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First Post-Katrina Christmas at Ground Zero (2005)

I returned to my hometown (New Orleans) and to my parents (used to be) home in Diamondhead, Mississippi for the first time since Katrina. Obviously a few days I will never forget.
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christmaslouisianametairiejerilyn faulstichfrank faulstichfaulstichfamilyholidaybinglemr. bingleprototype

  • It was a big deal when somebody found the original "Flying Bingle" Canal Sreet store-front display in the back of some warehouse after being lost for years. It became a bigger deal when City Park announced in early 2005 that they would refurbish and install it as the primary attraction to its annual Celebration in the Oaks Christmas display extravaganza. And it was a much bigger deal for the people you see in this picture - the children and grandchildren of Mr. Bingle's creator. (His two daughters are on the left, I am the son of the one in red and the girls are the daughters of the one in black.) Then "The Big K" hit months before the show was to go on, leaving everything in jeopardy. It turned out that Celebration in the Oaks could be the first city-wide ray of hope in the Post-K world. And it was. City Park was absolutely devastated by the storm, but they worked around the clock to pull the thing off. Three months after the storm, downtown was still the only part of the city with electric power. City Park brought in monstrous generators to run Celebration in the Oaks; it was a surreal beacon of powered light in the middle of miles and miles of the darkest of night. You had to drive through miles of pitch-black ghost town (no traffic signals, either!) It just something that would never cross your mind of being within the realm of possibility, yet there we were.
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