Tornado touched down in Carrollton area; cleanup expected to take a week

National Weather Service meteorologists determined Wednesday (May 12) that it really was a tornado that left a path of destruction across New Orleans. It landed near South Carrollton and South Claiborne avenues at 2:05 a.m., officials said. An NWS map shows the touchdown point as just south of Claiborne and east of Carrollton. It blew through the neighborhood with 85 mph winds and then headed to Broadmoor on its way to the CBD and Algiers. Preliminary reports for the Carrollton and Algiers areas show about two dozen houses with minor damage and about 10 houses with moderate damage, officials said.

More than 1,000 still without power after early morning storm tears through Uptown neighborhoods

A fierce weather system ripped through the Riverbend, Carrollton and Broadmoor neighborhoods at about 2 a.m., toppling trees, damaging property and bringing down power lines. According to Energy New Orleans, 1,037 households were still without power  as of 11 a.m. on Wednesday (May 12). No injuries have been reported in New Orleans from the possible tornado. The National Weather Service is expected to determine today whether the system can be classified as tornado.

New brewery sloshes through pandemic to open on Oak Street

Kevin Greenaae’s love of beer and brewing is obvious. When I met him at his new brewery, Oak St Brewery, 8201 Oak St., he regaled me with the story about how he found himself in New Orleans brewing beer in the middle of a pandemic.

Greenaae hails from the Midwest and spent the past 28 years working in the maritime industry. He and his wife, Dana Fos, were living and working in Seattle when Fos, a New Orleans native, told Greenaae she was ready to move back home to New Orleans.

Middle school filmmakers at Audubon Charter enjoy their long-awaited premiere

 

Audubon Charter School’s very first film festival was scheduled for March 14, 2020. That was five days after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Louisiana, and it would be over a year before the middle school students — who wrote, acted in and helped to shoot the movies —  would be able to show off the products of their hard work. Out of the glare of the May morning sun, in the cool Prytania Theatre, Stephanie Knapp, an Audubon parent and teacher who led Audubon Charter students through the process of making movies together, took the stage. The students and their supporters — parents, family and friends — were masked and spread out in the theater, with alternating rows taped off to allow for sufficient social distancing. “It’s interesting to see how everything is changed, how everything is different … and everything is still kinda the same,” Knapp said.

Team behind Bayou Beer Garden wants to open new bar on Tchoupitoulas

A co-owner of Bayou Beer Garden and Bayou Wine Garden wants to open a new bar in Uptown on Tchoupitoulas Street – but first he will have to face the objections of neighbors who say they don’t want to turn their street into an entertainment district.

Dubbed Riverside Bistro and Beer Garden, the proposed establishment would be located at 4842 Tchoupitoulas, across the street from F&M Patio Bar and down the block from Grit’s Bar on Lyons Street.