Storm Brewing As To Whether NO Residents Should Return

[Corals]

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 17 - Business owners and some residents slowly returned to parts of this storm-struck city and surrounding communities early Saturday, prying back plywood and stepping over ruined steeples on the first day of a staggered re-entry scheduled to move ZIP code by ZIP code, parish by parish.

Carol Winn Crawford, pastor of the 130-year-old Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church on St. Charles Avenue in the Uptown neighborhood, stood in the sanctuary where roof slates rest in the pews. Outside, the brick steeple was reduced to rubble.

"Not this Sunday," Ms. Crawford said, when asked how soon services would resume, "but the next."

After passing through armed checkpoints, many business owners across the city were seeing their businesses for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, eventually flooding 80 percent of the city and forcing mass evacuations.

They arrived in a city with little electricity and mostly undrinkable water, where soldiers did jumping jacks on Napoleon Avenue as a red sun rose. About 1,000 workers from Entergy repaired utility poles and untangled power lines from the fallen limbs of live oaks. Mayor C. Ray Nagin has ordered a dusk-to-dawn curfew indefinitely.

Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, who is in charge of the federal recovery effort, urged residents to stay away from New Orleans for the time being. The Associated Press reported on Saturday night that Admiral Allen had expressed concerns about plans to allow residents to return to the city, and that he would discuss those concerns with Mayor Nagin in a meeting on Monday. Read more

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/na...html?th&emc=th
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Doubts over return to New Orleans

New Orleans residents should consider delaying their return, the head of the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort has said - contradicting the city's mayor.

Vice Adm Thad Allen said the mayor's plans to get people back to their homes were "extremely problematic."

Mayor Ray Nagin wants to let 200,000 people back in the next 10 days.

But Adm Allen said services such as water, sewage, electricity and health care were not yet capable of supporting a large influx of people.

"I urge all residents to use extreme caution if they return and to consider delaying their return until safer and more liveable conditions are established," he said in a statement.

The sooner we get this open, the sooner we will get back to normal life
Gallery owner R R Lyon

Mayor Nagin has called on business owners to return to help get New Orleans back on its feet, nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina left 80% of the city under water.

About 40% of the Louisiana city is still flooded.

'Ghost town'

The BBC's Claire Marshall in New Orleans says the displaced victims will be unsure which advice to follow.

Some of those who have started to trickle back have said there is no custom for their enterprises.

"Everyone is anxious to come back and see if their place is OK," Kevin Molony, who runs a company conducting tours of the city, told AFP agency.

"It's a ghost town. Tourism has been slammed."

Armed police and troops are continuing to patrol the streets in an effort to maintain security and prevent looting. A night time curfew remains in force. read more

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4257062.stm

It’s good that the residents want to get back and get their lives back in order, but if the necessary amenities that are needed to sustain day to day living is not available; elelectricity, sewage, drinkable water, what is the point in allowing the residents to return, would that not create more problems?

[Corals]

Update:

New Orleans Mayor Defends Return Plan

By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 45 minutes ago

Mayor Ray Nagin defended his plan to return up to 180,000 people to the city within a week and a half despite concerns about the short supply of drinking water and heavily polluted floodwaters.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, head of the federal disaster relief effort, said Saturday that Nagin's idea is both "extremely ambitious and "extremely problematic."

But Nagin said his plan was developed in cooperation with the federal government and balances safety concerns and the needs of citizens to begin rebuilding.

"We must offer the people of New Orleans every chance for a sense of closure and the opportunity for a new beginning," he said.

Nagin said the Algiers, Garden District and French Quarter sections would reopen over the next week and a half, bringing back more than one-third of the city's half-million inhabitants. City officials later backed off setting a specific date for reopening the famous French Quarter — the city's main tourist draw.

Allen said a prime public health concern is the tap water, which in most of the city remains unfit for drinking and bathing. He said he was concerned about the difficulties of communicating the risk of using the water to people who return and might run out of bottled water.

Another concern is the risk of another storm hitting the region, threatening an already delicate levee system and possibly requiring residents to be evacuated again, he said.

Allen, who planned to meet with Nagin on Monday, said federal officials support the mayor's vision for repopulating the city, but he is concerned about the mayor's timeline.

"Our intention is to work with the mayor ... in a very frank, open and unvarnished manner," he said.

Business owners were allowed back in to some sections of the city to begin the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding, part of Nagin's plan to begin reviving the city by resuming a limited amount of commerce.

But confronted with damage that could take months to repair, many said hopes for a quick recovery may be little more than a political dream.

"I don't know why they said people could come back and open their businesses," said Margaret Richmond, owner of an antiques shop on the edge of the city's upscale Garden District that was looted. "You can't reopen this. And even if you could, there are no customers here."

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

"They took everything — all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album."

If the store had not been looted, it could be open in two weeks, Stonaker said. Now he doubts it will be open by January. "They'll have to gut it and start over," he said.

Algiers, a residential area located across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans, is scheduled to reopen Monday, the first neighborhood to welcome back residents. Uptown, including the historic Garden District neighborhood, also is scheduled to reopen this week.

