Here is the AP photo:
The caption reads: Candice Jameson, left, 21, holds her umbrella as she celebrates the Decadence Parade in the historic French Quarter in New Orleans, La., Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005. The Decadence Parade is an annual gay celebration event. At right is John Lambert. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
In this AP story, French Quarter Holdouts create "Tribes' reporter Allen Breed writes
While hundreds of thousands fled the below-sea-level city before the storm, many refused to leave the Vieux Carre, or old quarter. Built on some of the highest ground around and equipped with underground power lines, residents considered it about the safest place to be. Katrina blew off roof slates and knocked down some already-unstable buildings but otherwise left the 18th and 19th century homes with their trademark iron balconies intact. Even without water and power, most preferred it to the squalor and death in the emergency shelters set up at the Superdome and Convention Center. But what had at first been a refuge soon became an ornate prison. Police came through commandeering drivable vehicles and siphoning gas. Officials took over a hotel and ejected the guests. An officer pumped his shotgun at a group trying to return to their hotel on Chartres Street. "This is our block," he said, pointing the gun down a side street. "Go that way." Jack Jones, a retired oil rig worker, bought a huge generator and stocked up on gasoline. But after hearing automatic gunfire on the next block one night, he became too afraid to use it — for fear of drawing attention. Still, he continues to boil his clothes in vinegar and dip water out of neighbors' pools for toilet flushing and bathing. "They may have to shoot me to get me out of here," he said. "I'm much better off here than anyplace they might take me." . . . many who stayed behind were the working poor — residents of the cramped spaces above the restaurants and shops. Tired of waiting for trucks to come with food and water, residents turned to each other. Johnny White's is famous for never closing, even during a hurricane. The doors don't even have locks. Since the storm, it has become more than a bar. Along with the warm beer and shots, the bartenders passed out scrounged military Meals Ready to Eat and bottled water to the people who drive the mule carts, bus the tables and hawk the T-shirts that keep the Quarter's economy humming. "It's our community center," said Marcie Ramsey, 33, whom Katrina promoted from graveyard shift bartender to acting manager. For some, the bar has also become a hospital. Tryphonas, who restores buildings in the Quarter, left the neighborhood briefly Saturday. Someone hit in the head with a 2-by-4 and stole his last $5. When Tryphonas showed up at Johnny White's with his left ear split in two, Joseph Bellomy — a customer pressed into service as a bartender — put a wooden spoon between Tryphonas' teeth and used a needle and thread to sew it up. Military medics who later looked at Bellomy's handiwork decided to simply bandage the ear. "That's my savior," Tryphonas said, raising his beer in salute to the former Air Force medical assistant. A few blocks away, a dozen people in three houses got together and divided the labor. One group went to the Mississippi River to haul water, one cooked, one washed the dishes. "We're the tribe of 12," 76-year-old Carolyn Krack said as she sat on the sidewalk with a cup of coffee, a packet of cigarettes and a box of pralines. The tribe, whose members included a doctor, a merchant and a store clerk, improvised survival tactics. Krack, for example, brushed her dentures with antibacterial dish soap. It had been a tribe of 13, but a member died Wednesday of a drug overdose. After some negotiating, the police carried the body out on the trunk of a car. The neighbors knew the man only as Jersey. Tribe member Dave Rabalais, a clothing store owner, said he thinks the authorities could restore utilities to the Quarter. But he knows that would only bring "resentment and the riffraff." "The French Quarter is the blood line of New Orleans," he said. "They can't let anything happen to this." On Sunday, the tribe of 12 became a tribe of eight. Four white tour buses rolled into the Quarter under Humvee escort. National Guardsmen told residents they had one hour to gather their belongings and get a ride out. Four of the tribe members decided to leave.If Skeltor thinks he can get the rest of them to leave so that this city before it is "de-watered" -- and where in the world did THAT term come from? -- he will have to think again.
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