As highways out of New Orleans crammed with people escaping the wrath of Hurricane Gustav, Jack Bosma shuttered the windows of his home, ate gumbo and stayed put.
"I'm shutting my shutters, but then I'm going to drink," Bosma said, explaining that he and a group of longtime neighbors were hunkering down for the duration of the storm.
He opened his "porch bar" and ate seafood stew, or gumbo as it's called on the Gulf Coast, with neighbors in the Garden District.
The first rains from the outer bands of the storm soaked New Orleans after dark Sunday as a dozen people socialized in Johnny White's bar, a Bourbon Street tavern that refused to close even when deadly Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.
Bartender Stephanie Blake estimates she served 2,000 people Sunday.
"All the people were in good moods and positive," Blake told AFP. "It's been like Mardi Gras. I'm scared to see how much I rang up today."
However, Chelsea Leighton was dour as she drank and pumped cash into a poker video game in a corner of the bar.
"I think I'm going to die so I might as well spend my money because it's no good," Leighton said. "I've never been through this before and am just going with the flow."
Among the few Bourbon businesses open was Larry Flint's Hustler Club where one stripper showed up to dance.
"I'm battening down the hatches, but while I'm at it I want to let people have a little fun and let them know it isn't the end of the world like everyone says it is," club manager John Olmstead told AFP.
After days of urging New Orleans residents to flee "the mother of all storms," authorities praised those who heeded the warning and chided those determined to stay.
"The challenge seems to be that people aren't listening or they are listening and deciding to stay," Louisiana lieutenant governor Mitch Landrieu said during a Sunday press conference.
"Staying in their homes is a very bad idea."
Mayor Ray Nagin ordered the city emptied in the face of what he called "the storm of the century" and roads quickly filled with fleeing residents.
Nagin said Sunday that some 327,000 people had left New Orleans parish. He estimated about 10,000 people are risking riding out the storm.
"They were out walking their dogs this morning and have no intention of leaving," Nagin said of some residents refusing to budge.
"Most are people of means. They have generators; they have security; they got guns. God bless them."
Gun stores saw a run on customers into the weekend, hinting people are arming themselves for the kind of lawlessness that marked Katrina's aftermath.
Nagin told News Orleans residents they are "on their own" if they are still in town when Gustav makes landfall, forecast for midday Monday.
Charles Abbyad screwed plywood over windows and doors on the ground floor of his three-story New Orleans home through the day Sunday.
He pored over maps Saturday night and tracked the direction of the storm on his laptop computer into the morning. He plans to hunker down and ride out the storm.
"I'm all American, but my family history is Palestinian so we are used to evacuating," Abbyad quipped as he screwed sheets of plywood to windows.
A dearth of Latinos through the day at a train and bus depot dubbed "The Gate" because it is the New Orleans staging spot for evacuees worried volunteer Lucas Diaz.
"Latinos are fearful that by being taken to shelters they will be turned over to immigration officials," said Diaz, a member of a nonprofit group that works with the Latino community in New Orleans.
"They don't trust," Diaz told AFP. "Often people along the way, like shelter workers, take to being ICE agents and turn people in." ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Diaz said he got written assurances from federal officials Sunday that the immigration status of evacuees will not be challenged.
It may be too late to get the message to Latinos, many of whom were drawn to New Orleans by construction jobs in the wake of Katrina.
"We didn't have enough people to go into the neighborhoods where we know Latinos are living," Diaz said. "We put out word on two Spanish radio stations, which is the best we can do."
New Orleans streets are mostly deserted except for police or rifle-toting National Guard officers stationed at intersections. Through the afternoon people, some with pets, straggled into "The Gate" for passage out of town.
More than 500 pets have been crated up and shipped to safety by a team of animal rescue workers.
"We've gotten lizards, birds, dogs, cats, bunnies and even a pig," said volunteer animal rescue worker Sandy Cochran. "We even had an English Mastiff so big we needed to order a special crate."
A final train out of New Orleans left at 5:30 pm (2230 GMT), the last buses carrying evacuees departed prior to that.
Late Sunday, Gustav was located about 260 miles (415 kilometers) south-southeast of New Orleans, after slamming Cuba the night before and earlier claiming at least 81 lives in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
Nagin said he plans to ride out the storm in City Hall, sleeping on an air mattress if necessary.
"God deliver us all," Mary Joe Decareaux said as she fled New Orleans.
"We thought we'd never go through this again."
