“That was the tsunami of the United States. You seen houses in the streets and on top of each other, cars everywhere, and death flowed with it. It was a feeling and stench you never forget. But the spirit of the people overrides all that because they wanted to be home.” —Ronald Lewis, Lower Ninth Ward resident

To tell someone you are from New Orleans is to claim descendancy from the Land of Oz, the Emerald City. Their eyes light up, fairy dust settles on their cheeks, and they smile, “Wow, you are from New Orleans?”

The traditional charms of the city—the blessed trifecta of music, food and non-stop partying—have been mixed in recent memory with the apocalyptic tragedies of the BP