Holiday display’s blue tarps to return

METAIRIE, La. – The outcry was so intense after a suburban New Orleans mall removed a Christmas display of a miniature hurricane-ravaged town that the exhibit is going back up this weekend.

Frank Evans, who designed the tiny blue-tarped roofs and little toppled fences, said he was reinstalling them at the mall’s request starting Friday night.

The miniature town, a full 60 feet long with pumping stations and tiny piles of hurricane debris, is circled by a miniature train that children ride after sitting in Santa’s lap. It was installed in mid-November but ordered removed Tuesday after some people complained it was in poor taste.

Evans said the removal prompted hundreds of e-mails of support for the display, compared to just 10 complaints about the display. Tricia Thriffiley, the mall’s marketing manager, said she personally received more than 500 e-mails.

Thriffiley confirmed the mall is allowing Evans to put up the display. It will include a bulletin board with comments from both sides, so people can judge the arguments for themselves.

Rita Mayhorn, whose daughter’s home in Slidell was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, said she was glad the mall decided to bring back the display.

“It’s part of our life right now. We’re all living under blue roofs, even me,” she said.

Evans, a landscape architect from nearby Gretna, has been building Christmas displays for 13 years. He said hurricane victims could relate to this one.

“People were kind of desperate, down in the dumps,” he said. “They looked at it and said, ‘That’s me; we’ve got to get on with it; John Wayne is not going to come bail us out.’ “

Some of the satire will be toned down a bit. Evans said mall management didn’t want doorways marked with big orange X’s indicating the building was searched for bodies, and Evans agreed.

“I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” Evans said.