New Orleans – Workers were picking up trash Sunday, a small miracle under the circumstances. The airport opened to cargo traffic. A bullhorn-wielding volunteer led relief workers in a chorus of “Amazing Grace.”
Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught, the day was marked by signs that hopelessness was starting to lift. While the final toll from the disaster remains unknown, there were indications that New Orleans had begun to turn a corner.
“You see the cleaning of the streets. You see the people coming out,” said the volunteer with the bullhorn, Norman Flowers. “The people aren’t as afraid anymore.”
Flowers, deployed by the Southern Baptist Convention, stood in the bed of a pickup truck on Canal Street, leading police, firefighters and relief workers in song, punctuated by the exuberant honk of a firetruck nearby.
“This is a sign of progress,” said resident Linda Taylor, gesturing at the impromptu gathering. “Last Sunday, I couldn’t find any church services. This Sunday, people have gathered together to worship.”
Numerous residents were able to visit their homes for the first time, however briefly, as floodwaters receded and crews cleared trees, debris and downed telephone poles from major streets.
Albert Gaude, a Louisiana State University fisheries agent, was among those returning for the first time since the storm.
“They wouldn’t let us in before, but we made it now, and we could drive all the way here with no problem,” he said.
President Bush flew to New Orleans on Sunday to spend the night aboard the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious assault ship that is serving as a control center in the relief efforts. He planned to tour New Orleans and the devastated town of Gulfport, Miss., today.
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport reopened for cargo traffic Sunday, and limited passenger service was expected to resume Tuesday, airport director Roy Williams said.
Williams said he expects about 30 departures and arrivals of passenger planes a day at the airport, where a week ago terminals became triage units and more than two dozen people died.
Teams pulled an unspecified number of bodies from Memorial Medical Center, a 317-bed hospital in uptown New Orleans that closed more than a week ago after being surrounded by floodwaters.
Mayor Ray Nagin was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether New Orleans could stage Mardi Gras in February. “I haven’t even thought that far out yet,” he said. But he added, “It’s not out of the realm of possibilities.
“It would be a huge boost if we could make it happen.”
Nagin declined to say when the city might be drained of floodwaters.
“But I always knew that once we got the pumps up, some of our significant pumps going, that we could accelerate the draining process,” he said.
The city’s main wastewater treatment facility will be running by today, said Sgt. John Zeller, an engineer with the California National Guard.
“We’re making progress,” Zeller said. “This building was underwater yesterday.”
Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of active-duty troops engaged in hurricane relief, told CNN’s “Late Edition” that the number of dead would be “a heck of a lot lower” than dire initial projections of 10,000 or more.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Honore asked Americans to take care of hurricane evacuees and help reunite them with their families.
“And there’s light at the end of the tunnel here,” he added.
Step by small step, residents tried to re-establish pieces of the city’s inimitable character.
Kenny Claiborne has been running what has become known as Radio Marigny from his front porch – no actual radio signal, only generator-powered speakers that carry music by local groups through the breeze down Chartres Street.
“We just got that feeling like, it’s not the end anymore, it’s the beginning now,” he said.
Tommy Hendricks, who owns a small apartment house in the French Quarter, returned to his ground-floor apartment and found it damaged by squatters who took refuge there – empty bottles and clothes strewn about.
“It’s on life support,” he said of his neighborhood, “but it’s not dead.”
Katrina’s death toll
Deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina reached 429 on Sunday, as reported by state and local officials:
Alabama 2
Florida 14
Georgia 2
Louisiana 197
Mississippi 214
