Aquarium of the Americas reopens in NO:
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Nine months after Katrina, the Aquarium of the Americas will reopen with a splash
Thursday, May 25, 2006
By Susan Langenhennig
West Bank bureau
His arm wet to the elbow, Lance Ripley reached deep into a tall white bucket and scooped up a handful of tiny, pulsing jellyfish.
Cupping the gelatinous brown critters in his bare palm, Ripley gently lowered them into one of the freshly scrubbed exhibits of the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.
The jellyfish glided to rest on the sandy white bottom, completely unaware they had just traveled more than 1,500 miles and soon would play a role in the recovery of the New Orleans tourism industry.
The shipment of jellyfish, a gift from the New England Aquarium in Boston that flew cross-country in white Styrofoam packing boxes, was among the thousands of donated, purchased and captured animals to be installed in the refurbished Aquarium of the Americas.
On Friday, the aquarium will swing open its doors to visitors for the first time since Hurricane Katrina shuttered the facility, knocking out reliable power and clean water sources and inevitably leading to the loss of more than 4,000 animals.
But there were survivors. And on Monday, aquarium officials celebrated the return of the penguins and sea otters, which were evacuated to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California for safekeeping in the days after the storm.
Waddling down a purple carpet leading to the aquarium's front door, the penguins were greeted with cheers and snapping cameras by a large crowd gathered to welcome them home.
The animals and visitors are returning to an aquarium that shows no hint of the destruction caused by Katrina. After months of hard work by a greatly diminished staff, the place sparkles.
Broken windows have been replaced, new carpet laid, and fish tanks scrubbed, replumbed and rewired. And thanks to some help from zoos and aquariums across the country, Audubon's exhibits now brim with new life, including a diverse collection of large sharks for the facility's finale tank, the 400,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico exhibit.
Reopening almost nine months after a devastating loss to its animal stock and shutdown of its systems, the aquarium's recovery is one that local officials hope will send a positive ripple through the tourism industry.
Before the storm, the aquarium was the city's most visited individual attraction, clocking more than 1 million visitors annually. In 2004, the combined ticket sales for the aquarium and the adjacent Entergy IMAX Theatre totaled $10.4 million. The IMAX will reopen on Friday too, featuring three movies.
Tourism officials are crossing their fingers that fascinating fish will once again lure out-of-town leisure travelers to a city desperate to fill its restaurants and hotels.
"We're working very hard to get the word out that the city is not only open for business but thriving," said Mary Beth Romig, director of communications and public relations for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The aquarium opening at the foot of Canal Street sends a strong signal."
Tons of donations
With a mop and bucket in hand, an aquarium maintenance worker was finishing up her task last week when something flashed behind her.
A giant school of more than 100 blue runner fish swooshed past a small window that peers into the Gulf of Mexico exhibit, a stunning curtain of silver slicing through the water.
The blue runners arrived around Thanksgiving, a donation from the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, said Ripley, assistant curator of fish.
"That was the turning point for me, from cleanup mode to rebuilding," he said. "With those guys in there, you could really get a mental picture of what it was going to look like again, what you were working toward."
Surveying the loss of life after the storm, aquarium officials knew the cost would be great to rebuild the animal collection and restore the exhibits. The brown sharks alone each came with an $8,000 price tag.
But offers of help started to flow in from around the country. "We raised close to $10 million in private dollars to date, including donations, program-related investments and insurance," said Karyn Noles Bewley, aquarium senior vice president and managing director.
"Total value of animal donations to date is $235,000, which includes animals, transportation and shipping," she said. "The donations continue to come in."
Along with the donated animals, Audubon staff members took trips this spring to the Florida Keys and the Bahamas to collect the kaleidoscope of colorful fish that round out the exhibits.
While the majority of the exhibits will look remarkably like they did the day before the hurricane, the staff has taken the down time since the storm to retool some tanks and galleries.
One of the big changes will be a new interactive exhibit featuring several stations where visitors can touch live animals. Opening in July, the new exhibit will be called "Land, Sea and Me" and will be a precursor to a larger display with a similar interactive theme that will be released next spring.
"There'll be a stingray touch pool, a shark touch pool, a pirate ship, a water table. It's really neat," Bewley said.
Getting staff back
The donations, coupled with drastic staff cuts that reduced the aquarium's workforce from 267 full- and part-time workers before Katrina to 48 after, has saved the Audubon Nature Institute from having to dip into its $25 million endowment, Bewley said.
"We initiated excruciatingly painful cost-saving measures in the fourth quarter of '05," she said. "We had a real small operation to get us through the year."
Now that the facility is gearing up to reopen, the institute is rehiring many of its laid-off workers, expecting to have 120 people on the aquarium's payroll before the reopening.
The growing staff and animal-care expenses are a concern. Before the storm, the aquarium operated in the black, making enough money from ticket sales and private party rentals to cover not only its expenses but also to offset costs at other Audubon Nature Institute facilities.
"The other Audubon facilities rely on this facility. The zoo operates in the red because it supports Audubon Park," she said.
And the aquarium's success hinges on tourism. "We rely so heavily on visitors to the city; June and July will be very important to us, which is why we've worked so hard to reopen, in the hope the leisure travelers will come to New Orleans during the summer months," Bewley said.
Sandy Shilstone, president and chief executive officer of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp., said the aquarium plays a prominent role in her agency's marketing campaign for leisure visitors. She sees the reopening as key to regaining the city's footing among the top leisure travel destinations in the United States.
"Last year, New Orleans was named the No. 1 family attraction by National Geographic Traveler and Yahoo Travel, and one of the reasons stated was because we have great museums, a fabulous zoo and a wonderful aquarium," she said. "With the aquarium closed, we lost probably the signature attraction to our family marketing campaign. Many cities have zoos and theme parks, and they are wonderful, but few cities have aquariums."
A sign of hope
Ron Forman, institute president and chief executive officer, strolled through the aquarium on a recent weekday, checking on its progress. Walking through the empty halls with the reopening just days away, Forman said he feels the same anticipation now as he did 16 years ago on the eve of the aquarium's first opening.
Then, as now, the city is in recovery. When the $40 million Aquarium of the Americas debuted on Labor Day weekend in 1990, New Orleans was rebounding from the devastating oil and gas recession of the 1980s.
Tourism, already bringing in millions of visitors a year to the city, was fueling that recovery, and the aquarium quickly became the tourism industry's crown jewel, outpacing the zoo and other local museums in attendance.
Sixteen years later, with the city once again struggling to recover, Forman said he hopes the aquarium will be a positive symbol to rally around.
"We have a lot of small businesses, shops and hotels hanging on by their fingernails right now," he said. "The aquarium will help bring visitors back right now when we need it. It also is a source of pride for locals, to say we have one of the top five zoos and top five aquariums in the country. If we can come back, it speaks to the city coming back."
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