WWOZ Update 4: We Begin To Emerge

In his fourth and possibly his final post, WWOZ General Manager David Freedman (no relation) makes his way back into New Orleans, puts FEMA on his speed dial, inspects his transmitter (it's OK!) and starts to make sense of how to put his broken station and scattered staff back together again. Along the way, he wonders about the future of the "northern capital of the Caribbean." David's previous posts are here.

It is 3 AM Thursday, September 15. I am writing this as I sit in my new apartment in Baton Rouge (4th location, 4th blog, 10th day out). I am thinking back on last Tuesday. Just two days ago. It seems so far away.

I had finally figured out how to re-enter New Orleans legit. As they finished announcing a phone number on the radio, I began dialing it. Never mind that it was 8 PM, the Mayor was no longer blocking passage to New Orleans. He was allowing any businessman with a legitimate business reason to get a pass to enter the city. Just call this number and get a pass to the city.

My cause was certainly legit. I needed to go in to inspect the WWOZ tower and transmitter. If those parts of the broadcast chain were OK, WWOZ could possibly get on the air from New Orleans a lot more quickly than we had thought. We wouldn't have to wait for replacement equipment. We wouldn't have to set up a temporary tower somewhere out of the city. It would cost less and be quicker. That was certainly a legitimate business reason.

And then, too, from the hundreds of e-mails I've been getting, I knew what a powerful symbol it would be to all of those who care about the city: The day OZ goes back on the air, is the day people will know that there is hope that there will still be a New Orleans that is New Orleans. When musicians and the people who love their music come back to the city, it will once more be that unique place that attracts so many passionate visitors. One e-mail I received said it best: "New Orleans is the only city that ever loved me back!"

And all I had to do was call a certain phone number. I began dialing at once. Oh, no! Busy!

Well, since Katrina, we've all learned how to hit redial until we get in. For the 1st 2 weeks, it would take a minimum of 4 tries to make a 504 area code cell phone such as mine get through. In cases of official numbers such as FEMA, the minimum was more like half an hour. So I just kept plugging away. For 45 minutes. I'd dial, get the busy signal. Hang up. Hit redial. Get the busy signal. Hang up. Hit redial. Get the busy signal. Hang up. Hit redial.

I wasn't going to give up. And determination won the day. After 45 minutes I got through! No busy signal. The phone was actually ringing. And ringing. And ringing. For another, I don't know, 10 minutes. Oh, of course! It's 9 o'clock at night. At least there must have been a bunch of other people who were as desperate to get through as I had been. I bet some people didn't even get to the ring tone.

The next morning, at 9 AM, I started dialing the number again. Got the busy signal. Hung up. Hit redial. Got the busy signal. Hit redial. Got the busy signal. Hit redial. Got the busy signal. This time there was no breakthrough. I began to flag. I don't know if it was at the 45 minute mark, or beyond, but my fatigued redial muscles gave out on me and the cell phone just slipped out of my rubbery fingers.

Later that day, after catching up on the 50 or so e-mails that had piled up overnight, I began to look for a more creative approach to getting back into "the city that care forgot" as it was once hyped. Damond Jacob, our Chief Engineer and Robert Carroll, WWNO Chief Engineer, were driving in all the way from Dallas, and I had promised them that I would get them in by Wednesday morning (September 14). It was already 2PM by now, what was I going to do?

I went to see a friend who said he had gone into New Orleans just about every day. Yes, he was going in again tomorrow and would let me go in with him. He was going to be traveling with a man who owned a number of rental apartments in the dry part of the city. They were going in to inspect his properties. (A very legitimate business reason.) My friend had passes from the Governor's office. Just be at his office at 5AM. 5 AM! Oh, well. I'll be there. I excitedly called Damond. He and Robert were just leaving Dallas. They'd be getting into Baton Rouge in time to meet us.