All the areas to be reopened this week were spared Katrina's flooding. Electricity and clean water have been restored to some sections.

In the French Quarter, the hum of generators, the thumping of hammers and the whir of power tools cut through the air Saturday as business owners were allowed in to survey the damage and begin cleaning up. Some threw an impromptu street party, complete with a traditional feast of red beans and rice.

At the famous French Quarter restaurant, The Court of Two Sisters, director of food and beverages Andrew Orth was removing plywood from the windows on Saturday morning.

"We couldn't open even if the electricity was on," Orth said. "First we've got to clean the rotted food out of the coolers and probably replace them."

Orth estimated it would take several weeks to get the restaurant ready to serve diners.

The Hyatt was severely damaged, but some hotels along Canal Street on the edge of the French Quarter had less recovery work ahead.

The Sheraton had damage to the top floors and to a huge ballroom where a retractable skylight and massive window were smashed. The hotel also had a solid disaster plan in place that included bringing in portable toilets, stockpiling water and sheltering the guests.

The Sheraton began renting rooms two weeks after the storm. By Saturday, 100 rooms were taken at $249 each, mostly by FEMA workers and journalists. They had air conditioning and working bathrooms, thanks to water the company trucked in and treated. Twice-weekly maid service would start next week.

"We haven't had any complaints," General Manager Don King said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ricane_katrina

[Corals]

Published: 2005/09/18 19:39:21 GMT


Health warning over New Orleans

Doctors in the hurricane-hit US city of New Orleans have warned of a "second disaster" if residents begin returning to the city before it is ready.

Medics backed the view of Vice Admiral Thad Allen, head of the recovery effort, but contradicted advice issued by the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin.

Mr Nagin has urged residents of some areas to return home this week.

Doctors cautioned that major disease risks remain, and Vice Adm Allen said the city was vulnerable to a new storm.

"The second wave of disaster is when you welcome the people back and the infrastructure of the city is not in place," said Dr Peter Deblieux, a casualty specialist at a New Orleans hospital.

Vice Adm Allen said the mayor's plans to get 200,000 people back to their homes within the next 10 days were "extremely problematic".

About 40% of the Louisiana city is still flooded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...as/4258670.stm

Published: 2005/09/18 19:39:21 GMT

[jimihaze]

I still think that it is to soon to return. They have not even drain out all of the water yet.

[saraphen]

There are a couple of tropical storms churning around that could end up in the Gulf. This is no time to be in NOLA.

[charliekilothree]

I think they should wait until the utilities are restored to a safe condition before people are allowed to live in their homes. If you can't bathe in the water or drink it, what will they do for hygiene? My brother wants to retrieve his car from downtown NOLA but we are waiting until we know a good route that is open to get us there. We may end up driving to Baton Rouge to get to NOLA.

[Corals]

September 19, 2005
Caution Urged for Reopening of New Orleans
By WILLIAM YARDLEY

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 18 - Sharpening his earlier warnings, the top official in charge of the federal response to the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts again urged a delay on Sunday to a plan that is bringing people back to a city largely without power, drinking water or a working 911 system.

The official, Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, stopped short of saying that the government would try to halt the plan, which has been put in motion by Mayor C. Ray Nagin. But in several televised interviews on Sunday, Admiral Allen, who is scheduled to meet Mayor Nagin to discuss the plan on Monday, said the city was moving too fast and sketched a set of rudimentary needs he said had not been met.

"I wouldn't want to attach a time limit to it, but it includes things like making sure there's potable water, making sure there's a 911 system in place, telephone, a means to notify people there is an approaching storm so you can evacuate it with the weakened levee situation," he said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." "We can do that, and we can do that fairly soon, but it's very, very soon to try and do that this week."

Away from New Orleans, differences of another sort over the storm arose Sunday. In an appearance on the ABC News program "This Week," former President Bill Clinton criticized the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, saying, "You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up." [Page A21.]

The mayor's plan to reopen parts of New Orleans could bring back as many as 180,000 residents, about a third of the population.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Nagin, Sally Forman, said that the plan was considered fluid from the start and that the mayor intends to reassess after residents begin to return Monday to Algiers, a neighborhood across the Mississippi River from downtown where about 57,000 people lived before the storm. Power has largely been restored to the area, which suffered far less damage than others.

Ms. Forman said the city would review traffic counts at checkpoints, the number of emergencies reported, sanitation problems and storm damage to homes and see how well it could provide services.

"There will be a complete reassessment - what worked, what didn't - because we will have moved an entire population back in," Ms. Forman said.

The official death toll from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana climbed to 646 on Sunday.

The differences between Mayor Nagin and Admiral Allen came as Tropical Storm Rita formed near Puerto Rico on Sunday. An early projection by the National Hurricane Center showed the storm moving into the Gulf of Mexico as a powerful hurricane later this week, most likely striking Mexico or Texas but possibly turning toward the southwest coast of Louisiana. Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers have said repairs to levees breached in Hurricane Katrina were not yet strong enough to prevent flooding in a moderate storm, much less another hurricane.

