Nagin's Optimism Meets Realism

NEW ORLEANS, May 21 -- The rhetoric of the mayoral election that propelled C. Ray Nagin to victory was soaring.

"This great city of New Orleans is ready to take off," he shouted to a raucous crowd gathered at the Marriott hotel on Canal Street here after his win Saturday, echoing a stump speech. "We have citizens around the country who want to come back to the city of New Orleans -- and we're going to bring them all back to the city of New Orleans!"

The truth is that for many here the optimism of the campaign only shows how much the election was a distraction from the epic task of rebuilding and underscores the magnitude of the divide between hopes for the city and the reality of neighborhoods languishing in ruin.

"I just want to see something get done," said Eric Miller, 47, a stagehand living in a FEMA trailer in the ravaged Gentilly neighborhood. "Things pretty much look like they did just after the storm."

Although during the campaign Nagin often alluded to progress in rebuilding the levees destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, the adequacy of city finances and his vision for the return of the city's evacuees, the future seems far from certain.

Indeed, there are difficulties in merely keeping the city above water and out of smothering debt.

A group of scientists supported by the National Science Foundation plans to release findings Monday once again calling into question the integrity of the levee system, as well as the engineering procedures that shaped the flood controls.

Many thousands of homes remain abandoned, and signs of rebuilding are sparse. As each month passes, more evacuees are settling permanently in faraway homes.

Moreover, watchdogs have raised questions about the viability of the city's finances, ravaged by a decline in tax revenue as New Orleans has lost half its population.

Nagin in recent days has pledged to adopt a renewed "100-day" push for rebuilding after the election.

"This is our shot. This is our time," he said Sunday.

Many now expect that Nagin may be freer to grapple with the bleak facts -- and to make unpopular but necessary decisions that could require him to cut budgets and shrink the "footprint" of the metropolis by denying city services to some areas.