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S u n d ay, a p r i l 12, 2026
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Some coastal Louisiana camps lost power when their utility pulled out, and others could be next
Moreno eyes new City Hall 70-year-old building has decayed over decades
BY BLAKE PATERSON Staff writer
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno is taking on a problem that generations of mayors before her have tried — and failed — to solve: the need for a new City Hall. The blue-glassed, midcentury-modern building at 1300 Perdido Street that serves as New Orleans’ seat of government opened in 1957 and is decades overdue for a face-lift. Moreno has asked Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature for $5.1 million to kick-start planning around a new building. In the coming weeks, the mayor, Moreno City Council and Civil District Court also plan to appoint a slate of experts for a new Municipal Complex Advisory Committee, which Moreno created through an executive order on her first day in office. The committee will examine financing for three different scenarios: gutting and refurbishing the current complex that holds City Hall and Civil District Court; building a larger facility across Perdido Street at Duncan Plaza; or building a
ä See CITY HALL, page 8A STAFF PHOTOS By BRETT DUKE
Jake Sanamo holds up a section of an old electrical line once used to power his family’s camp near Lake De Cade in Terrebonne Parish on March 26. BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
ABOARD THE LIL JAKE — Ben Sanamo hunched in the bowels of the tugboat and clutched one end of a garden hose. His dad, Warren, snaked the other end into a 55-gallon drum of diesel and flicked on a portable pump. The sun fell low in the sky, splashing golden light on their houseboat, the Aqua Lodge, moored next to the tug on the Voss Canal, a waterway cut long ago by fur trappers, deep in the brackish marsh in Terrebonne Parish. No neighbors were home. The swamp was quiet. The Sanamos pumped the diesel until the drum was dry. Ben cranked the generator, and it sputtered a couple times. “That’s the thing with generators,” Warren said. “You never know.” Ben cranked it again and it roared to life. The engine’s hum cracked the remote quiet of their nook in the marsh, where they’ve been coming for over a decade, raising Ben’s son, Jake, and fishing and hunting just about anything that swims or crawls in coastal Louisiana. This is the Sanamo family’s routine
WEATHER HIGH 82 LOW 68 PAGE 8B
Pope’s ancestor buried in St. Louis Cathedral It’s just another reason for him to visit N.O., archbishop says
BY BOB WARREN Staff writer
the electric equipment that powered the camps. For years, the South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association, or SLECA, told the camp owners that they planned to build them back.
Archbishop James Checchio makes no secret of his desire to convince Pope Leo XIV, the first American to hold the title, to visit New Orleans. And during a recent audience with the pope in Rome, Checchio said he reminded him of a good reason to make a visit: Leo’s family roots in the Crescent City. Checchio said the pope is “very aware and interested” in his family’s history in New Orleans. Checchio said the pope told him and the others during the visit that he remembers his family in Chicago, where Leo grew up, often talking about the family history in New Orleans. Included in that lineage is the pope’s fourth great-grandmother, identified in Archdiocese of New Orleans records as Marie Catherine Guesnon Ramos Morales, who is buried in St. Louis Cathedral.
ä See END, page 9A
ä See POPE, page 8A
Ben Sanamo, left, and his father, Warren Sanamo, pump diesel fuel into their tugboat at their camp in Terrebonne Parish. The family relies on generators for power after electric infrastructure serving the area was not rebuilt following Hurricane Ida. now. Their houseboat, which Ben and Warren built from the ground up, is one of nearly 300 properties spanning four remote outposts in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes that had the lights turned off — maybe for good. Hurricane Ida damaged some of
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Nation-World................2A Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
ENCORE: CHICKEN FINGERS
13TH yEAR, NO. 243
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