Mardi Gras returns to post-Katrina New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- The crowds were small and the costumes wickedly satirical as Mardi Gras built toward its boozy climax Tuesday in the hurricane-buckled city.\nThe culmination of the eight-day pre-Lenten bash fell nearly six months to the day after the Aug. 29 storm that smashed thousands of homes and killed more than 1,300 people, the vast majority of them in New Orleans.\n"I lost everything," said Andrew Hunter, 42, as he sat on the steps of his ruined home on Jackson Avenue. "But what the heck. This helps us keep our spirits up, and we need all the help we can get with that."\nEven amid the typical debauchery -- including early morning drinking, flashes of bare breasts and skimpy costumes in the French Quarter -- there was no escaping reminders of the storm.\nZulu, the 97-year-old Mardi Gras club that lost 10 members to Katrina, paraded amid homes that still bear dirty brown water marks from the floodwaters that covered 80 percent of the city.\nKevin and Marie Barre, a husband and wife from New Orleans, wore white plastic coveralls bearing the all-too-familiar spray-painted "X" that denotes a home that has been checked for bodies.\n"It's a reminder. A lot of people who are coming down here don't understand what we've been through," Kevin Barre said.\nOther dark humor costumes included several people draped in blue tarps like those used to cover damaged roofs and another group who dressed as blind people with canes and dark glasses. They wore hard hats and T-shirts emblazoned "LEVEE INSPECTOR."\nAlong an Uptown parade route, a family who lost its Lakeview home to flooding poked fun at former FEMA director Michael Brown. Jenny Louis, her husband, Ross, and their three children strolled around in all-brown costumes, similar to the uniforms worn by UPS drivers. Printed on their backs: "What Did Brown Do For You Today?"\nDespite partly sunny weather and temperatures in the 70s, the crowds were smaller than usual in a city that still has less than half its pre-storm population of almost a half-million. Finding a prime parade-watching spot was not hard.\n"We came out about five this morning and had no trouble getting a good spot," said Tammi Harlan, 56, of Metairie. "We've been coming to this spot for about 20 years, but normally the guys come the night before to make sure we get it."\nTraditions held. About 160 members of clarinetist Pete Fountain's Half Fast Marching Club had breakfast at the shuttered Commander's Palace restaurant before heading down the parade route -- but without Fountain, who is ill and missed what would have been his 46th trip with the group. The celebrated musician is 75.\nNew Orleans native Donald Rooney of Denver wore a purple, green and gold fright wig along the parade route.\nMardi Gras is about "helping the city rebuild," he said. "It's my hometown. There's still a great soul that lives in the city that 10 feet, 12 feet of water can't kill, and it's coming back."\nAssociated Press writers Hank Ackerman, Cain Burdeau and Janet McConnaughey contributed to this report.