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.
NEW ORLEANS – Tell Mayor LaToya Cantrell why you’d like to walk in her shoes for a day, and you just might get the chance! Mayor Cantrell and the Office of Youth and Families have announced an essay contest, open to New Orleans girls between the ages of 11 and 18. March is Women’s History Month, and Mayor Cantrell says the “Madame Mayor for a Day” contest will encourage girls to “think about the positive impact they can make in […]
UPDATE: After Scott Songy (and WGNO) repeatedly asked Southwest Airlines for a response and reimbursement, see what happened at the end of this story. Metairie, LA –The thrills and chills of a spooky theme park are nothing compared to the real horror for Scott Songy. He spent three days trapped in his hotel room. For a year, Songy had been planning a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. One attraction in particular that appealed to him is Universal’s “Hollywood Horrors […]
NEW ORLEANS- A shootout between police and a suspected armed robber left five “innocent bystanders” seriously wounded as they stood at an RTA bus stop at the corner of Canal Street and Elk Place. NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson told reporters that investigators don’t know yet whether or not the bystanders were shot by bullets fired by two NOPD officers — or by the suspect they were chasing. A Louisiana State Police officer who joined the chase ultimately shot and killed […]
NEW ORLEANS – From sloths to swimsuits, new emojis will give you plenty of ways to text about things — without texting a word. A non-profit called the “Unicode Consortium” (made up of representatives from Apple, Google, Facebook and other big tech companies) has revealed the emojis for 2019. The list includes some random emojis (a yo-yo? a stethoscope? men’s underwear?) but the overall emoji “theme” this year is “inclusivity”– as in race, gender, and disabilities. For the first time, […]
Donaldsonville, La – Patricia Hoyal, the mother of Saints super-fan Jarrius “JJ” Robertson, was always in the background. She says her one-time boyfriend, JJ’s father Jordy, had portrayed himself to the Saints and to the media as their son’s sole parent, even though Hoyal has custody of JJ and he’s lived with her since he was 3 years old. Hoyal says she didn’t want to do anything that might affect JJ’s growing popularity with the Saints, and the glowing publicity […]
NEW ORLEANS – From “In the beginning…..” all the way to the last “Amen” in Revelation, a group of volunteers is reading every word of the Bible– nonstop–in front of Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Avenue. When BrotherJohn Joseph, CJC and some of his fellow seminarians decided to hold a public, outdoor reading of God’s word, they didn’t know if anyone would sign up. “A lot of our advertisement was done on foot,” he says, “going to local churches, both […]
NEW ORLEANS – At first glance, Coach Sean Payton looked casually normal, wearing a light blue polo shirt for his last scheduled news conference of the Saints season. But peaking out from under the polo shirt, sharp-eyed Saints fans thought they spotted something else. Payton also was wearing a turquoise t-shirt with some kind of image on the front, mostly– but not totally–obscured by the polo shirt. And that’s when social media sports conspiracy theorists went wild. This is what […]
NEW ORLEANS – From free breakfast to free haircuts, people across the New Orleans area are reaching out to federal workers affected by the partial government shutdown. Here’s a list of some of those generous individuals and businesses — please let us know of others and we’ll add them. — Ruby Slipper Cafe (all locations) will continue to offer free meals on weekdays (Mon-Fri) to unpaid federal workers and their families. —Top Knot Beauty Co. at 3225 Metairie Road, is […]
NEW ORLEANS – NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson’s son, Shane Ferguson, is in trouble with the law. According to NOPD Director of Communications Andy Cunningham, Shane Ferguson “turned himself into authorities Tuesday evening (Jan.22) in relation to a domestic dispute that occurred over the weekend.” “While this is a family matter,” says Cunningham in a prepared statement, “Chief Ferguson wants to be clear that the NOPD will conduct a proper and complete investigation just like we do in every case.” […]
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 […]
