Attention all losers, both foreign and domestic: THIS is America!

From the Buffalo News (via Yahoo!News) comes this story of ordinary people:

In the absence of information and outside assistance after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, groups of rich and poor residents banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor.

As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim.

While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods - humanity.

"Some people became animals," Vasilioas Tryphonas said Sunday morning as he sipped a hot beer in Johnny White's Sports Bar on Bourbon Street. "We became more civilized."

While hundreds of thousands of people fled the below-sea-level city before the storm, many refused to leave the Vieux Carre, or old quarter. It is built on some of the highest ground around and equipped with underground power lines. Residents consider it about the safest place to be.

Katrina blew off roof slates and knocked down some already-unstable buildings but otherwise left the 18th and 19th century homes with their trademark iron balconies intact.

Many in outlying areas consider the Quarter a playground for the rich and complain that the place gets special attention.

While some wealthy people feasted on steak and quaffed warm champagne in the days after the storm, many who stayed behind were the working poor - residents of the cramped spaces above the restaurants and shops.

Tired of waiting for trucks to come with food and water, residents turned to each other.

Johnny White's is famous for never closing, even during a hurricane. The doors don't even have locks.

Since the storm, it has become more than a bar. Along with the warm beer and shots, the bartenders passed out scrounged military Meals Ready to Eat and bottled water to the people who drive the mule carts, bus the tables and hawk the T-shirts that keep the Quarter's economy humming.

"It's our community center," said Marcie Ramsey, 33, whom Katrina promoted from bartender to acting manager.

For some, the bar has also become a hospital.

Tryphonas, who restores buildings in the Quarter, left the neighborhood briefly Saturday. Someone hit him in the head and stole his last $5.

When Tryphonas showed up at Johnny White's with his left ear split in two, Joseph Bellomy - a customer pressed into service as a bartender - put a wooden spoon between Tryphonas' teeth and used a needle and thread to sew up the ear.

"That's my savior," Tryphonas said, raising his beer in salute to the former Air Force medical assistant.

A few blocks away, a dozen people in three houses got together and divided the labor. One group went to the Mississippi River to haul water, one cooked, one washed the dishes.

"We're the tribe of 12," Carolyn Krack, 76, said as she sat on the sidewalk with a cup of coffee, cigarettes and a box of pralines.

The tribe's members included a doctor, a merchant and a store clerk.
Sunday, the tribe of 12 became a tribe of eight as four tour buses rolled into the Quarter under Humvee escort and National Guardsmen told residents they had one hour to gather their belongings and get a ride out.

Four tribe members decided to leave.