railfanofewu wrote:
So can it be restored to operation once the power is back on and the city dried out?
Technically, yes - but, given the circumstances, highly unlikely for a very, very long time, if ever.
Why? First of all, because the great majority of the city of New Orleans has been rendered uninhabitable by the severely contaminated floodwaters. About 80% of the houses in the city are underwater, many up to their roofs. All of these houses, including the soil of the land surrounding them, are going to have to be de-contaminated. The toxic sludge left behind by the floodwaters is going to be very difficult to remove. Many houses may have to be torn down because, structurally, they will be too difficult to dry out and clean up. Toxic mold will grow inside their damp walls. At the very least, the more salvageable houses will have to be gutted to their frames and their interiors completely renewed.
All of this is going to take a very long time (years, not months), and no-one will be able to return to the city to live and to work until this process has been completed. With few people residing in the city, there is little demand for transit.
Some of the wealthier, mainly white, folks may be able to return sooner to their homes in the parts of the city that were not so badly flooded, primarily the Garden District, parts of the downtown area, and the French Quarter, once power, water and sewerage systems are restored. Other basic services, such as police, fire, hospitals and schools, are also going to have to be restored. Many of the people who staffed these services lived in the poorer, more severely flooded areas. Moreover, the wealthier people mentioned above own cars, and aren't transit-dependent.
New Orleans had a very large percentage (about 29%) of people living below the poverty line - people who couldn't afford to own cars, who could barely make it from one pay- or welfare check to the next, and who were therefore highly transit-dependent. These people have now all been forced to leave their homes and their city. Futhermore, New Orleans was more than 70% black. These citizens were by and large the ones who used public transportation. Now, most of them are gone, likely never to return, having been relocated to other parts of the country.
Furthermore, tourists, who rode the St. Charles Avenue streetcar line in considerable numbers, aren't coming back to New Orleans anytime soon, either. Basically, the area's economy, including the tourism industry, which gave jobs to the great majority of the citizens of this city, has been destroyed. Many of the evacuees relocated to other parts of the country by this storm will probably never return, first because they have nothing to come home to and, second, because by the time this horrific mess gets cleaned up, most will have found new homes, jobs, and schools for their chilfren, and will have settled into their adopted communities. Even if they could return, many won't want to because they have no desire to risk once again the threat of yet another great hurricane and a repeat of this disaster.
I therefore have come to the sad conclusion that the streetcars in New Orleans are done for, at least for the short- and medium-term future. My gut feeling is that they won't be coming back at all, because there is no longer any real need for them. A rudimentary bus service is probably the only public transportation that will be around for a very long time to come
a very sad time for the trolleys of New Orleans, both new and old cars will suffer severe damages from the storm, wind and water flooding could destroy our beloved trolleys.
