After Hurricane Katrina, a short four and a half years ago, people were questioning whether New Orleans would even survive. Now, in the space of a weekend, the city overwhelmingly elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, and the New Orleans Saints won their first-ever Super Bowl. Is New Orleans back from the dead? (Watch a CBS report about New Orleans's rebuilding efforts)
The Super Bowl was catharsis: "Sunday's game was about much more than Xs and Os" for the people of New Orleans, says The New Orleans Times-Picayune in an editorial. Since Katrina, the Saints have been "a civic cause," a rare source of optimism in hard times. Their victory embodies "our resilience and our unity."
"Merci beaucoup, New Orleans Saints"
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Not all of New Orleans is back: Yes, New Orleans celebrated the "stunning" Super Bowl win, says Mitch Abramson in the New York Daily News, but "the reaction was more subdued in the mostly African-American Lower Ninth Ward." The city is slowly being rebuilt, but the Katrina-devastated Lower Ninth is still "woefully" empty of residents, schools, and businesses.
"For Lower Ninth residents, New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl victory serves as a symbol of resiliency"
The doubters were wrong: All of New Orleans, even the Ninth Ward, was "hopping" Sunday night, says David Zirin in The Huffington Post. New Orleans just "won the damn Super Bowl"! Every last person "that wrote this city off" -- from Bush to Brownie to doubters on Obama's team -- now "has to now bend down and kiss the ring."
"Who Dat? Dat's the Super Bowl Champs!"
New Orleans deserved a break: New Orleans' "never-say-quit moxie" paid off," says Justice B. Hill in RealClearSports. The "hard-luck" city earned this chance to set aside its misery and party the way it used to, "if only for one night."
"Ain't this super for hard-luck New Orleans?"
