Susan Roesgen may not be a New Orleans native, but over and over again she’s been drawn back to the Crescent City.
On assignment as a national reporter and anchor, Susy has gone on patrol with the U.S. Army in Haiti, bartered for a camel in Cairo and sailed on the Sea of Galilee in Israel.
She’s been a television anchor and reporter in several cities across the country, from San Diego to New York, including three separate positions here in New Orleans: first as the evening anchor for WDSU-TV from 1993 to 2000; then as a National Public Radio reporter in New Orleans from 2003 to 2005; and then she was the first correspondent chosen for CNN’s Gulf Coast Bureau, based in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, before she became CNN’s Midwest correspondent, based in Chicago. She was also co-host of “National Geographic Today,” a daily news program broadcast internationally from the National Geographic Channel in Washington, DC.
Susy is also a certified ESL teacher (English as a second language), and she’s a volunteer teacher in the ESL program at Associated Catholic Charities of New Orleans.
Update – 1/09/19: The Louisiana Land Trust today purchased the land for the “resettlement” of the islanders. The land is 40 miles away from Ilse de Jean Charles– away from the rising coastal water that has devoured almost all of the island. The next step, says Pat Forbes, CEO of the state Office of Community Development, will be the federally-funded construction of homes on the site: 515 land-locked acres of what used to be a sugar cane farm near Schriever, […]
NEW ORLEANS – Andrew Jackson and a rag-tag group of frontiersmen won the Battle of New Orleans in a decisive defeat of the British at the Chalmette Battlefield in 1815. But for the first time in memory, the annual reenactment of that famous battle most likely will be fought somewhere else. Chalmette Battlefield, part of the Jean Lafitte National Park, is closed to visitors because of the partial shutdown of the federal government. Without an 11th hour cannon blast of […]
NEW ORLEANS – According to the New Orleans Police Department, an unidentified officer survived two bullets fired at his chest by a possibly suicidal man, late Friday night. In a midnight news conference, Superintendent Michael Harrison and New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell told reporters that the city’s 9-1-1 center received a call that a man was going to kill himself in an apartment in the 2300 block of Orleans Avenue. NOPD Public Information Officer Andy Cunningham says that four officers […]
NEW ORLEANS – Their names hint at French nobility, and many come from roses that were grown in France almost two centuries ago. La Sylphide, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Madame Berkeley and more are blooming now in Armstrong Park. According to Leo Watermeier, a long-time French Quarter resident, the roses were first planted in the park in 1992 by the New Orleans Old Garden Rose Society. If you’re not familiar with the term “old roses,” think of them as the […]
NEW ORLEANS – It started as an inside joke for her friends, and now she has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram. 28-year old Shelby Williams has family members in River Ridge and started taking dance lessons in Baton Rouge when she was a toddler. Today, she’s a soloist with the Royal Ballet of Flanders, a professional ballet company in Belgium. About a year ago, Williams started posting short videos of herself dancing badly– just to make her ballet friends […]
NEW ORLEANS – The short video clip is hard to hear, but two words are clear enough – and could change the outcome of an election. The words are: “public hanging.” Lamar White, Jr., publisher of the Louisiana political website, “The Bayou Brief,” posted a ten second clip on Twitter of a comment made by Cindy Hyde-Smith at a campaign rally in Tupelo. Hyde-Smith is the GOP candidate in a runoff against Democrat Mike Espy for a seat in the […]
NEW ORLEANS – Worried crew members on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship saw the boat last week. It was a 30-foot sailboat in choppy water in the Gulf of Mexico, about 80 miles south of Cape San Blas, Florida. The sailboat, named “My Time,” appeared to have operational electronics and its main sail was neatly stowed. But there didn’t seem to be anyone on board. The NOAA crew sent radio calls and even blasted their ship’s horn, but […]
New Orleans – For young fans of the superhero movie “Black Panther,” the new “Marvel Black Panther Slash Claw” seems like a super cool gift! Except that it is a claw, made out of hard plastic, and toy-maker Hasbro warns that it should not be used to “hit or swing at people or animals.” Well, what else would a child do with a claw? By the way, it’s advertised as a gift for 5-year olds. The claw is one […]
NEW ORLEANS – Now that the holidays are here, so are social media posts about a gift “exchange” that promises you’ll receive lots of gifts, and all you have to do is send one. The posts are popping up around the country, and the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office says – don’t fall for it – it’s a “pyramid scheme.” According to the LPSO Twitter page, “the first people to join may get several gifts, but the later people get involved, […]
UPDATE: The Orleans Parish School Board is urging schools to delay the start of the school day until 11 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1, but individual schools may open their doors earlier. Here are some of those schools: ALGIER CHARTER SCHOOLS: Doors open at 10:30 a.m. Programming starts at 11:30 a.m. AUDUBON (Uptown and Gentilly campuses: Staff report at 10:30 a.m. Before Care and Breakfast is cancelled. BEN FRANKLIN HIGH: School opens at 10 a.m. for student drop-off, cafeteria opens […]
NEW ORLEANS – The deception started at the top. That’s the ultimate takeaway from an independent investigation into Entergy New Orleans’ role in paying actors to try to sway the New Orleans City Council’s vote on a new power station. The report released Monday (Oct. 29) reveals internal “documents, e-mails, text messages and other information” uncovered by the local law firm of Sher, Garner, Cahill, Richter, Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C., working in cooperation with retired Criminal Court District Judge Calvin […]
Abita Springs, LA – Delicious pastries and lovely cakes lure customers, but something else seems to appeal to the unseen occupants of the Maple Street Bakery in Abita Springs. Owner Jan Liggett says her family has had the bakery for eight years but the building is more than 100 years old, and Liggett thinks her business may have inherited the building’s spirits. Even Max Liggett, who’s just a child, talks about playing hide and seek– with a ghost. The bakery […]
