have to be rescued from their rooftops again. It worked. Fortunately, the storm was nowhere near that bad. But it surely could have been, and we must count ourselves as lucky. I know that I spent many hours on the road to Dallas nervously considering what I would do for a living should the forecasts come true. Another Katrina disaster would not likely end in the same near-total recovery the hospitality industry spearheaded after the archetype. But on the day after, everything looks okay. No major flooding, no mayhem in the streets, no collapse of of Plans A through Z. The evacuation was almost unbelievably efficient, took care of helpless people especially well. It's even safe to say that it made us (and Governor Bobby Jindal in particular) look brilliant. Before Gustav even materialized, I planned on spending this week and part of next traveling by highway with my son to Los Angeles, where he is moving to begin college. The need to evacuate caused my wife and daughter to come along, which changed the itinerary. The rapid, no-frills trip along I-10 became a much more complicated route, the fulfillment of Mary Ann's desire for one more family road trip out west before the kiddos leave the nest entirely. We may as well. The city essentially will be shut down for the better part of the next week. It is still officially evacuated as I write this. (Although there are already restaurants and bars open around town, since many sections of town didn't even lose electricity, and a few people didn't leave, regardless of what the mayor said.) I expect that most of the city will be back to normal by Monday, and maybe sooner. Same goes for the New Orleans Menu. I'm still out here writing and posting as much as I can as we blast across the West. Thanks for your subscription and patience. And thank God for keeping New Orleans whole this time. © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com