Gustav At Category 4, Mayor Orders Tourists Out, Southern Decadence Says "Business As Usual"

The mandatory evacuation of New Orleans proper is scheduled to begin at 8am Sunday, the airport has announced that the final departures will be tomorrow afternoon, and in telling the hotels to close, the Mayor just said, "Tourists, it's time to leave the city. Do not wait."

And yet the latest update (embiggen above) of the official Southern Decadence site proclaims: "Southern Decadence is still on! (It has not been canceled.)" What are these people thinking? Even if this all turns into a big close call (and let's hope it does), at this stage of the game it feels quite irresponsible of the organizers not to have made the call to end the party by now. No hotels, no flights out, a mandatory evacuation, all with 24 hours. These people are cutting things dangerously close.

UPDATE: The organizers of Southern Decadence have finally called it.