Doug Thornton Quotations

She's taken a hit. She's been given the ultimate test.

I don't get that. What was that all about?

I'm a little more encouraged after walking through it a second time.

I think it could be a symbol perhaps of the rebuilding of New Orleans. There are a lot of good memories in the dome too.

I think it could be a symbol for the rebuilding of New Orleans.

I think the image of New Orleans that America had was that image of the damaged roof. It was very, very important to us not only from the operations side to get the roof temporarily repaired, but symbolically. ... It shows we are making progress.

It is a symbol of the recovery and rebirth of New Orleans.

That building is a little worse than I first thought. I'm a little discouraged by what we saw there.

That would cost $30 (million) to $40 million.

We don't expect to take any water. But we wanted them up higher in case.

We're working to make the Dome ready for the next season.

The project on the Square is an outstanding one and the new clock will certainly be a compliment to our Court Square.

This will make this a better building for all the users, whatever happens to the Saints.

We've got to be cost-effective here. You've got to be really careful, otherwise you're going to be spending a million or $2 million just to patch the roof.

We've not had the opportunity to discuss what role SMG will play, but we've offered our assistance to the extent that it is necessary. LSU and the Saints want our help.

We were down to an hour-and-a-half of fuel.

You get the feeling that if you could take this thing down to the bare walls and replace some of the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (systems), you could be back in business. I don't know how long that would take, but structurally the building seems to be in pretty good shape.

The Superdome is covered through risk management. We have $100 million for flood protection and $500 million for storm damage.

One guy asked me why we wouldn't just want to tear down the Dome because it harbors so many bad memories of the storm, but we had 30 years of good memories here before the hurricane. It could be a symbol for the rebuilding of New Orleans, something people could rally around.

It's unbelievable. All these big oak trees are just uprooted, everything is brown and the waterline is up to 7 feet on the house. It's like somebody dropped a nuclear weapon and just killed everything. There's not any sign of life. There's no greenery. It's bizarre. It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my life.

It's in bad shape. Whether it can be rehabilitated in nine or 12 months is not something I could tell you about now. There's severe damage to the roof (70 percent exposed), severe damage to the electrical distribution systems and a lot of the interior spaces are damaged.

It's very early at this point to speculate about the future of the Dome and whether it can be repaired.

They'll tell us if we should rehabilitate the dome or demolish it and start over.

If you were to walk through it now you would say it's not that bad and could possibly be repaired.

If everything goes well, we will have the dome football-ready in November. The seating areas, locker rooms and press box will be ready and up to NFL standards.