Word: downtowners
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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BROWN SITS DOWN THE NEXT MORNING TO talk over a cappuccino at a downtown coffee shop. You don't really interview Jerry Brown. He does that for you. You just try to keep up. He talks about California and whether it is becoming more conservative. (He's not sure.) He is worried about the growing number of workers who can find jobs only in the underground economy. (It's not the taxes employers are avoiding, he says. It's the health benefits and safety regulations.) He complains that to reach undecided voters, candidates have to buy ads on American Idol...
With the hurricane season starting June 1, flooding is on everyone's mind in New Orleans these days. Downtown last week, government officials, military men in desert gear and private suppliers ran a tabletop exercise against a fictional Category 4 hurricane named Oscar. Next up: the exercise goes live, with role players posing as residents fleeing a Category 3 storm by bus from the Earnest N. Morial Convention Center, the scene of real-life tragedy after Katrina. Along Lake Pontchartrain, meanwhile, contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers are rushing to finish new floodgates on the city's perimeter, working...
That is precisely what the city and state want. In announcing evacuation plans in early May, the city's embattled Mayor Ray Nagin, who won re-election Saturday, pointedly noted that there would be no shelter of last resort like the Superdome or "vertical" evacuations to hotels downtown. He said the city would be calling more readily for evacuations, ordering everyone out for a hurricane as weak as Category 2. The state last week geared up shelter plans, identifying places for 55,000 evacuees--more space than was available last year after the Superdome closed. In addition to Red Cross...
...avoid being caught again "with our britches down," Meffert says, he not only has Plans A and B for emergency communications but also Plans C, D, E and F. He has moved the backup generators to higher ground; installed a wi-fi system downtown and backed up "hot spots" like city hall, emergency operations and the police command center with solar chargers; brought in wi-fi-compliant phones that allow emergency management to text message as well as make calls; and wrangled four vans with satellite uplinks in the event all else fails. Finally, he got what he jokingly refers...
...self-serve bar and rack of newspapers to recommend them. These days, they're more likely to be offered a fashionable sanctuary, with spa, dining and business facilities to keep them happily occupied for hours. Some lounges, like Virgin Atlantic's new Heathrow Clubhouse, above, rival any downtown nightspot for style and exclusivity. Here are four others that take the pain out of having to get to the airport early...