With Robert and Damond coming in their own car, I could ride in with the apartment owner and explore his ability and willingness to open some of his rentals to WWOZ staff. It had already occurred to me, that even if the studio and transmitter/antenna were perfectly fine, and we could improvise electricity for a while with a generator or two, we still couldn't broadcast from the city until we could get at least 5 or so staff members back into town to operate the station. Some, myself included, had lost our homes. Our houses were still under 6 or more feet of water. So, housing was going to become part of the equation.

Once I realized that I was going to get into the city, and that the engineers would be there to fulfill our very legitimate business reason to be there, I attacked the problem of getting into the building where our tower and antenna are mounted and our undiagnosed transmitter sat waiting to be examined. I sat with my friend as he began dialing his Blackberry. He left voice mail messages here and there, as he navigated a number of other threads of business throughout the afternoon. At least he wasn't getting busy signals! By 5 o'clock he had it all arranged. The building manager would meet us the next morning at 11 AM and we could put a vital piece of the puzzle into the picture of our plans to re-emerge from our broadcasting black hole.

I was eating dinner when I got the call from Damond. He was still 150 miles west of Shreveport. It seems there was a change of plans. He and Robert needed to be at Louisiana Public Broadcasting at 9 AM to pick up a satellite dish for WWNO. And then at 10 AM they had arranged to get real press credentials so they could come and go about their business from here on out. I could meet them and get one, too! The only problem was, while we were busy getting our credentials, we'd miss our chance to get into our transmitter building at 11. There was no way Damond and Robert could come in without the satellite dish, which meant they had to hang around to get their own credentials. Maybe they would make it into the city in time if they could squeeze their schedule up a little. They would see what they could do.

This thing was beginning to fall apart. It was 7PM. In desperation I called Tony Guillory. He is our eminence grise engineer who has bigtime helped WWOZ for at least 20 years. He knows everything. And he lives in Lafayette, just an hour away from Baton Rouge. Could he possibly meet me at 5 AM in Baton Rouge to go into New Orleans? He didn't see why not, as long as his wife got back in time to take over parenting duties for their daughter. She was supposed to leave New Orleans but he hadn't heard from her. (How'd she get in?) By this time I was sitting in CCRs Internet cafe batting out another 30 or so e-mails until they kicked me out at 10 PM.

All the while, the back office of my mind was in overdrive. Fugue-state rumination, mere opinion, sheer speculation. Background noise. The melody goes like this:

It seems to me this business of housing is going to loom large in the coming days. For instance, we have been told that water is still standing in 60% of the city. The forecast has recently been revised down from 80 days to 30 days for completion of the "unwatering" process. While the West Bank, Uptown, Bywater and the French Quarter will remain to remind us visually of New Orleans' rich heritage, perhaps as many as half the houses standing in water for two weeks - (according to the mayor) that is 30% of the houses in New Orleans - would have to be torn down due to structural weakness.

What will they be replaced with?

There are at least 2 megacorp friends of the President's friend, Joseph Albaugh, receiving multi-billion reconstruction contracts: Halliburton and the Shaw Group To even begin to match the artistry and craftsmanship, much less find the quality of building materials., with which these old houses were built, would add a considerable surcharge to the estimated 200 Billion dollars that Katrina restoration will cost (say 50 Billion for replacing New Orleans' housing???). I doubt that any of the businesses getting these mega-contracts will have a column in their ledger for charm.

There will be every business incentive to cookie-cut standardized framing and sheetrock construction along with the usual suburban plastic franchises plopped onto freshly unfurled asphalt. The whiteflight visuals of Jefferson Parish may well advance to the western edge of Claiborne Avenue! And, one wonders, what kind of housing will be built? For home-owners or renters? Is there really going to be a substantial replacement of housing for the 200,000 souls that were bussed out of town to points unknown (to the bussees) all over the country? How many of THEM do you think will want to come
back? Be able to come back? Have a home and job to come back to?

