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Almost three years to the day that Hurricane Katrina struck, residents of New Orleans and most of the Gulf Coast were evacuating their homes and bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.  Following on the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina, evacuations were ordered much earlier and many residents heeded the advice and headed elsewhere.

This time New Orleans was spared from the same devastation and loss of life it suffered under Hurricane Katrina, in part because this storm veered further west, but also due to the effort of federal, state and local governments to communicate and work together to evacuate the city and secure property.

Regardless of having fared relatively well under Hurricane Gustav, New Orleans still has significant holes to fill in its emergency preparedness plans, including the obvious need to shore up the levees.  And questions still remain whether in the wake of another major hurricane the mayor and new governor could piece the city back together again as they have following Hurricane Katrina.

In the weeks and months prior to Hurricane Gustav, New Orleans was alive again with music, parades, and indulgences.  The traditional New Orleans jazz funeral song, When the Saints Go Marching In, played throughout the city not as a reminder of its death, but rather as a symbol of its rebirth after Hurricane Katrina.

In a recently released book titled “The House on First Street:  My New Orleans Story,” author Julia Reed offers an insider’s view on why and how New Orleans will survive.  In what is a semi comedic story of life in her adopted city, New Orleans, in the years and months after Hurricane Katrina, Reed proves that it is the interconnectedness of the people, the history, the land and the food that will ensure that New Orleanians let the good times roll again and again.

Reed grew up in Greenville, Mississippi and spent years in New York City as contributing editor at Vogue and Newsweek before settling in New Orleans and ultimately buying a sprawling Greek Revival fixer-upper in the Garden District shortly before Hurricane Katrina.  Reed’s book is part history, part tragedy, part comedy, and part travel guide.

Recently, Reed joined CFIF’s Renee Giachino to discuss the book, lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and how a long and storied history of politics has hindered New Orleans’ emergency preparedness and ability to respond in the face of a major disaster.