Enlarge imageBy Jason Webb
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Emergency workers collected the dead of New Orleans on Saturday, as hopes rose that the toll from Hurricane Katrina would fall short of the calamity once feared.
As police and soldiers prepared to remove the bodies -- many in homes marked with paint to identify their presence when floodwaters were high -- President George W. Bush invoked the spirit that united the nation after the September 11 attacks in the face of this latest crisis.
"Today, America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life. This time the devastation resulted not from the malice of evil men, but from the fury of water and wind," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
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"America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it," he said on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington that killed some 2,700 people.
Bush, who successfully rallied the nation after those attacks, has faced criticism for the federal government’s performance -- described as slow and inadequate -- following the August 29 hurricane.
"Chaos and dysfunction," said former Democratic Rep. Tim Roemer, a member of the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks.
"We have had our first post 9/11 test and we have miserably failed," Roemer said on CNN. He said several key recommendations made by the commission to better prepare the country to handle major disasters, whether natural or man-made, had not been implemented.
The Bush administration on Friday recalled Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown to Washington, handing his role in co-ordinating rescue and recovery to Vice Admiral Thad Allen, chief of staff of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Brown was widely criticised for FEMA’s response to Katrina and faced new accusations of padding his resume. Critics charged he only got the job because he was a friend of a friend of Bush. Just a week ago, the president publicly told Brown he was doing a "heck of a job."
SEARCH FOR THE DEAD
The first week after the storm, rescue teams searched by boat and in military vehicles along New Orleans’ flooded streets for the thousands of people who were reluctant or unwilling to leave the once vibrant city.
On Friday, New Orleans officials said rescuing the stranded and the helpless had ended and efforts were now turned entirely to finding bodies.
Until that is completed, they said, there was no hurry to oust those who have refused to quit the city despite an evacuation order and health concerns over the toxic waters surrounding them.
More than 300 deaths have been confirmed in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, though much higher totals have been feared. About a million people were displaced by the destruction.
"There’s some encouragement in the initial sweeps. ... The numbers (of dead) so far are relatively minor as compared with the dire predictions of 10,000," said Col. Terry Ebbert, director of Homeland Security for New Orleans.
Thousands of evacuees who have called the Houston Astrodome home for the past week were expected to get apartments in Houston and other cities across the country soon.
More than 2,000 of the New Orleans refugees who fled the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina have already been placed in apartment complexes throughout Houston, and another 2,000 will be moving to new accommodations next week, said Guy Rankin, head of the Katrina Housing Task Force.
Some people who had refused to leave the city changed their minds once they were told they could take their pets with them. Rescue workers said they had retrieved hundreds of cats and dogs and reunited some with their owners.
Jean Brad Lacy left the city but came back. Sweeping leaves and dried sewage from the pavement outside a one-room home that had been knee-deep in water, he said he changed his mind when National Guard troops tried to put him on an airplane.
"I can’t stand no heights," he said. "I love this place, this is my home."
SCALED-DOWN MARDI GRAS
City business leaders were trying to organise a comeback. Executives aimed to reopen the French Quarter tourist mecca within 90 days and hold a scaled-down Mardi Gras carnival in late February.
Organisers of the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival pledged to stage the 10-day event next spring either in its traditional fairgrounds location or "as close to New Orleans as possible," the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.
By Saturday, Norfolk Southern Railroad expected to complete repairs on its rail bridge across Lake Pontchartrain to reconnect New Orleans from the east for the first time since August 29, the U.S. Transportation Department said.
Some federal officials have put the cost of the storm at between $100 billion (54.4 billion pounds) and $200 billion.
Risk Management Solutions, a California company that assesses disasters for more than 400 insurance firms, trading companies and financial institutions, has raised its estimate of total hurricane damages to $125 billion and said it expects insured losses of $40 billion to $60 billion.
Congress has now approved $62.3 billion for hurricane relief sought by Bush, who warned further requests will come.
The White House continued its string of up-close looks at the disaster area. Vice President Dick Cheney was scheduled to visit survivors in Texas on Saturday, and Bush was to travel to the region for a third time on Sunday.
