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SOME NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS RETURN AT MAYOR'S INVITATION, BUT FEDERAL OFFICIALS URGE DELAY |
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by David Crary September 19, 2005 Associated Press NEW ORLEANS - Residents began streaming back Monday morning as part of a plan by the mayor to reopen New Orleans one ZIP code at a time, despite repeated warnings from the top federal official on the scene that the city is not ready. Algiers, a neighborhood that is situated across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans and saw little damage from Hurricane Katrina, was the first section to be reopened. Over the next week, the city's Uptown neighborhood, the Garden District and the historic French Quarter are also set to reopen to residents and businesses at Mayor Ray Nagin's invitation, bringing a total about one-third of New Orleans' half-million inhabitants back. A steady stream of traffic rolled into Algiers. The mayor said that police would be checking residents' identification to make sure they lived in the areas reopened. John Schwab, 31, came back with his brother and encountered no checkpoint getting into the neighborhood. He owns a janitorial service that had contracts with the movie studios that had come to New Orleans because of tax incentives from the state, but they all pulled out because of the storm "I'll probably have to look for a job in construction," he said. "That's about the only thing around." A few gas stations and convenience stores were open, but little else. The manager of Winn Dixie supermarket said he had hoped to be open by Monday, but it took longer than he'd anticipated to clear out the spoiled food and other debris. "We're now shooting for Thursday," said Grady Shavers. "Salvage crews already took everything out of the store. That was a nasty job." Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal government's hurricane response, warned over the weekend - and again on Monday morning - that city services may not be able to handle the influx of people. He cited a lack of drinkable water and 911 service, and expressed concern that another storm could cause the patchwork repairs to New Orleans' levees to fail and bring another round of flooding. "Our concern is when you have the general population returning in large numbers without the proper infrastructure to support them," he said on NBC's "Today" show. He said hoped to meet with the mayor later Monday to discuss his concerns and work out a timetable for bringing the city back. On Sunday, Tropical Storm Rita formed southeast of the Florida Keys and appeared to be headed for the Gulf of Mexico, though forecasters did not expect it to hit the battered Gulf Coast. "Everybody wants the city of New Orleans to be restarted," Allen said Monday on CBS's "The Early Show." "The mayor has a vision. We agree with that vision. The discussion we're having with the mayor is over the timing of re-entry and how to do it safely." Asked when it would be safe for people to return, he said, "We know potable water will probably be restored soon and the levees will be fixed, so that may mean days, weeks." The vice president of the national hospital accreditation organization also cautioned against reopening parts of the city, saying several hospitals probably were damaged beyond repair, while others may try to rush back into business before conditions are safe. Others, while rebuilding, may lose doctors and nurses to communities elsewhere. "Essentially the health care infrastructure of New Orleans is gone - it no longer exists," said Joe Cappiello, who had just completed a three-day mission to the city for the Illinois-based Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Although the city has more than a dozen hospitals, none has resumed normal operations. Officials at Children's Hospital, which Nagin had hoped would be ready in time for the planned return of residents to the Uptown neighborhood, said they may need 10 more days to prepare. The Garden District's Touro Infirmary, one of the city's largest hospitals, announced plans to reopen on Wednesday, when residents are due to start moving back there. That would make it the first hospital to reopen since the storm. Cleaning crews were busy Sunday carting out debris and readying the hospital. Dr. Brobson Lutz, New Orleans' former health director and an assistant coroner for Orleans Parish, said the hospitals clearly will not be up to accreditation standards, but the city still needs them open as soon as possible. "I don't believe the people in New Orleans or the doctors give a hoot whether they accredit our hospitals or not," Lutz said. "We need to have our emergency rooms open so that if people returning need emergency care for trauma or infections or other things, they can get it." Some city residents returned over the weekend and many said they met little resistance at checkpoints. Power is scheduled to return to the French Quarter by Friday and to Uptown by next Monday, a spokesman for Entergy New Orleans said. In the New Orleans suburbs, a few gas stations were open in Metairie, along with a handful of coffee shops and burger joints. Officials gave the all-clear for the return to neighboring Jefferson Parish on Sunday. "It feels good to come out again," said Rolita Smith, 38, who ventured out to buy a bottle of whiskey for her cousin's birthday. Cappiello also said he had heard unconfirmed reports that some doctors may have euthanized some critically ill patients who could not be moved out, rather than leaving them to die from flooding or neglect. "There was a whisper about that when we were down there," he said. "It may prove to have some viability to it. Sometimes horrible decisions like that have to be made." The flooded areas of New Orleans continued shrinking over the weekend, but crews still searched by boat for the dead. The state Department of Health and Hospitals said the hurricane death toll in Louisiana had risen to 646. The toll across the Gulf Coast was 883. Former President Clinton, speaking on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, put some of the blame for the plight of the poor in New Orleans on the Bush administration. "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up, and when you tell people to go do something they don't have the means to do, you're going to leave the poor out," Clinton said, referring to the many poor people who did not have the necessary transportation to evacuate before the storm. |