Washington diary: Sex, Fema and Katrina

This week, Matt Frei writes his column from New Orleans, where he returned to see how the city celebrated Mardi Gras exactly six months after it was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Fat Tuesday in the Big Easy. I am sitting on the small balcony of my hotel in Chartres Street in the heart of the French Quarter, and I am watching a man dressed as a giant phallus screaming obscenities at a woman disguised as Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Most of the jokes are about sex, Katrina and Fema - or all three

She has just opened her yellow box blouse to reveal her bare breasts. An octogenarian Flash Gordon is too drunk to notice as the row between the penis and Sponge Bob reaches fever pitch and a bored policeman, leaning against his car nearby, begins to pay attention.

The argument, oddly, appears not to be about her display of nudity but about tomorrow's grocery shopping.

While they have their domestic fracas, a man dressed as Osama Bin Laden wafts past, carrying a fake machine gun. "Dubai port security!" it says on his flowing white gown - a very topical joke that only means something to those revellers who have been reading the New York Times and watching cable TV.

That applies to hardly anyone in this city - whose main task today is to drink as much as possible without being sick.

I rub my eyes and think back.

Beery breath

Six months ago, my hotel was billeted by the understandably unsmiling policemen from the 18th precinct, most of whom had lost their homes and some of whom had lost their families.

Chartres Street was deserted and pitch black at night, eerily illuminated by the hovering search-beams of military Humvees seeking those who had dared break the curfew.

The 82nd Airborne, fresh out of Iraq, patrolled the streets.

A festering corpse still blocked the approach to the ATM machine on Poydras Street.

New Orleans today is an orgy of excess: Hieronymus Bosch meets the average British high street at closing time on a Saturday! Send us your comments

One night, we were in the only open bar drinking the only available beverage: a warm cocktail of cognac and Diet Dr Pepper, a truly disgusting brew but one that helped to dull the senses.

There was no electricity and therefore no air conditioning, and since the temperature had risen above 38C, we were standing on the pavement to catch a breeze.

This was illegal after 6pm, and soon two city cops turned up, armed with a loudhailer and attitude.

Without warning, they let off a canister of pepper spray inside the bar. Within seconds, the regulars were coughing and spewing their Dr Pepper cocktails.

"Spoilsports!" we muttered, and slunk home.

Today, the whole French Quarter has a beery breath.

The streets are sticky with spilt booze and crunchy with discarded Mardi Gras beads. There are piles of empty plastic beakers, fast-food containers and beer cans. The rats are licking their fangs.

The French Quarter has a very distinct eau de cologne, but it stinks almost as much as it did after the hurricane.

Orgy of excess

Most of the jokes here are about sex, Katrina and Fema - or all three.

A mile away from the revelry, the Lower Ninth ward still lies in ruins

Fema, you will remember is the government emergency relief agency once headed by the infamous "Brownie". He was the friend of a friend of the president who was, according to his boss, doing "a heck of a job" - and then resigned a week later, under a hail of criticism.

One man today was dressed as an MRE. Not "Meal Ready to Eat", the bland military rations handed out by relief workers last summer, but "Man Ready to Eat", as the costume obligingly explained.

Something that has no room on a family website bounced up from under his tunic.

New Orleans today is an orgy of excess: Hieronymus Bosch meets the average British high street at closing time on a Saturday!

The televangelist Pat Robertson once called Hurricane Katrina divine retribution for the sins of this city. Today Pat is surely patting himself on the back!

Extreme makeover

A mile away from the revelry, the Lower Ninth Ward still lies in ruins, inhabited by piles of rubble, fading memories and intrusions of the bizarre.

Surveying the damage is one of the most popular tourist attractions today - $35 (£20) per person for a two-hour trip through hell

Beverly McCeery was fighting back the tears as she told me how she grew up at 435 Lassale Street with her 15 brothers and sisters.

She and her son Ashton now live in exile in Houston, and their house is as flat as a pancake. It is located less than a mile from one of the levies that broke, disgorging millions of tons of salty water into this residential neighbourhood.

As we spoke, a tour bus crammed with open-mouthed white faces drove by. Surveying the damage is one of the most popular tourist attractions today - $35 (£20) per person for a two-hour trip through hell.

Beverly - who is still paying the mortgage on her shredded home - is understandably bitter.

New Orleans has always been eccentric, but these days it specialises in the macabre and the surreal, like the 80ft (24m) fishing trawler, parked across the street. It is bigger than the houses on either side and marooned three miles (5km) from the sea where it was moored on 28 August last year.

Or the film crew from the Home Improvement Channel, equipped with cameras on cranes, arc lights and a hospitality trailer. They are on location to shoot the makeover of a house which, as far as I can see, consists of little more than a foundation slab, a lone toilet and a chair.

Doesn't this whole city need an extreme makeover?

Send us your comments on the issues raised in Matt Frei's Washington diary