6A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2005
HURRICANE KATRINA
Storm threatens weakened New Orleans
Bill Feig/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mud covers the area in the 9th Ward section of New Orleans. As the floodwaters recede, houses are in ruins, and others have floated off their foundations and bumped up against their neighbors. Facing the possibility of another tropical storm or hurricane hitting the city, mayor Ray Nagin again ordered all residents out of New Orleans yesterday.
NEW ORLEANS — Under pressure from President Bush and other top federal officials, the mayor suspended the reopening of large portions of the city yesterday and instead ordered nearly everyone out because of the risk of a new round of flooding from a tropical storm on the way.
"If we are off, I'd rather err on the side of conservatism to make sure we have everyone out." Mayor Rav Nagin said.
BY MICHAEL RUBINKAM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The announcement came after repeated warnings from top federal officials — and the president himself — that New Orleans was not safe enough to reopen. Among other things, federal officials warned that Tropical Storm Rita could breach the city's temporarily patched-up levees and swamp the city all over again.
The death toll from Hurricane Katrina rose to 973 across the Gulf Coast, with the number in Louisiana alone rising by 90 to 736.
The mayor reversed course even as residents began trickling back to the first neighborhood opened, the lightly damaged Algiers section.
Nagin said he had wanted to reopen some of the city's signature neighborhoods over the coming week in order to reassure the people of New Orleans that "there was a city to come back to." He said he had strategically selected ZIP codes that had suffered little or no flooding.
But "now we have conditions that have changed. We have another hurricane that is approaching us," Nagin said. He warned that the city's pumping system was not yet running at full capacity and that the levees were still in a "very weak position."
He ordered residents who circumvented checkpoints and slipped back into the still officially closed parts of the city to leave immediately. Those areas include
the historic French Quarter, the Garden District, Uptown and the central business district.
Nagin also urged those settled back into Algiers to be ready to evacuate as early as Wednesday. The city requested 200 buses to the aid the evacuation, his office said.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in a televised address yesterday, urged residents of coastal southwest Louisiana to also make preparations to leave. More evacuees would strain the shelters in Texas, so she urged people to head for central and northern Louisiana instead.
"We will pray that Rita will not devastate Louisiana, but today we do not know the answer
to that question," Blanco said.
Tropical Storm Rita was headed toward the Florida Keys and was expected to become a hurricane, cross the Gulf of Mexico and reach Texas or Mexico by the weekend. Forecasters said it could veer toward Louisiana and New Orleans' weakened levees.
With the approach of Rita, Bush said he had "deep concern" about the possibility that New Orleans' levees could be breached again.
In addition, Bush said there were significant environmental concerns. Fears of contamination in the remaining floodwaters and the muck left behind in drained areas of New Orleans are still a concern.
"We're watching Tropical Storm Rita's projected path and, depending on its strength and how much rain falls, everything could change," said Col. Duane Gapinski, of the Army Corps of Engineers task force that is draining New Orleans and repairing the levees. Brig. Gen Robert Crear said the Corps hoped to have the levees capable of handling a Category 3 storm by June, the start of the next hurricane season.
Under the mayor's plan, Algiers opened yesterday, and Uptown, the Garden District and the French Quarter were supposed to reopen between Wednesday and next Monday, bringing a total about 180,000 of New Orleans' half-million inhabitants back.
"The mayor — you know, he's got this dream about having a city up and running, and we share
warned that such a move could be a few weeks premature, pointing out much of the area does not yet have full electricity and still has no drinkable water, 911 service or working hospitals.
The dispute over that plan was the latest example of the lack of federal-local coordination that has marked the disaster practically from the start.
Nagin saw a quick reopening as a way to get the storm-battered city back in the business of luring tourists. But federal officials
that dream," the president said. "But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans."
Bush said White House chief of staff Andrew Card had been pressing the matter with Nagin. The concerns were also echoed by the top federal official in charge in New Orleans, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who went on one news show after another to warn that city services may not be able to handle the influx of people.
Before reversing course yesterday, a clearly agitated Nagin snapped that Allen had apparently made himself "the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans."
About 20 percent of the city is still flooded, down from a high of about 80 percent after Katrina, and the water was expected to be pumped out by Sept. 30.
But officials with the Army Corps of Engineers said the repairs to the levees breached by Katrina were not yet strong enough to prevent flooding in a moderate storm, much less another hurricane.
nagin did not give any specifics about how he plans to enforce the evacuation.
In the French Quarter, about a half-mile from where Nagin made his announcement, businesses were up and running, and bars were serving cold beers to National Guardsmen and passers-by. Del Juneau, owner of a Bourbon Street lingerie shop, said it would be premature to order an evacuation based on the storm nearing Florida.
"Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?" he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
Down the street at the Famous Door, bartender C.B. Dover, said: "If we have a forced evacuation, we'll go. If it's not forced, we're not going anywhere." Dover said the mayor "has been overreacting the whole time. He's reacting emotionally, and you can't do that."
WV