New Orleans gets back on its feet

New Orleans' historic French Quarter of bars, restaurants and clubs will reopen for business this weekend, nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Mayor Ray Nagin said business owners would be allowed back into the French Quarter and three other areas that escaped relatively unscathed from the storm and the floodwaters.

"It is a good day in New Orleans. The sun is shining. We're bringing New Orleans back," Nagin said, his tone dramatically different from just two weeks ago when he was pleading with federal authorities to save the flooded and lawless city.

Nagin said about 182,000 residents from the four areas would be allowed to come home next week.

Under the staggered return plan, French Quarter residents can come back from September 26.

The other three areas included in the plan are the central business district and the Uptown and Algiers residential areas.

The president of Jefferson Parish, which lies outside the city and has about 500,000 residents, said almost all of them would be allowed home by Wednesday.

The rest of the city could take months longer to reopen as entire neighbourhoods would have to be levelled. Nagin said around half the homes in the city could be salvaged.

City and emergency officials across the disaster zone have been steadily opening areas as electricity, water and sewer service is restored. Nagin said well-armed security forces would enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew to prevent a resurgence of looting.

"We are not taking any crap," he said. "If you come back to this city and you think it's going to be the way it was before, we have a rude awakening for you."

Some French Quarter business owners are already back on their premises, cleaning up and getting ready to open their doors.

Nagin said the city would "double and triple-check" safety concerns.

Near the French Quarter, the more heavily damaged Treme area, considered the cradle of the city's jazz history, would be the next focus of getting people back home, Nagin said.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush vowed the city would rise again with extensive federal dollars and he ordered a review of emergency planning to avoid a repeat of the chaotic response to Katrina.

"Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," Bush said from the French Quarter.

Seeking to reassure Americans he is on top of the problem and to restore confidence in his leadership, Bush acknowledged the emergency response system to the hurricane at every level of Government was not well co-ordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days.

He said a disaster of that scale had made clear a challenge that required greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces.

Bush ordered each Cabinet department head to participate in a review of the Government response to the hurricane.

The Katrina emergency response was uneven until regular and National Guard soldiers were brought into New Orleans days after the hurricane to restore order and evacuate survivors.

Bush said his goal was to get thousands of evacuees out of shelters and into longer-term housing by the middle of next month.

The President said federal funds would be found to cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the Gulf Coast disaster zone.

He proposed initiatives on education, job training, help for small businesses including minority-owned businesses, and measures to address the housing needs of the displaced.

After charges from black leaders the federal response was slow because many of the victims were poor and black, Bush said he wanted to use the opportunity of New Orleans' rebirth to address persistent poverty by creating conditions for minority businesses to prosper.

"Let us rise above the legacy of inequality," he said.

- Reuters