Johnny White's is a Bourbon Street bar that never closes. Not during the raging wind and rain of Hurricane Katrina. Not during the looting. Or the curfews. Or those long, lonely weeks when New Orleans stagnated under floodwaters that covered 80 percent of the city and officials tried to force the last of its residents to evacuate.
Call it madness. Call it anti-authoritarian pigheadedness. Or call it dogged determination not to let a lifestyle die.
"You've got to have someplace open, even during the worst of times," said owner JD Landrum.
In the days immediately following the storm it seemed like the world was coming to an end. People were dying in the streets. Looters were smashing up stores and roaming the streets in armed gangs. Smoke filled the skies from burning buildings.
The bar stools were filled with shell-shocked people who had swum out of their flooded homes to safety only to find that there was no help to be had from the powers that be.
There could not have been a better reason to drink.
Things calmed down after about a week when most of those who wanted to leave were finally evacuated. But they heated up again when officials tried to get rid of the stragglers who were willing to tough it out without electricity or running water.
"It got kind of raunchy when the state police came in and tried to forcibly make everyone leave but Marcy, the night manager said no way," Landrum recalled as he patted his boxer puppy while seated at the bar. "She's got a free trip anywhere she wants."
The bar became a community center as a tight knit group of die-hards piled water and military rations up outside. It soon became a favorite among journalists and rescue workers who needed a place they could go to forget the despair and destruction.
"This bar will always be the best bar in town," said Anne Guthrie, 50.
"If the sports bar hadn't been open I would have been beside myself because I called twice a day," to check on friends and the animals she'd been forced to leave behind.
Johnny White's isn't much to look at. There are no jazz bands or beer bombs. Few tourists will walk that far down Bourbon Street and those that do stop into the tiny corner bar.
The half dozen or so bar stools are usually filled with locals who call themselves "quarter rats." It's a late night crowd of bartenders, shop clerks and the occasional musician who are drawn to the Quarter's vibrancy, easy living and sense of community.
While the Quarter escaped the floods, it hasn't escaped the pain and the reality that New Orleans may never be the same.
In the year since Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast and killed more than 1,500 people on August 29, 2005 entire swaths of the Big Easy remain abandoned to the mold and mess.
Half the population remains scattered across the country. Those who have returned are exhausted from the strain of rebuilding as they wade through the endless bureaucracy of insurance companies and government agencies.
Rents have skyrocketed amid the housing shortage and few of the 'rats' can afford to live in the Quarter anymore. But for those who remain, Johnny White's is a home away from home.
