Nevertheless, a small number of people remained in the city. Emergency workers are on the scene. And for them, Robert’s Lafitte offers a little bit of community.

The popular gay bar is one of the few businesses still standing in the city of 60,000 and it has become a gathering point – for gay and straight people alike.

The bar’s owner, known locally as Big Mouth Robert, tells the Reuters news service that the building was flooded with about three feet of brackish water, but it receded. With a bit of cleaning, the bar reopened, even offering a drag show and Tina Turner sing-along.

“All of our customers kind of demanded it,” he told Reuters. “It’s their bar and they kind of dictate what’s going on. We’re survivors.”

People have been dropping off food at the bar for people in need.  It could be months before the city is up and running and food supplies delivered.  With no power, those who remained in the city have been unable to shower.

But the shows at Robert’s Lafitte have been keeping people entertained and their minds off the devastation that awaits once they leave.

The bar closes early each night – there’s still a curfew in effect.

Nevertheless, it has begun cementing relations that once were fragmented between straights and gays.

“It’s more than a life saver. This is like the Coast Guard,” Brian DeLeon, a straight man who told Reuters he had never thought of entering the bar in the past.

“These are the people who take you up out of the water and make life livable. Once I get back to work, I’m coming back here.”

Gustav sent some waves and winds our way, but not much else.

Hanna traveled up the other coast.

Ike flexed its muscle as it passed far west of my home, but delivered little more than some heavy-duty waves for surfers.

When you live in Florida, you spend September watching the Weather Channel, following the tracks of tropical depressions and developing storms on the National Hurricane Center Web site and judging where your home falls in the famed cone of uncertainty.

Feeling lucky and aching for those hit by the storms of early September, west coast Floridians pushed up short sleeves last week to respond to an urgent call for blood donations.

Such a call is not unusual in emergencies — either in preparation for a disaster or after the fact.

I did not roll up my sleeve. I learned a couple of years ago, while sitting on a cot in a blood drive tent waiting for the needle, that I cannot donate blood.

The strike against me?

I simply don’t weigh enough. For my protection — and perhaps some liability issues — Florida Blood Services won’t accept me as a donor because I weigh less than 110 pounds.

I was turned away to protect my health, but it still was somewhat embarrassing.

To be turned away to perpetuate prejudice and transmit misinformation would be infuriating.

But that is what happens when men who have had sex with other men seek to donate blood. They are turned away under a federal policy that dates back to the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration imposed the ban in 1985, ruling that men who have had sex with men — even once — since 1977 cannot donate blood for the rest of their lives.

An advisory committee twice voted to continue the ban — in 1998 and 2000, but the vote was split.

More recently, a senior consultant to the American Blood Center and the American Red Cross advised the government that the lifetime ban “is medically and scientifically unwarranted.” The adviser, Dr. Steven Kleinman, recommended “that deferral criteria be modified and made comparable with criteria for other groups at increased risk for sexual transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.”

In addition to the Red Cross and the ABC, a number of groups have called for lifting the lifetime ban, including university students that recently have protested the policy — campus groups in California are making the most noise.

What these groups recommend is a more rational approach to protecting the nation’s blood supply, perhaps a reduction in the lifetime ban to be more equitable with criteria for other groups at increased risk for sexual transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.

A fact sheet from the FDA explains that the ban — the government uses “deferred” rather than “banned” or “prohibited” — is not unique to the United States and that other countries have implemented similar policies, recently re-examined them and retained them.

Still, other countries have recognized that a donor’s sexual orientation does not make him a threat to the blood supply.

While no one can disagree with the FDA that keeping the blood supply safe is top priority, we can argue that the U.S. policy does not deal with risks equally.

Potential donors judged to be at risk of exposure to HIV via heterosexual routes — or via non-sexual activities — are deferred for one year while men who have had sex with another man, even once, in 31 years, are permanently deferred.

The science demonstrates that duplicate testing detects HIV-infected donors between 10-21 days after exposure — not a year, but certainly not decades.

The policy, at least, should be amended to the one-year deferment, though even that fails to take into account the monogamous men who have had sex with just one man in the last 31 years.

To continue the lifetime ban can only mean the continuation of a government intent to discriminate against a group of people.

And, for blood banks, it can only continue to hamper efforts to enrich supplies.

The evacuation went smoothly and the levees largely held, limiting damage from the big storm. Still some areas of the Gulf coast sustained serious damage, and eight people died in the U.S. as a result of Gustav, which had killed 94 across the Caribbean.

As Gustav advanced towards New Orleans on Saturday, Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mass evacuation of the city, curtailing Southern Decadence, the largest gay festival in the South that was to have gone on throughout the Labor Day weekend.

It was the second time in three years that a major hurricane disrupted the massive party centered in the French Quarter.  In 2005, hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, forcing cancellation of Southern Decadence.

The festival, which takes over the French Quarter regularly, attracted more than 100,000 people and had been one of the city’s biggest moneymakers. This year attendance was lower as concerns mounted that Gustav was heading toward the Big Easy.

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. In the wake of Katrina, some conservative church leaders said the devastation was the result of God’s wrath on gays.

Tuesday, city officials began examining damage from Gustav.  Power is out in some areas of the city. The sewer system was damaged, and hospitals are working with skeleton crews on backup power.

But residential areas appear secure, and drinking water is safe.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin used stark language at a Saturday night news conference to urge residents to get out of the city, calling Gustav the “storm of the century.”

“This is the real deal, not a test,” Nagin said as he issued the evacuation order Saturday night. “For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life.”

Gustav already has killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean.

Nagin’s evacuation order is the first test of a revamped evacuation plan designed to eliminate the chaos, looting and death that followed Katrina.

The city will not offer emergency services to those who choose stay behind, Nagin said, and there will be no “last resort” shelter as there was during Katrina, when thousands suffered inside a squalid Superdome. The city said in a news release that those not on their property after the mandatory evacuation started would be subject to arrest.

Many residents didn’t need to be ordered, with an estimated 1 million people fleeing the Gulf Coast on Saturday by bus, train, plane and car. They clogged roadways, emptied gas stations of fuel and jammed phone circuits.

Southern Decadence, held over the Labor Day Weekend, regularly attracted more than 100,000 people and had been one of the city’s biggest moneymakers. This year, attendance was lower, as concerns mounted that Gustav was heading toward the Big Easy.

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. In the wake of Katrina some conservative church leaders said the devastation was the result of God’s wrath on gays.

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.

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.