by Kenner Bureau
Staff writer/The Times-Picayune

New Orleans International Airport remained closed to air travelers for a second day Monday, but a spokeswoman said flights could resume as early as this afternoon .

The decision will be left up to each airline, and passengers should check their flights before coming to the airport, spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said.

"We would prefer not to have any more stranded passengers," Duffourc said.

A few dozen passengers were stuck at the airport when it closed Sunday morning. They got company that afternoon, when Red Cross officials shut down their storm shelter at Alfred Bonnabel High School in Kenner and bused about 250 evacuees to the airport. Another 750 or so Jefferson Parish evacuees,, mainly from the West Bank, arrived by early evening.

Add to that more than 100 New Orleans Aviation Board and airline employees and their families, and it made for one "long, long, long, long, long day," said ticketing agent Linda Hunt of St. Rose, spread out with her family late Sunday night at the Taca counter.

Evacuees cleared out of the airport by noon Monday, Duffourc said.

And until railroad tracks can be inspected for storm damage, Amtrak's three trains serving New Orleans remained out of commission:

• The Crescent will not run southbound today or Wednesday from Birmingham, Ala., to New Orleans and will not run northbound between these cities today, Wednesday or Thursday.

   

• The City of New Orleans has been suspended between New Orleans and Jackson, Miss.