Broken News: Katrina Never Happened

NEW ORLEANS—For many citizens in this once hurricane-ravaged city, the events of the past couple of days remain simply unbelievable. Virtually overnight, all levees have been competently rebuilt, the lower 9th ward and surrounding areas restored to pristine condition, millions of residents back in undamaged homes, and local businesses up and running at full capacity.

“I don’t want to jinx it,” a giddy Mayor Ray Nagin announced to the assembled press who had gathered at city hall when they all realized what was occurring. “But I think that the Saints winning the Super Bowl caused a sort of temporal rift. HURRICANE KATRINA NEVER HAPPENED!”

“Just like all the media and sports press have essentially been claiming. WHO DAT?!” the mayor jubilantly exclaimed.

In a comprehensive list released to the media, Nagin detailed all the policies, programs, relief and reconstruction efforts that were going to be canceled immediately because of the magical circumstances stemming from this sporting victory.

These include such programs as efforts to rebuild and restore the lower 9th and the 80% of building in Orleans parish that sustained severe water damage, attempts to rebuild a fortify the levee system, efforts to encourage growth after nearly half the city population left, efforts to revamp and rejuvenate the education, cultural, law enforcement, and local governance systems, as well as addressing widespread poverty, health, employment and other urban issues, or any other efforts to address the weak tax base, business community, and economy that are all now completely fixed.

In addition, David Simon announced the cancellation of his upcoming New Orleans HBO series Treme saying “I guess there no longer exists an overarching tableau of decay and rebirth that I can use as a backdrop to critique the fading American empire and its self-destructive institutions.”

Added a clearly dejected Simon, "I guess we'll always have Cleveland."

While nearly everyone is pleased to see New Orleans magically overcome the greatest natural disaster in American history through otherworldly means in conjunction with the outcome of a sporting championship, most are just confused as to how this occurred.

While certain sporting events have come to be seen as triggers for important historical events, most notably the 1935 Detroit victory in the World Series ushering in the New Deal and the 1968 formation on the Cincinnati Bengals being retroactively blamed for the My Lai Massacre, there has yet to have been a sporting victory or loss that has seemingly traveled back through time to change past events.

“I don’t claim to understand it, I’m just glad it happened,” a victorious Mayor Nagin yelled from a parade float led by a jazz brass ensemble playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

On the other hand some in the media seemingly did foresee such a chain of events, peppering their coverage of the Saints with references to how their good season was part of the complete rebirth of New Orleans and that an arbitrary victory in a football game could possibly signal that the city was back and A-OK.

“Yeah, when I first heard all of that I was a little incredulous,” observed Saints QB and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees. “I mean I do a ton of charity work around this city and I failed to see just how us winning one game would retroactively fix the deplorable state that the city was in... at the time.”

“I remember being asked by Katie Couric if I had saved New Orleans,” Brees recounted, highlighted a pre-game interview with the CBS anchor that beggared belief. “I just thought to myself ‘Listen you dippy bitch, how the hell is a high octane passing attack and intensive film study going to fix the very real socio-economic problems that I tirelessly work to help fix?’”

“But here we are," he shrugged. “Everything was fixed. Because of a football game.”

In a statement he released to the press Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning, who threw a game changing interception for a touchdown and who himself grew up in New Orleans while his father played quarterback for the Saints, noting that he was “glad to do his part to revive his hometown”, feeling that the complete and total rejuvenation of most of Southern Louisiana was a much better result than what would have happened for Indianapolis had the Colts won: half-price burgers at participating Steak’n’Shakes in the greater metro area.

“Whatever,” Mayor Nagin was heard to yell while reveling in parade festivities on Bourbon Street. “I’m just glad that no one ever has to worry about New Orleans ever again or concern themselves with the status of this city. We won a football game! It’s all golden baby.”

In a related story, the nation of Haiti petitioned several top NFL franchises to legally relocate their headquarters to Port-au-Prince for the upcoming season in the hopes that a Super Bowl victory could not only fix the damage done in the recent earthquake, but provide the country with a mulligan for most of the past 200 years.