Oh, that was lovely.
Normally I chafe a bit at slow narration (especially when the story is as long as this one), but in this case a faster reading would have really destroyed the atmosphere. There's such beauty in different ways of speaking; I wouldn't want a New Orleans narrator to be going at the pace of a New Yorker. So include me in the chorus of praise for Laurice White.
And a beautiful story, too, both on the level of the idea and its telling. People with that kind of strong connection to their city are one of the tropes I go squish for, so Tookie's fierce devotion to New Orleans at the climax, and his awareness of how it had shaped him, got me like an arrow to the heart. I also very much appreciated the story framing the post-hurricane ugliness as coming from inside people, not being imposed on them by the Plot Monster (though the monster can bring it out of them). A wealth of wonderful details, too, from the phrasing of the dialogue to the well-observed detail of the environment. Lovely, lovely stuff.