Hurricane: That goodwill did not last a week in Baton Rouge as reality sets in on exactly what is happening. The mayor is saying outloud what a lot of folks are saying in private about people being bused around from Hurricane Katrina.
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BATON ROUGE, La. – Chillin' on the levee by the Mississippi River on a sunny Monday morning, Nutty and Slim Nine and Doughboy, Jr., admitted that they are already homesick for New Orleans.
"This ain't like the city, where everybody got a nickname that everybody knows you by," said Nutty, 18, whose tattooed nickname was spelled out in two-inch high block letters between his right shoulder and elbow. "I'm trying to get back home — back to the N.O."
"I don't like the curfew here," said Doughboy, Jr., 16. "And I don't like the police. They make grown people stay inside at night."
"We got gangs — 'Catch, Catch, Get A Little Bit', 'Suicide', a bunch of others," said Slim Nine, 20. "And we know the police crew. People here just don't understand us. New Orleans is a fun city." They did not want to give their full names because "people might be after us."
While not typical of the thousands relocated here from New Orleans, they do reflect part of an emerging culture clash in this normally unhurried Southern college town and state capital that in a week has become the largest city in Louisiana with a parish-wide population that may triple to 1 million.
A local news report quoted a Realtor telling of rich refugees from the Big Easy bringing suitcases of cash and buying houses on the spot. There are no rooms to rent anywhere in any price range. Families have taken in kinfolks who have no plans to leave. Suddenly there are traffic jams and lines of cars at gas stations. There's been a run on guns and tear gas by wary residents.
"It's totally related" to the influx of refugees from New Orleans, said Geralynn Prince of Securitas Security Systems, an agency that has many "immediate openings" for security guards.
"We need three or four times as many" as usual, said Prince, whose business supplies armed guards for retail stores and supply warehouses. "We'll take all the qualified people we can hire."
The feared outbreak of crime has not occurred. But unease was dramatically illustrated last Wednesday when a fight broke out at the River Center, the downtown convention center across from the levee. About 5,500 refugees are being housed there, making it the largest shelter in Louisiana.
After the fight, Baton Rouge Mayor-President Melvin L. "Kip" Holden beefed up the police presence and blasted the state for sending "New Orleans thugs" for his city to house.
"We do not want to inherit the looting and all of the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Holden told reporters. "We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."
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