Determined few brave Gustav in New Orleans

Hundreds of determined Louisiana locals insisted they would stay put as their neighbours fled Hurricane Gustav’s approach by the thousands today.

John Lyons turned his working boat that normally ferries oil rig workers into a floating ark with 16 adults, six young children and five dogs roaming the decks.

“I’m a survivor, I’m a pirate,” said the grey-bearded, heavily tattooed mariner, who tied his craft up to a bridge in Bayou Terrebonne in Houma. “I feel safer on this boat than I do in that house. I been doing this all my life.”

Even in places that were virtually wiped from the map by Katrina three years ago, many stubbornly refused to go.

“I’m not going nowhere,” carpenter Gerald LeBlanc declared from the porch of his home in St Bernard Parish east of New Orleans, where nearly every structure was heavily damaged or destroyed in Katrina. “I’m staying right here.”

LeBlanc’s one-story house in the parish seat of Chalmette was flooded to the roof, and his father had to kick his way out of the attic three years ago.

If it gets that bad again he said he had an orange life jacket for himself and a an inflatable raft for his family’s dachshund, Oscar.

“You come into this world alone, and sometimes you’ve got to go it alone,” he said. “I’m tired of running.”

East of New Orleans, all of St Bernard Parish was under a 24-hour curfew. But even the threat of a one-way trip to Angola State Prison if he ventured outside was not enough to keep Anthony Stipelcovich off the streets.

The 42-year-old made several miles-long round trips on foot, ferrying his dog, seven cats, and aquariums of hamsters and mice atop a plastic gardening cart to his sister’s home in Arabi.

“The curfew is too strict,” said Mr Stipelcovich, wearing a visor and white washcloth to shield his head and neck from the brutal sun. “Even in a war zone, even in Iraq, dawn to dusk is the norm.”

Orleans Parish was also ordered evacuated, and most seemed unwilling to face a repeat of 2005, when thousands languished – and some died – in the filth and swelter of the Superdome and convention centre. Bourbon Street was littered with the detritus of a last-minute party – plastic cups, Mardi Gras beads and packaged condoms – and the revellers were largely gone.

The French Quarter was far from empty however.

Hattie Callan, 36, weaved her way down the street, a vodka drink already in her hand at 9.20am. She was staying behind to watch over several houses, and she wasn’t worried.

“I’ve got liquor, cash, food, ammo and weed,” she said as she drifted by.

But what of Mayor Ray Nagin’s dire warnings that this could be one for the record books?

“I think he’s an idiot,” said Ott Howell, who is staying put in his 1826 slave quarter home. “I thought he was an idiot in Katrina.”

Jeffrey Carreras is staying for more practical reasons. His Garden District restaurant, Parasol’s, was looted after he evacuated for Katrina.

“I have shotguns, rifles – I collect guns actually,” he said. “So I have plenty of guns in there, plenty of ammo.”

Back in Houma, Pam Walling and boyfriend Dain Langley stayed behind because of their two Labradors – a yellow named My Jewel and a black Katrina-rescue dog named Sarabell that runs indoors at the first drop of rain.

“We have emergency floaties for the dogs, just in case we have to send them out swimming,” she said. “Dogs out first, like children. ... The helicopters come, they go first.”