Enlarge imageBy Paul Simao
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The dead of New Orleans, uncounted and uncollected while the ruined city fought to save Hurricane Katrina’s survivors, were the top concern on Saturday amid hope that their numbers may be fewer than once feared.
As police and soldiers prepared to resume removing the bodies -- many in homes marked with paint to identify their presence when floodwaters were high -- the political storm in Katrina’s wake swept from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Washington.
After unrelenting criticism that U.S. President George W. Bush and his team had failed to respond quickly and adequately to the disaster, Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown was recalled to Washington on Friday. His role overseeing Katrina recovery efforts was handed to Vice Admiral Thad Allen, chief of staff of the U.S. Coast Guard.
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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.
New Orleans officials said rescuing the stranded and the helpless, an effort that began after the August 29 storm breached the city’s levees, 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.
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.
"The search for living individuals across the city has been conducted," he said on Friday. "What we are starting today ... is a recovery operation, a recovery operation to search by street, by grid, for the remains of any individuals who have passed away."
HOLDOUTS
It appeared that some people who had refused to leave the city -- once thought to number in the thousands -- were now more willing to depart. Provisions to take pets along may have changed some minds. Rescue workers said they had retrieved hundreds of cats and dogs and reunited some with their owners.
But there were holdouts.
On Bourbon Street, the general manager of Big Daddy’s strip club was trying to reopen, as soon as water, electricity and dancers are available.
Manager Saint James said finding dancers "shouldn’t be too hard. Everyone’s going to come back in town and want to work."
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."
City business leaders were trying to organise a comeback, The New York Times reported on Saturday. It said 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.
City attorney Sherry Landry said on Friday while there was power in the central business district, it was not able to support all buildings.
"It is our goal to restore power to the CBD (central business district) and clear all streets of debris and glass within the next seven days. After that we will establish a process for businesses to return to the city," Landry said.
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.
But most of the ghostly city, which once boasted 450,000 residents, remains in tatters.
"Over in the western areas you don’t see the standing water, you see the mud. It’s every bit as nasty as the water, and it’s going to take a long time to clean up but at least the water is gone," said chief warrant officer Robert Osborn, a pilot with the U.S. 1st Cavalry.
"Today we’re seeing cars that are able to drive around. The causeway is open. Folks are out trying to put plastic on their roofs," he said.
The U.S. Postal Service resumed limited mail service in the three states affected by the storm.
COST SOARS
In the nearby town of Slidell survivors were numbed by the devastation.
Robert Quick, 41, rode out the storm with his wife and two small children but wound up retreating to the attic of their home as a tree crashed into the roof and his children watched their toys float away. He had no flood insurance.
"I rolled the dice. Everybody goes to the casino, I decided to roll it on flood insurance, you know, 1,200 bucks a year, this neighbourhood never flooded," he said.
Some federal officials have put the cost of the storm at between $100 billion 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 political fall-out over the response in the days after the storm was likely to continue.
In the U.S. Senate, four top Democrats urged Bush to fire Brown, amid new questions over his qualifications.
Whoever runs the agency, they said, "must inspire confidence and be able to co-ordinate hundreds of federal, state and local resources. Mr. Brown simply doesn’t have the ability or the experience to oversee a co-ordinated federal response of this magnitude."
Sen. Trent Lott, a Republican who lost his Mississippi home in the storm, said Brown "has been acting like a private, instead of a general."
ABC News cited source as saying Brown was expected to be out of his post as head of the disaster agency soon.
The House Government Reform Committee is to hold a hearing on the widely criticised response to the disaster would begin on Thursday. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will open a similar hearing on Wednesday.
