Aug 25, 2006  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

Marcy Marcell shudders thinking about what might have happened if Hurricane Katrina arrived in New Orleans just seven days later.

“If that storm would’ve been one week later, it would’ve been all those people from around the world here and it would’ve been three times worse, if you can imagine that,” said Marcell, noting the estimated 100,000 people, mostly gay men, who flock to New Orleans each Labor Day weekend for Southern Decadence, commonly dubbed the gay Mardi Gras.

Katrina blew ashore Aug.
29, 2005. While Southern Decadence was canceled — except for about a dozen renegade partiers who marched through the French Quarter exactly one week after the storm — and many gay residents were forced to flee their homes, New Orleans’ gay neighborhoods miraculously dodged much of the devastation.

The catastrophic hurricane bruised homes and businesses located in high-lying neighborhoods like the French Quarter, Bywater and Uptown, but those heavily gay areas were spared the flooding that transformed most of New Orleans.

“All the touristy things are 100 percent intact, but half the city is still desolate,” said Roberts Batson, a longtime gay rights activist and historian in New Orleans. “Gay people are really taking the lead in coming back to New Orleans.”

Batson grabbed the last seat on one of the last three flights out of the city before Katrina hit, then returned three weeks later to find his 1840s home outside the French Quarter still standing, the padlock on his door cut off by a military crew searching for dead bodies.

“I didn’t lose my house and I was very fortunate in many ways, but it’s still very difficult and very sad,” Batson said. “We all cry at the drop of a hat — that’s how emotions are, and that’s going to happen for a long time.

Batson reflected on his fear of returning home and finding that his 10 years worth of research on New Orleans’s gay history was destroyed by floodwater or fire, but paused in the middle of his story to fight back tears.

“I’m sorry — it still happens,” he said. “I was so grateful the house was here and the things I value were OK. But it’s not over — we’ll always have these emotional scars.”

Gay party returns

Batson and other gay residents are preparing to apply some New Orleans-style ointment on those scars, as Southern Decadence returns to town Aug. 30 through Sept. 4.

A group of friends who Batson affectionately calls “leftover hippies” started the annual event in 1972 by throwing a costume party, and inviting everyone to come as their “favorite Southern Decadent.”

To garner more attention for their elaborate outfits, the costumed group walked to the French Quarter in 1975, laying the foundation for what would become an annual string of parties, booze and, yes, decadence. The loss of Southern Decadence last year compounded the difficult circumstances for gay businesses damaged during Katrina.

“It became for our bars and many of our gay retail businesses their top draw financially for the year, so it’s very important to see it return,” Batson said.

The round-the-clock buffet of parties that comprise Southern Decadence will be fully stocked this year, with entertainers like Inaya Day, Pepper Mashay and native DJ Joe Gauthreaux looking to bring the beat back to New Orleans.

Some gay groups are also looking to add high culture and historical perspective to the annual revelry by launching DecaFest, which occurs simultaneously to Southern Decadence.

“We’re not in competition with Decadence, we’re not trying to change Decadence, we’re just trying to add to it,” said Batson, one of the organizers of DecaFest, which features a half-dozen themed historical tours, symposiums and the New Orleans gay and lesbian film festival, which was also canceled last year.

DecaFest also unveils “Love, Bourbon Street: A Celebration of Gay New Orleans,” a new anthology from Alyson Books that features gay and lesbian writers reflecting on New Orleans, both before and after Hurricane Katrina. One of the headline events will be an airing of “Icons: The Lesbian & Gay History of the World, Vol. 1,” with a discussion with the show’s star, Jade Esteban Estrada, following the screening.

From now on, Southern Decadence and the anniversary of Katrina will fall within days of each other, and some say it’s emotionally turbulent planning such a big party while also marking the storm’s milestone.

“It’s shaping up to be fabulous, but of course it can be very hard sometimes too,” said Marcell, who is a manager at the bar Le Roundup, one of the first gay businesses to reopen in New Orleans post-Katrina. “We really need it. We need it — we need the ...