Mark Tentarelli wins first HW pass!!

Mark and I have been enjoying your blog greatly. I was in New Orleans a couple years ago to spend a week rebuilding homes damaged by Katrina. It's nice to hear that the city is getting closer to normal, like that the streetcars are running again. Have they got stoplights at major intersections fixed?

I didn't see any caterpillars while I was there though. Maybe they don't thrive in toxic mold. Or maybe I was too distracted by everything else!

Sharon

Hi, Sharon - thanks for checking out my blog and asking such a great question. The streetcars are indeed running, and major streets have stoplights......in the areas that tourists visit and those whose elevations are high enough not to present a major repeat flood risk. Certain neighborhoods (mostly lower income) still have a lot of windows boarded up, covered with tarps, etc.
The caterpillars definitely took an initial hit with the storm - but the storm didn't actually hit New Orleans nearly as badly as it hit the Wildlife Management Area. New Orleans would have been damaged by the storm in any case, but the majority of the really bad damage was caused by the failure of the levees and the flooding that caused. The caterpillars would suffer the same fate as their host plants - so if they got blown away, drowned, etc. the caterpillars would also suffer.
However, the caterpillars are so robust that they have really bounced back - we saw a lot of them in Audobon park on Saturday, and Rebecca and Tara report that they do collections in the city sometimes just to see what's there- they call it urban ecology.

I'm glad you and Mark are enjoying the site - please tell all your friends!

See you soon!

PaulaF