Survivors: Those refusing to leave even staged a Labor Day parade, reports Denis Staunton in New Orleans.
It was the smallest Decadence Parade in New Orleans's history, but the handful of French Quarter residents still in the city were determined that their annual Labor Day weekend ritual should go ahead. Led by Dave Richardson's mule-drawn carriage, The Good Old Days, the procession included two transvestites, a trio of punk carpenters carrying a sign saying "Life Goes On?" and about a dozen others. One girl wore a T-shirt with the hand-painted slogan: "I Survived Hurricane Katrina and all I looted was this lousy T-shirt".
As helicopters circled overhead and National Guard soldiers thundered along the battered streets in armoured personnel carriers, the parade made its way through the district that is home to the soul of New Orleans.
Perched on the carriage was Katherine Bourdreaux, a tiny old lady who owns an art gallery and a leather goods shop in the quarter. She stayed in her home throughout the hurricane and its aftermath and has no plans to go anywhere now.
"We're not leaving. I've lived here all my life and I'm not going to tell you how long that is. We've got to get our shops open and businesses open and get commerce going again," she said.
Next to her sat Sally Daughtry, a tall, handsome AfricanAmerican woman who said she doesn't know what has become of her daughter and two grandchildren - one of them a two-year-old boy with asthma.
"I saw my daughter, she was on top of the roof on Canal Street. Tell Jamie Daughtry I'm her mother and I'm doing fine," she said.
Andy O'Brien, a 23-year-old carpenter who moved to the city two years ago, was pulling a cart full of Newcastle Brown Ale. Like everyone else, he hasn't had a shower for a week and has survived on one small snack a day, but he's not complaining. He and his friends have taken three people and two dogs into their apartment on Ducater Street.
"There's a lot of terrible things going on but I didn't see it. I saw desperate people walking through the water and offering you something to drink. A lot of touching things have happened," he said.
Mr O'Brien believes that those who have remained in the French Quarter form a nucleus that can help to ensure that New Orleans does not lose its character after the disaster.
"It's the soul of the city. That's what's left," he said.
A small community in the French Quarter decided to stay put after the hurricane, helping each other with food and water and making sure that those too old to leave were taken care of. They made their headquarters in Molly's on the Market, a bar run by Jim Monaghan, a burly, bearded figure who has become the unofficial mayor of this tiny community. Molly's has been open every day from 9am to 6pm, one of only two bars in the city to have stayed open. "This is a New Orleans institution. People know we're hard-core Irish," he said.
Mr Monaghan blames the federal authorities for the slow official response to the New Orleans disaster, contrasting it with the speedy reaction to the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11th, 2001. "Is New Orleans any less of an American city than New York?" he asked.
He says the official indifference shown to New Orleans last week was a symptom of a decline in values in America, with cold individualism replacing a sense of community.
"Our neighbourhoods are flying apart. We no longer feel responsible for our next door neighbour. It's all suburbia. It's Jesus venues and megachurches and not your local church. If they really cared about each other, something would have happened," he said. Like his neighbours, Mr Monaghan wants to stay in New Orleans, not least because he believes that, despite its problems, the city has much to offer the rest of the country. "It's what a lot of Americans need more of in their lives. It's diverse, it's multicultural, it's got soul."