Reporter's Notebook: The Saints Come Marching In
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 25, 2006 — -- New 9.6-acre roof: $32.5 million
NFL contribution: $15 million
Total cost for Superdome rebuilding: $185 million
Showing the world that New Orleans is a place to have fun again? Priceless.
OK, apologies to MasterCard, but that is really the story line here.
In the days after Katrina, the world saw the city of New Orleans and the Superdome, in particular, as a hell on Earth.
Tonight, the Saints will once again come marching in.
The dome, on which a horrified nation's eyes were transfixed during the chaos and horror of Katrina, reopens tonight as the city's beloved football team returns home to play on "Monday Night Football."
This is so much more than a football game.
It is a celebration for a city still fighting to get up after taking a hit harder than any linebacker ever dished out.
I arrived in this town on Sunday, and this game is all anyone is talking about.
For the people who have lived through this year of tragedy, this is much bigger than the last Mardi Gras or anything else that has happened in the last year.
I asked my restaurant hostess Sunday night why it meant so much.
"If they can fix the dome, maybe they can fix my neighborhood," she said.
If only it were that simple.
The dome's quick recovery was the product of the kind of state, federal and private coordination of which this city has seen so little.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed an executive order last December making rebuilding the Superdome a priority.
The federal government kicked in more than $100 million -- money that could only be used for a public facility like the Superdome.
The NFL kicked in $15 million.
The total tab of $185 million is $17 million more than it cost to build the dome in the early 1970s.
One might ask, with all that needs to be done in New Orleans, was this the best use of $185 million?
This is my first time here since Katrina.
When I arrived at the airport, I asked the driver to take me straight to the place where the 17th Street Canal ruptured, and into the Lower Ninth Ward.
When you see block after block of utter destruction, a literal ghost town in one of America's greatest cities, it's awfully hard to think about football.
From an economic and emotional standpoint, though, the Superdome's reopening is a critical moment here.
It has been home to six Super Bowls, four NCAA Final Fours, the annual Sugar Bowl, a papal visit, the 1988 Republican National Convention, and countless other events and conventions.
Events like these are the lifeblood of this city, and that blood has not flowed much over the last year.
Showing the country, on the national stage of "Monday Night Football" on ESPN, that New Orleans is a place to come have fun again means dollars and jobs coming back here.
Maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully soon.
From an emotional standpoint, tonight will be collective therapy for this town.
For the last year, the Superdome has occupied a dark place in local and national consciences.
To this day, no one really knows all that happened there during those three horror-filled days and nights.
We do know that tens of thousands of people were crammed together for three brutal days and terror-filled nights.
A National Guardsman was shot in a bathroom. There was at least one apparent suicide. A crowd apparently attacked a man who was in the middle of an attempted rape.
It isn't easy for some to go back.
Mayor Ray Nagin said last week: "They need to go to the Superdome and experience a Saints game to kind of say, oh, my God, we're getting back. This is another hurdle."
There are so many more hurdles left to clear.
I walked around the French Quarter Sunday night, and while it was lively, it was nothing like what I remember from my last trip here five months before Katrina.
The streets were relatively quiet. It wasn't tough to get a table at any restaurant.
The jazz was coming out windows, but it was far too easy to get a seat at the bar.
Perhaps this game, this night, will be remembered as the first real step back.
The overwhelming majority of people I've spoken to say this is a huge step for the city -- bigger than last February's scaled-down Mardi Gras.
This city has always loved the Saints, despite their history of ineptitude since the franchise began in 1967.
But Katrina seems to have made that love affair new again.
They have sold out the entire season's worth of tickets for the first time ever.
Reggie Bush, last year's Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Southern California, is a rookie sensation who has taken a visible role in the rebuilding effort.
Saints jerseys and logos are everywhere here today.
In a poll on the Saints Web site, 80 percent of fans say this is the biggest game in the team's history.
Perhaps that doesn't say much for a team that has never played in a Super Bowl -- this is its Super Bowl.
Nagin is asking companies to let employees out early so even those without tickets can go to the dome to enjoy the fan festival and the Goo Goo Dolls concert outside before the game.
Inside the dome, Green Day and U2 will perform before kickoff.
The Edge, U2's lead guitarist, has set up a charity called Music Rising to raise money for musical instruments along the melody-rich Gulf Coast.
Then, oh yeah, they'll play a football game.
It is a game that will be watched behind smiles and through tears.
Win or lose, it will be a needed respite from the hard work of getting this great city back in the game.