Our music, culture, and personality don't come from CD's, or even radio stations. They are only registers of the spirit of our people. Without our people, we will be no different than Atlanta or Houston. In fact, I hear that there is a developing colony of musicians from New Orleans in Houston. It may well be that as the zone extending from the Bywater through Baton Rouge to Lafayette and Houston becomes more flavored with our spirit, the spirit of our people, the city of New Orleans may be diluted, osmotically turning into a place that might more appropriately be called New Orleansiana, or Coplandia - land of the fast food franchise king, Al Copland, inventor of Popeye's Chicken.

The battle lines will be drawn - those who care about restoring the charm of New Orleans as well as the physical infrastructure, and those who only see the bottom line. Who will get to decide? I understand that the national chapter of the American Institute of Architects met yesterday to address the issue. I have heard directly from the Urban Conservancy, and indirectly from the Historic National Trust. The mayor has just announced that he is appointing a commission of 8 blacks and 8 whites to determine the direction of the reconstruction effort in New Orleans. Who would he appoint? Would the suits make the city over in their own image? Or would free spirits still prevail? Someone wrote me that he had read a quote from a doctor in slate.com, who's been doing emergency work in the city and feeding his elderly
neighbors who aren't evacuating. When asked if he shouldn't go to Houston at least to get a tetanus shot, he replied, "I'd rather get lockjaw than live in Houston."

Ever since 1803, since the French sold Louisiana to the United States, New Orleans has found a way to not embrace American culture. The city has often been called the northern capital of the Caribbean. But in the past 20 or so years, there have already been serious incursions of national culture into the city's unique style. The change has been gradual but steady from locally owned-and-operated to non-indigenous and non-descript (read franchises, chain businesses and Los Vegas-based casinos). So many local icons a thing of the past: Schwegmann's, D.H. Holmes, Katz & Besthoff, Krauss. Imagine Starbucks coming to the land of Morning Call and Café du Monde. Imaginee Clear Channel owning 7 or 8 of the most powerful radio signals in a city where radio was known for its great personalities - Groovy Gus, Doctor Daddy-o, Poppa Stoppa. National (or multi-national), franchise, commodity vs. local, mom-and-pop, personal and authentic. New Orleans might have been the last largest bastion of incipient, instinctive resistance.

I never did know if Tony was going to be there until he called me at 2 minutes after 5 from the rendezvous place. He and everyone else were there waiting for me. Happily I was just 2 minutes away. But at 5 in the morning, nobody seemed especially happy when I showed up just 4 minutes late. On top of that, when it was time to head out, I realized that I had forgotten to gas up the car the night before. Even less happiness as we wandered around looking for a gas station. Finally, at about 5:20 we hit the Interstate.

Only I wasn't going to get to ride with the owner of all those apartments to talk to him about our possible housing needs. Robert and Damond weren't coming in with us and Tony and I were going in my car.

We literally flew along the Interstate. At 5 in the morning and every state trooper somewhere else, all bets were off as far as the speed limit. That feeling of unrestraint was just a prelude of things to
come.

The reason we had left so early in the morning was because we had anticipated a huge bottleneck getting into the city. Jefferson Parish had announced that it was letting residents from the West Bank move back home for the first time. The gates to the Parish were going to open at 6 AM that morning. In addition, the vaunted program to allow people with legitimate business interests to re-enter the city was to begin that morning as well.

As we approached the Jefferson Parish line, we anticipated the long wait, the scrutiny of our documents from the Governor's office, the difficulty of so many more people trying to funnel into the city along
River Road.

At the first checkpoint near LaPlace on I-10, the state troopers just waved us in. It was to be the last and only checkpoint of the day. The lead car raced along Causeway to River Road. When we got to the Orleans Parish line, there was no one there at all. Just three days before (last Saturday) the New Orleans Police presence was massive. Now, no one. We split off from our escort once we reached the French Quarter, a full 4 ½ hours before our appointment to visit the transmitter site.

