by Allen Johnson
Fans celebrate the New Orleans Saints win against the Indianapolis Colts during Super Bowl XLIV
New Orleans explodes with joy after Saints win
Ecstatic fans poured into the streets of the French Quarter late Sunday as storm-scarred New Orleans celebrated its first-ever Super Bowl win by their beloved Saints.
A city famous for diversions - Mardi Gras, music and colorful politics, to name a few - set aside distractions to focus on the big game.
Even the strippers on bawdy Bourbon Street stopped dancing. Instead, they joined thousands of revelers cheering the Saints on live television sets at nearby bars.
"We have no music, no stages. It's the first time I've seen a club shut down and I've been doing this for five years," said Sam Stonebraker, 34, a host at Rick's Cabaret.
"The game is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime event in this city."
White fireworks burst in the distance. Strangers hugged, whooped and hollered in the streets, waving flags, shaking cowbells and dancing to spontaneous brass bands.
College students embraced restaurant waiters. A homeless man toasted beers with well-dressed tourists. Camera flashbulbs popped. Motorists honked horns with a cheerful cadence usually heard only at Carnival.
Stunned by the team's fourth-quarter thrashing of the Colts, Saints fans in the French Quarter seemed speechless, but happily so. Related article: Saints in Super Bowl win over Colts
The only intelligible sound from the celebratory crowds was repeated choruses of the cajun chant "Who Dat!"
The Saints' surprisingly successful season after 43 years of dismal performances has been a powerful tonic for residents still recovering from the killer August 26, 2005 storm that flooded nearly 80 percent of the low-lying coastal city.
Hundreds of people died in their homes after the levees broke and water levels rose the rooftops. Even more died in the chaos that followed -- including some of those stranded in the Superdome football stadium that served as a shelter.
Locals, who had angrily brooded over the sluggish pace of recovery, have for months now greeted each other on the street with the joyously ungrammatical Saints' fan chant, "Who dat? Who dat! Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?"
Super Bowl fever swamped the Big Easy, where everything from Mardi Gras parades to church services and jury trials was rescheduled to make sure fans could catch the kickoff of their team's first-ever shot at the National Football League championship spectacle.
It was well worth it. The Saints trounced the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in a thrilling game broadcast from Miami.
"This is the pinnacle of my life -- now I can die!" said Randy Sumrall, 46, who never moved back home after fleeing Katrina but came back to New Orleans to watch the big game with his girlfriend and old neighbors.
"I knew they were going to win," he told AFP. And he said there is nowhere better to watch it happen than the Big Easy.
"Why would I want to be in Miami - this is where you feed off all the longing for ultimate victory -- and recovery."
After a pass by Colts quarterback fluttered harmlessly to the ground in the final seconds -the Alpine restaurant near Jackson Square - exploded in a familiar chant: "Who dat! Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints!"
As the first quarter started, Saints fans - dressed in the team colors - black and gold - cheered from bleachers as they watched their team take the field on televisions mounted outside a bar at Fulton Street mall across Canal Street from the French Quarter.
Some fans wore beads - caught at a passing parade - earlier in the day.
Outside the Chart Room, a gritty French Quarter bar, a man costumed as a black-and-gold warrior from the Star Trek movie series, pointed to a "78" on his armored chest - the number of his favorite Saint, tackle John Stinchcomb.
"This is what New Orleans deserves," said the warrior, Larry Jehle Jr. a patient transporter for a local hospital.
"We have all been through so much in the last five years."
Four generations of one family gathered for a Super Bowl party in the Bucktown neighborhood a short walk from the 17th Street Canal which burst during Katrina.
"The Saints are not the same as other teams in other sports," said physician Lisha Barre, who flew in from Colorado to watch the game with her family.
"They represent the rebirth of the city."
AFP
