Some residents are seeing the survival of a statue in the city's French quarter as a sign that the spirit of the old district will endure, writes Denis Staunton in New Orleans
In the centre of a grove of oak trees behind the cathedral of St Louis, in the heart of the French Quarter, a statue of Christ with His arms raised stands in the centre of a grove of ancient oak trees. Hurricane Katrina tore the trees from the earth by their roots but, amid a tangle of broken branches, the statue escaped without a scratch.
If it's not a miracle, some local residents cherish the statue's survival as a sign that the spirit of New Orleans' oldest and most famous district will endure the disaster that has struck the city.
The quarter's sense of humour has certainly survived: when the broken branches and uprooted trees were cleared from the garden a couple of days ago, someone posted a sign on the railings announcing "JESUS SWEPT".
Built on the city's highest ground, the French Quarter suffered storm damage last week but escaped the worst of the flooding and it is the first district to reclaim the appearance of normality.
The appearance is deceptive.
Johnny White's bar on Bourbon Street is still open around the clock but patrons are confined indoors after the 7pm curfew. The only people you meet there are visiting journalists, police officers and rescue workers because, following a brief display of defiance, almost all the locals have gone.
Irma Thomas, the jazz singer who ran the Lion's Den, a music club where she cooked the red beans and rice served to customers, survived the hurricane in New Orleans but is now sleeping on a futon in nearby Gonzales. Members of her band have taken rooms above a car repair shop in Baton Rouge.
The rest of the city's musicians have scattered all over the US, many leaving their instruments behind as they fled the hurricane. New Orleans' most famous musical sons, including Wynton Marsalis, Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers, are organising benefit concerts to help performers who have lost homes and regular gigs at the city's numerous clubs.
Last weekend, when the rescue effort finally got into gear and order returned to the streets, many of those who had survived the hurricane in the French Quarter said they were determined to stay. But a week later, with no electricity or running water and facing the prospect of being forced out by the police, all but a handful have given up the fight.
Despite official warnings that the city will be evacuated with force if necessary, New Orleans police officers show no enthusiasm for the use of strong-arm tactics to persuade people to leave.
Captain Jeff Wynn - whose SWAT team I came upon off Bourbon Street as they recovered weapons stored in the home of a Vietnam veteran - said he had not received orders to enforce the evacuation order.
Capt Wynn, who lost his home in the flood, said his officers had refused to take leave until the city was entirely secure and that they understood the sensitive nature of the evacuation order. "This is our city. We support this city. If everybody's gone, we'll still be here, the guardians at the gates."
Even Tom, a nervy Iggy Pop lookalike who lived in the house on St Peter's Street where Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire, has vanished. Maybe he was missing the tourists who, he told me, woke him up each night calling "Stella!" from the street below. The house itself, a handsome, three-storey corner building with green, iron balconies and white, louvred shutters, is boarded up but unharmed.
A revival of the French Quarter is essential if New Orleans' tourist industry, on which tens of thousands of jobs depend, is to survive.
This week, as rescue workers hacked their way through rooftops to save those trapped inside and corpses floated in the floodwater, J Stephen Perry, president and chief executive of the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau, issued an upbeat message.
"One day the riffs of jazz trumpets, the tempting smells wafting from the kitchens of our great chefs, the aroma of cafe-au-lait and beignets, the buzz of great conventions, that foot-wide magnetic smile of the front bellman, and the romantic strolls through the quarter will be commonplace again. The spirit of the multicultural people of New Orleans is indefatigable, and though we may be bowed and emotionally stretched, we cannot be defeated and cannot wait to rebuild one of the world's most authentic cities," he said.
Some of the French Quarter's departing musicians fear that, if much of the city has to be destroyed before it becomes inhabitable, a new, gentrified New Orleans could emerge to take its place.
Rents have always been low in New Orleans compared with other American cities, encouraging an easy-going attitude to work that some find frustrating but which provides an ideal environment for nurturing creative talent.
Already, a number of leading musicians including Ivan Neville are considering a move to Austin, Texas, which already has a lively music scene.
If too much talent leaves the city, the French Quarter could end up much as it is right now, full of strangers and empty of joy.