The natural instinct was to get a cup of coffee somewhere. But there was no coffee. There was no somewhere. So we decided to amuse ourselves by seeing how far we could drive in various directions. First we went down Poydras by the Super Dome. The water was all gone. Close by was the Tidewater building so we drove over there to see if Liberty Street was passable. It was. We were going to be able to get in! Next we drove down Canal Street.

I was amazed that we could drive all the way down to Jefferson Davis. In just three days the water had receded from Burgundy to Jefferson David - maybe 30 blocks! Then I wanted to see about Esplanade Avenue. That's how I used to drive home to Lakeview from work every day. Again I was amazed. We kept pushing further and further. There was Cafe Degas, with a big tree crashed right in the middle of it. Could we make it to Bayou St John. Yes!

In fact, we turned toward the lake on Wisner Boulevard, just as if I were going home. Beyond the overpass at I-10, I turned onto Harrison Avenue and drove through City Park. The further we got the more it felt like we were following some forest trail deep in the countryside. Fallen branches and trees littered the road and the park, which was mostly just a big lake. A bulldozer had been through and cleared a single lane that wound around fallen objects. Electrical lines hung down like metal vines from above.

More disbelief. We arrived at Marconi Drive, the western boundary of City Park. Just ahead was the bridge over the canal that parallels the next one over - the now well known 17th Street canal. My house was just 6 blocks away! We slowly made our way over the bridge. As we reached the top of its arch, there was Lakeview. Actually, there was lake. Water was standing as if we were on the edge of some idyllic shore. The light was bright and yellow, and a fallen pine tree reflected perfectly in the water - just as it does when you visit a real lakeshore in the country. Birds fluttered about. Everything was so peaceful and quiet. That reminded me.

Unlike just three days ago, there was hardly anyone on the streets. Especially military anyones. Where there had been a virtual camouflage-colored encampment on Canal and Basin Streets last Saturday, there was only one or two media folk (you can tell who they are because they sit under the neat row of white 8 x 8 folding canopies strung the length of Canal Street.

Or they carry huge cameras, like the couple in the maroon car that seemed to be playing tag with us everywhere we went. But it was totally quiet. All manner of armed guardians must have finally turned in for an overdue nap.

I kept upping the ante. "Let's drive to Lake Pontchartrain itself," I said. So we continued up Marconi toward Lake Vista. There, just before Robert E. Lee, we encountered our first checkpoint. National Guardsmen from Ohio, just a friendly routine look at our driver's license. "Where are you going?" they wanted to know. "Lake vista" I replied vaguely. And we plowed forward.

During our tour, the station's bookkeeper, Carmen Wallace, had called me from Atlanta, where she is holed up. Could I pass by her house on North Claiborne Avenue and inspect the damage. "Sure." Everywhere we went we noted the waterline. Just like reading geological strata. On Canal Street it looked like the crest was 4 feet and the standing water (a much darker line) was maybe 2 or 2½. Esplanade, the water might have been about the same. In Lakeview, we could see that the water had been as high as 8 feet and seemed to be standing somewhere around 2 to 4 feet depending on which part of the bowl you were in. Now on Claiborne, we could see that it had gone as high as Carmen's top step to her porch, maybe 4 feet. But her house had taken no water. I called her. I'll never forget what that sounded like on the other end.

Heading down St Claude almost as far as the Industrial Canal, the thing that struck me was that so many of the houses along the way seemed to be OK. They would not have to be torn down. In only three days we were able to drive along just about any major street in New Orleans except in the three terrible zones - Lakeview, Eastern New Orleans and below the Industrial Canal. These are the likely candidates for total tear down and rebuild.

Lakeview had been a picturesque neighborhood of modest bungalows built in the 50's. We have been watching as property values sky-rocketed in New Orleans these past 10 years - after all New Orleans is surrounded by water, so you can't just sprawl out as most American cities do. Instead, people have been buying up these picturesque bungalows and tearing them down so that they can build units twice as large. The lot sizes remain the same, so these two story McMansions built to all the edges of their tiny lots end up feeling like rich bullies moving into the neighborhood. Garish. Blocking the sun. Coplandia-vibe. So Katrina will only accelerate what was already happening to Lakeview.

