Denise Thornton didn’t understand what her husband was doing.
It had been months since she and Doug Thornton, then the general manager of the Superdome, had spent five days trapped in the arena with 30,000 evacuees after Hurricane Katrina. Denise still had nightmares about her time in the Dome, but she had channeled her anger, fear and frustration from those five days into a new purpose. She had founded Beacon of Hope, a resource center where locals could come and find information, borrow tools, and work together to get people back in their homes.
I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was focusing all his efforts and attention on that building. For what? There’s no one in town.
Her husband wasn’t there to see most of it, though. He was in Baton Rouge, at the makeshift SMG offices, working countless hours to get the Superdome back up and running.
Denise couldn’t understand why.
“Doug and I almost got a divorce over that Superdome being built,” she said. “I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was focusing all his efforts and attention on that building. For what? There’s no one in town. People are homeless, and he’s rebuilding a building where, I mean, there’s no fans.”
It just didn’t make sense to her. That big building, the one that had been the site of the worst week of the Thorntons’ lives, was going to be rebuilt? When people still hadn’t even gotten home yet? While houses still sat destroyed, their innards spilling out into the street?
It drove a wedge between the Thorntons. They had two very different ideas about how to rebuild New Orleans. And it was tearing them apart.