Party on

last updated 8 January 2015

New Orleans

Tourists and locals celebrated Mardi Gras in New Orleans this week, as the city struggled to recover six months after Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 350,000 visitors flocked to the city’s famous French Quarter, where as many as 1 million normally attend the traditional Carnival season festivities. Some displaced residents criticized the decision to hold the celebration so soon after 80 percent of the city was flooded and two-thirds of its residents forced to flee. Others hit Bourbon Street draped in blue tarps, mimicking the ones that cover the roofs shattered in the storm, and called the celebration a welcome first step toward recovery. New Orleans, said resident Stephanie Hall, 28, is “going to come back whether the country wants it to or not.”