Perhaps the Lower Nine (9th ward) and New Orleans East will be the heart of new, low-income housing (read hastily-built ticky tack as the big boys get them some mainline FEMA). Depending on if and when the Feds finally decide to deal with reinforcing the levees to Cat 5 specs - you could imagine that this kind of housing might be built and torn down any number of hurricane cycles. I'm keeping my eye on the recently developing alliance with Bishop Paul Morton and the Mayor on one side, and the Bush administration on the other. It might be a win-win for Bishop Morton's constituency to be rapidly restored in eastern New Orleans and in the Lower 9 and for the mega-corps to provide low-incoime (semi-disposable) housing.

Look, I know nothing about urban renewal, planning, housing, real estate, engineering, etc. These are just the ramblings of a longtime resident. I wish someone could tell me what it all means. At least, I have to say, that I left my tour of the city yesterday feeling a lot more optimistic than the day before. Many of New Orleans' fine old houses will not have to be torn down. And the speed of recovery in the past three days is awesome.

I understand that the mayor is now saying business people will be invited back this Saturday, to be followed by dry zone residents one zip code a day. French Quarter residents may return in a week. It's moving fast. Amazing what was accomplished with the assets in place. This is very encouraging. The quicker we move back the less we lose of our New Orleans-ishness. Which brings me back to the whole point of writing this post - the transmitter..

Even after our extensive tour, Tony and I still had half an hour to kill before meeting Sylvester, the guy who get us into the Tidewater building. So we pulled up at the rendezvous point on Poydras, and both of us just fell asleep sitting up in the car seats.

Tony came to first, just as Sylvester was pulling up to the corner. He was being driven around by a sheriff's deputy, and never got out the car. Had a cell phone to his ear the entire time. We hurried over to the car. Other people got out. But not Sylvester. He was busy working the phone. We stood around. While we were waiting, a well-groomed man came over and introduced himself. He had come in from Texas and sort of reminded me of George Bush. He represented some multinational corporation that specializes in disaster response. His company - Shad Group - has capacity to provide for all kinds of services. You need a million gallons of water pumped out of your basement? He's your man. Got pumps from Germany, only three in the world that big. Need to retrieve water-logged documents? They can bring back almost anything from oblivion. Electrical switches need to be cleaned? He handed me a laminated business card. Nice touch.

Finally, a pickup truck pulled up and then Sylvester got out of his car. Introduced us to Mike Guidry. This guy had waders on. His blue jeans had mud on them. And he had keys. Maybe 50 or 60 of them on his key ring. He was definitely the guy we wanted to meet.

Tony and I waited another hour as Mike and the Texan held intense discussions about what might be needed in the upcoming days. When Mike turned to us, we jumped into my car and headed for the transmitter site. Entering the lobby of the building, there was the usual moldy stench and oppressive moisture that assaults the nose and lungs like aromatherapy gone bad. No, gone rotten.

Mike pointed to the door labeled "stairway." Oh, that's right. No elevators. Up we went. In total darkness save for 2 flashlights (I hadn't thought to bring mine). We scrambled up 25 flights of stairs. Actually, I should say we scrambled up 9 flights, at which point we stopped for a heavy breather. Then we gamboled up 6 more flights. At which point, our pace slowed down to less-than-amble as we negotiated
the final 10 flights.

And then, the first moment of truth. We opened the door to the roof. It looked something like a dry river bed - stuff strewn all over. Holes in the cinder block construction on top where the exhaust fans used to be. Piles of those blocks below where we stood on the roof.