This weekend, business owners were allowed to return to the French Quarter, the Central Business District, the Uptown neighborhood and Algiers. After residents return to Algiers, beginning Wednesday they can return to parts of Uptown. The French Quarter would open to residents by the next Monday, according to the mayor's plan.

Admiral Allen said Sunday on Fox News that the decision rested with the mayor, though he was capable of giving the mayor some "very good counsel."

"I have spoke in the last 24 hours with the head of the E.P.A. and the director for the Center for Disease Control," he said. "And our collective counsel is for him to slow down and take this at a more moderate pace."

Power is scheduled to return to the French Quarter by Friday and to Uptown by the next Monday, a spokesman for Entergy New Orleans said.

The city has set a curfew of 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. Many business owners who have come back say they only want to assess damage, clean up and begin repairs.

Harald T. Werner Jr., who is president of the Clovelly Oil Company, an independent exploration company with headquarters on Poydras Street, the city's corporate corridor, said he came back on Sunday only to pick up some legal records.

Until power and other services are restored, Mr. Werner said, the re-entry plan would have little effect on larger businesses, many of which have set up temporary offices outside the city.

"It's not going to work," he said. "There's no support."

Some residents have already returned.

The plan to repopulate the city has drawn skepticism from medical officials. New Orleans has more than a dozen hospitals, but none have resumed normal operations. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that officials at Children's Hospital, which Mayor Nagin had hoped would be ready when residents are allowed to return to the Uptown neighborhood this week, said they might need 10 more days to prepare.

But some New Orleans residents are eager to return. On St. Charles Avenue, VooDoo BBQ planned to open its bar Sunday night, even though its restaurant next door suffered extensive storm damage to the roof. Roxanne DeLaune, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Scooter, said the couple's other restaurant, in the French Quarter, also was damaged, but by the police and military personnel who commandeered it after the storm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/na...rtner=homepage

……………………………..

Major Nagin has to be realistic. You cannot bring people back into a city that has no 911 system in place, telephones or the necessary amenities. He is trying to do too much too soon.

Nagin’s spokeswoman stated that Nagin is going to re-assess the situation after residents begin to return. Is he saying that after they have returned and his assessment proves that it is too soon, he is going to send them back?

[Corals]

Mayor suspends New Orleans return

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has suspended a plan for residents to return to the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three weeks ago.

He said that, with a new tropical storm menacing the southern US coast, the "conditions have changed".

The city's Algiers section has already opened and Mayor Nagin had plans to open three more district shortly.

But President Bush and top officials have voiced concern at the stricken city's ability to cope with the influx.

Mayor Nagin told a press conference that "all re-entry" to the city was being suspended immediately.

Whatever population goes into New Orleans... there has to be an evacuation plan to get them out
Vice-Admiral Thad Allen

"The conditions have changed. We have another hurricane approaching us," he said.

Tropical Storm Rita is building in strength as it heads towards the Florida Keys and could become a hurricane.

Its predicted path would take it to Texas - where many of Hurricane Katrina's victims have sought refuge - at the weekend, and some maps suggest it may hit parts of Louisiana.

On Monday, the number of confirmed deaths in Louisiana as a result of the storm climbed by 90 to 736, taking the death toll across the region to 973.

'Matter of timing'

Earlier, Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad Allen, head of the recovery effort, warned that the threat of more storms complicated plans to re-open the city.

"Whatever population goes into New Orleans right now, there has to be an evacuation plan on how to get them out in the event of another hurricane," he said, speaking on US television station CBS.

KATRINA INITIATIVES
Gulf opportunity zone Immediate incentives for job-creating investment
Recovery accounts Up to $5,000 help for job-seekers, for training, childcare etc
Urban homesteading act Federal-owned land handed out in a lottery for new homebuilding


Speaking after a meeting with his Homeland Security Council, President George W Bush said his administration was "cautious about encouraging people to return at this moment of history".

He stressed that the city needed to re-emerge, but it was "a matter of timing".

"The mayor has got this dream about having his city up and running," said Mr Bush. "We share that dream, but we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles."

Mayor Nagin had said he wanted to allow residents to return to New Orleans one postcode at a time.

He had announced plans for the Uptown neighbourhood, the Garden District and the historic French Quarter to be re-settled over the next week - bringing a third of New Orleans' evacuated inhabitants back to the city.

Residents of Algiers, a district of 57,000 people which escaped the worst of the damage, became the first to be able to return on Monday.

The BBC's Oliver Conway described how they were returning to homes with running water and electricity - although food and water was being supplied by a relief station run by the army and volunteers.

Mayor Nagin has now urged those who returned to Algiers to be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...as/4262442.stm

Published: 2005/09/19 22:41:10 GMT

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Looks like he came to his senses.

[saraphen]

Originally Posted by Corals

Looks like he came to his senses.

All it took was a Lady named Rita in the Gulf.

[jimihaze]

I think that they should not return until hurricane season is over and the clean up and repair is done.