A hurricane-hardened city coping ‘the New Orleans way’

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS. (AP) — When Ida knocked out power and dumped buckets of rain in their streets, hurricane-hardened residents of New Orleans did what they always do: They banded together to help each other out. Restaurants and amateur chefs dished out free food, residents with generators charged their neighbors’ cellphones and revved up chain saws to clear downed trees, and volunteers at a local church handed out bags of cleaning supplies and boxes of diapers. As one restaurant owner says, it’s just “the New Orleans way.”