We looked up at the tower. From up close you can hardly get your head to cock back far enough to see to the top. Thoughtfully, Tony had brought binoculars. After peering for what seemed forever, he pronounced: "The tower is straight. What you saw as a bent pole from two blocks away was actually the antenna mount, which, indeed, is tilted at, I would say, a 10 degree angle. It will have to be readjusted, possibly repaired or replaced. The antenna may need to be repaired as well. The transmission line is kinked and it will definitely have to be replaced."

Our next moment of truth was to see about the transmitter. It is in a cinder block construction near the tower, one flight up from the main roof of the building. Funny, I had remembered it as having a tin roof. Not so. The roof was made of cinder block as well. In all fairness I'd only been up there once or twice. God is in the details.

We walked to the door. It was locked. We had to climb back down a flight to the main roof to get Tony. He led the way back and pulled out his 50-key cluster. The anticipation mounted as he tried one key
after the other. It took forever. None of them worked. None of us were of a mind to do another 25 flights down and up again to get the key. But we'd come all this way. Tony had gotten up at 2:30 that morning to get to New Orleans. It couldn't end like this. Mike got on his cell phone and called somebody. Somebody's voice was loud enough that Icould hear him saying only security had all those keys. But wait, there was one key somewhere that might possibly work.

Mike fetched it and we clambered back up to the door. He tried and tried. It felt like it wanted to turn, but just couldn't quite make that last click. Mike gave up. Tony took the key in hand. He had that wonderful look of determination that I've seen on so many OZ faces throughout the years. After 30 more seconds, the key turned. The door opened.

The moment of truth. "It's dry," I near-whispered. We went in. Sure enough our brand new digital transmitter appeared to be in perfect shape. Having no electricity, there was no way to test it. But it was dry through and through. Our old CCA sat about 3 feet across from it. Placed under a vent pipe, It was slightly moist from rain. Then we noticed it: our half-ton air-conditioner unit, was on the floor, about 6 or 7 feet from the window it had formally occupied. Some incredible wind force had pushed it right in between our two transmitters - there was only about a foot clearance on either side. Had that chunk of metal smashed into our Ibiquity, it would have been a whole nother ball game.

As it stands, now, we might even temporarily be able to get back on the air once electricity is restored to the Tidewater building. The obstacles are now beginning to look human-sized. The timeline is beginning to approach resolution. The pieces of the puzzle are finally beginning to fall into place.

Now, on Thursday, September 15th, it seems to us that we don't need to build an interim transmitter site. At most, we may create a very modest satellite studio, say in Baton Rouge, from which we can originate programming and then send that programming to our transmitter via broadband.

And, it is even thinkable, that we can follow the flow of people back into the city in two weeks (that's the mayor's timeline as of last night on the Larry King show) and begin to broadcast once more from our studio in Armstrong Park.

There are still a lot of ifs to this idea. First we don't know for sure if the antenna/transmission line will be usable without repair and replacement. Secondly, we don't know when electricity will be restored to either the transmitter or the park. In the case of the park, there are four transformers strategically placed in underground wells where they probably all got destroyed by the floodwater. If that is the case, and we really don't know yet, those transformers are very expensive and the city, not Entergy, is responsible for them. The city will not likely do anything about the situation until they get their FEMA check to do the work. Thirdly, we don't know if the transmitter building is already equipped for broadband. And fourth, can we find enough housing to get back enough staff to operate the station while
we slowly emerge from the aftermath?

These, along with the anticipated costs of restoration and loss of an estimated $225,000 (the usual amount raised by our Fall Fund Drive), not to mention the longer-term economic implications for the city, and therefore, its Jazz & Heritage radio station - are the issues du jour, roughly 10 days out from the disaster.

As we begin the intense work of rebuilding, I may no longer have time to blog. I found it enormously therapeutic. I hope you found it informative and even entertaining. One thing I know for sure. The tremendous outpouring of offers to help from our friends and listeners around the country, and, indeed, the world (they're raising money for us in Guadeloupe!) has sustained our spirit when the going got tough. We can't thank you enough.

David Freedman

General Manager, WWOZ