Mayor: French Quarter to Reopen Next Week

NEW ORLEANS - Mayor Ray Nagin said Friday that the French Quarter will reopen to residents and business owners next week, pressing ahead with a phased repopulation plan even as state and federal officials warned that the battered city remains fragile.

The plan would admit residents back into the city's least-damaged neighborhoods — Algiers on Monday, followed by the Garden District, the university area and the French Quarter — while the flooded eastern half of the city remains off-limits indefinitely.

"We are making progress," Nagin said. "New Orleans is starting to breathe again."

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's relief chief, renewed his objection that the city lacks functioning hospitals, reliable drinking water and a 911 system able to handle a full population. "I would not want to see a plan to repopulate the city happen prematurely," Allen said.

Nagin shot back that residents will return regardless. "If we don't open the city in a controlled way," he said, "people are going to figure out a way to get back on their own."

The mayor had already allowed business owners into some dry areas this week to inspect their properties. Along Bourbon Street on Thursday, cleanup crews hosed down sidewalks and bartenders aired out taprooms that escaped flooding but took on a sour smell during three weeks without power.

Pumping continued across the city. The Army Corps of Engineers said most of New Orleans should be dry within days, though the hardest-hit Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East could take weeks longer.

The official death toll in Louisiana rose to 474 on Friday. State officials have warned it will keep climbing as search teams reach neighborhoods still under water.

Across the region, more than 500,000 households have registered for federal aid, and the government has approved more than $2 billion in assistance so far, officials said.

In the French Quarter, business owners said they were eager to reopen but unsure when — or whether — the tourists would return. "The Quarter survived with its bones intact," said a third-generation bar owner. "The question is whether there's a city left to visit it."