Small crowd for Mardi Gras parades

NEW ORLEANS -- The first of the major Mardi Gras parades with marching bands, brightly decorated floats and flying plastic beads rolled down New Orleans' streets Saturday, greeted by small but celebratory crowds.\nDespite the widespread destruction from Hurricane Katrina, officials decided to allow a scaled-back Mardi Gras celebration this year. New Orleans parades, put on by private groups, were restricted to one corridor to help cut the cost of police protection and trash pickup.\nFive parades rolled back-to-back in New Orleans on Saturday under cloudy, damp skies through neighborhoods left mostly unscathed by the Aug. 29 storm. More were scheduled for Sunday and next weekend, leading up to Fat Tuesday on Feb. 28.\nCapt. Juan Quinton, a police spokesman, said no major problems were reported along the route and that crowds, though small, were having fun.\nMany of the residents attending the parades said Mardi Gras is an important part of the city's heritage. Children and families often gather on the same street corners year after year.\n"What would the city be without Mardi Gras?" said 17-year-old Sadie Ables, standing on Lee Circle in the same spot three generations of her family has gathered for decades.\nHer mother, 37-year-old Shelly Guidry, conceded she had conflicts about the cost to the city, especially given how many people remain displaced from homes.\nLess than half the city's pre-Katrina population of about 480,000 has been able to return since the storm, and New Orleans' efforts to cover parade costs with corporate sponsors flailed, forcing the City Council to allocate $2.7 million to cover expenses.\nStill, Guidry was on the street with family members and her 3-year-old son strapped in a seat atop a ladder, a tradition for children who grow up here during normal years when towering crowds of adults make it too difficult for children to catch beads.