When New Orleans ordered mandatory evacuations and businesses to close before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005, Tracy Deroche waited until the very last minute to close the doors of the Phoenix Bar, a popular hangout in the Marigny neighborhood.
At the time, Deroche was the manager of the gay bar, which is located at the intersection of Elysian Fields Avenue and North Rampart Street.
“We stayed open (before Katrina) until we had to evacuate,” Deroche, who lives on the North Coast and now owns the Phoenix, said Tuesday night. He had just returned home after preparing the bar for the arrival of Hurricane Francine in Louisiana.
The Phoenix didn’t flood during Katrina – the water remained a block away on St. Claude Avenue. And Deroche reopened the bar as soon as he could clean it, although a curfew initially limited the doors to opening hours from dawn to dusk.
Today, the Phoenix is known for its tradition of remaining open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even when disaster strikes.
The bar will remain open with or without power during Francine, as it has done during other hurricanes when no mandatory evacuation was ordered.
Deroche said the bar will be stocked with sodas and ice in case the lights go out, and the bar will be lit with candles.
“We’re ready,” he said. “We’ll be offering happy hour until Thursday at 10 a.m.”
New Orleans will feel the worst of Francine’s impacts Wednesday evening, the National Hurricane Center said. Up to 6 inches of rain are possible, along with flash flooding and tropical storm-force winds.
And for those who want to sit out the storm in Phoenix, a bar stool is available, Deroche said.
“We do this because there are many people who live alone and do not want to remain alone in the dark,” he said.
The billiards tournament in Phoenix was well attended on Tuesday morning, despite a power outage in the neighborhood for about an hour.
Deroche expects business operations to remain stable through Thursday and does not believe the power outage will impact traffic.
“When we don’t have power, people usually stay,” he said. “It was 36 degrees in the bar (during the last power outage) and people were still there drinking. They’re just very supportive.”
