black out in the ninth ward
There was a small rainstorm this evening, and the power went out in the eighth and ninth wards again. This is hardly surprising- it has done this every time that it rains since last fall. So I went and drank beer by candlelight at Mimi’s, a fancy little bar on Franklin in the Marigny. We joked about how much better everyone looked, as a number of my neighbors had chosen to do the same.
I grew up in a sub-rural part of California where power outages are nothing special. We had them every winter- the big rains would cause mud slides on the steep hills, and power lines would inevitably go down. I am used to generators and candles.
But here, it is different. The greater New Orleans urban area held more than a million before Katrina hit. It has been eight months now since the storm, and you would think that Entergy, the local power company, would have its shit together enough to keep the power on in areas like my neighborhood, the Bywater, that had no significant flooding. But with no federal bailout forthcoming, Entergy is crying poor despite the large profits made by its other branches, who are protected by a clever corporate structure from having their profits used to offset losses in other divisions, including Entergy-New Orleans.
So the power goes out. And none of us complain because at least we can turn on the faucet and get water to cook, clean and bathe with, something that our neighbors a mile away in the lower 9th ward are still without eight months later.
Daily I am staggered by the failure of the US government on every level, federal state and local. But herein lies the lesson: Entergy doesn’t have to fix the power. Entergy is a corporation, and their interests are making money. If there is no competitor, they are not obliged to provide good service. And if it is too inconvenient or expensive to fix the power grid, they won’t. Entergy is a corporation and follows the rules of corporate power, which is to never spend money where you don’t have to.
The blackout of April 25th, the second or third this month, is another small reminder of not only the failure of the government but the failure of privatization. As I sit in a barstool by lighted candles, I am reminded that New Orleans is thought of as expendable. In the new global economy, we are not needed, and are only beginning to understand what that means.
Regardless, the Bywater is beautiful by moonlight. I know it is an unpopular sentiment, but there is nothing like the cold blue light that shines down in the absence of electric lights.