NEW ORLEANS--With hurricane season fast approaching, the New Orleans levees still have not been restored to pre-Katrina levels. But there is good news on the horizon for the city’s residents: star running back Reggie Bush is now a member of the New Orleans Saints, giving officials extra motivation to repair the levees and get the city back on its feet.

“OK, now we have a little motivation to get this work done,” said Sal Fullman of the US Army Corps of Engineers. “Reggie Bush is in town. Reggie Bush! He’s the best player in the country. That definitely puts things in a different light. Before it was like ‘OK, we need to get this done as soon as possible, but let’s not kill ourselves,’ and now we’re just going for broke. We will not let New Orleans be destroyed all over again – not with all this buzz surrounding the 2006 Saints.”

The arrival of Bush has been one of the few positive developments for the beleaguered city since it was flooded by hurricane Katrina last year. Bush was expected to go to the Houston Texans with the number one pick but instead fell to the Saints in what some consider a draft day miracle.

“It was miraculous that Reggie fell to us,” said Saints owner Tom Benson. “I can’t describe how excited we all were on that day. It’s rubbing off on state and government officials, too. The repair of the levees has really sped up, the clean-up of the city seems to have gone into overdrive, and people just seem to be paying more attention to us in general. Finally, there’s a good, concrete reason to rebuild this city.”

Benson, like many others, didn't want Bush to get the wrong impression when he came to New Orleans.

“It’s sort of like having a celebrity or a rich person over to your house for dinner,” he said. “You want to clean the place up, you want to buy some new, fancy decorations, and you generally want to give the impression that you’re worthy. You want to make it into a place Reggie Bush would be proud to live in. I mean we're not talking about Drew Brees here, we're talking about Reggie Frigging Bush. If that doesn't light a fire under people, I don't know what will.”

Bush’s arrival has also prompted congress to release billions of dollars in aid it has been sitting on for the past year. The aid was supposed to be used to repair neighborhoods outside of New Orleans, such as the Lower Ninth Ward. Now that aid will be diverted to the area around the Superdome in order to attract more season ticket holders to Saints games.

“Reggie being here has really lit a fire under people,” said Louisiana governor Kathleen Bianco. “Now we have a reason – a cause – to get behind. We have billions in aid and we’re going to spend it. Obviously Rome wasn’t built in a day, though. I mean, the poorer neighborhoods are going to take a while to reconstruct, but there’s no reason we can’t develop the area around the Superdome. We can build some restaurants, some sports bars, maybe a few souvenir shops, anything to attract people to Saints games. We can even build a statue of a jazz musician outside the stadium to celebrate the fact that this used to be a real city with real people in it, and not just some white-bread tourist attraction.”

Bush’s impact is already being felt in some parts of Louisiana, as the star running back is engaged in several charitable endeavors in and around the city. However, some residents are skeptical that he can make any real difference, especially when most of them can hardly even afford to return home.

“Well it’s nice that we got Reggie and it’s great to see the levees are finally going to be repaired and all, but excuse me for being a little skeptical about the whole thing,” said James Wallace, 52, a former resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, whose home was destroyed by flood waters. “All of this rebuilding and reconstructing is happening in the city, while the people in the surrounding areas still can’t even come home. All I know is we badly need something to revitalize our neighborhood. How about a pro baseball team?”

  Copyright 2006, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.

Copyright 2005, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.