(New Orleans, Louisiana) For the second time in three years a massive storm is threatening to scuttle Southern Decadence. Right now, the massive gay party that attracts tens of thousands of gays to the French Quarter is still on. But organizers are monitoring the weather and the city is bracing for a possible evacuation as Gustav gathers strength and could slam into the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane.

In 2005, almost to the day, hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans forcing cancellation of Southern Decadence, the biggest gay festival in the South. The Labor Day Weekend party regularly attracts more than 100,000 people and is one of the city’s biggest moneymakers.

The party has had its detractors in a city known for hard partying.  In 2003 the state legislature passed a new indecency law that bans public nudity.  The festival also has been the target of evangelical preacher Rev Grant E. Storms who leads a small group of demonstrators through the throngs on Bourbon Street.

Most people fled New Orleans as Katrina approached but a small number of people remained in the city, and amid the destruction a small parade behind a tattered rainbow flag made its way up Bourbon Street in an unofficial celebration of Southern Decadence.  The group – about two dozen people – all said they lived in the largely gay French Quarter.  Defiant, they said they were not about to flee the community despite orders from the city to do so.

The bulk of the city’s LGBT community evacuated for higher ground away from he coast.  Most went to Houston.

Houston’s Montrose Counseling Center opened a food bank and organized emergency housing for displaced gays.

Wednesday night New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin left the Democratic National Convention in Denver to return home to make preparations for the possibility of a strike by Gustav. Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency to lay the groundwork for federal assistance, and put 3,000 National Guard troops on standby.

Following Katrina the Army Corps of Engineers has spent billions of dollars to improve the levee system, but because of two quiet hurricane seasons, the flood walls have never been tested.

Gaining strength over warm Caribbean waters, Gustav is expected to again become a hurricane later today, according to the National Hurricane Center. It said maximum sustained winds rose from about 50 mph to near 70 mph overnight.

The storm triggered flooding and landslides that killed 23 people in the Caribbean.