Right Side of the Rainbow

I was wondering today about the loss of infrastructure in New Orleans, and I do not mean the physical. Consider, for example, two unrelated enterprises, both important in their own way to the life of a modern American city.

• The Times-Picayune, the city’s newspaper, hasn’t updated the homepage of its website since Monday. I assume the paper isn’t publishing, either. Between now and the time that commerce — and therefore advertisers — return to the city, what becomes of the paper’s editors, reporters and other employees? Does the publisher have the cash reserves to pay them in the absence of a revenue stream? And if not, how long until the employees seek work elsewhere?

• Hospitals in New Orleans have evacuated their patients to facilities in Houston and other cities. What becomes now of their nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists and other staff? Although college-educated health care professionals usually draw salaries higher than the community’s average, and may therefore have more than others in savings, they still can’t go long without a paycheck. And if the hospitals in New Orleans are in the same financial condition as the ones in Houston, they most certainly do not have the reserves to pay their employees in the absence of a revenue stream. Now gone, and presumably soon to seek jobs elsewhere, will the health care workers return?

Can all the king’s men put the city back together again?

See also from the New York Times: “Future Face of New Orleans Has an Uncertain Look for Now”