Indefatigable New Orleans residents trickled back to the city Monday – returning to neighborhoods despite the lack of potable water or emergency services, and some without power.
With a tropical storm bearing down on Florida, the timing of their return seemed more symbolic than practical. Mayor Ray Nagin, under pressure from federal officials, eventually agreed and by late afternoon he suspended the reentry to large portions of the city. We think he was right to reconsider. Citing the gathering threat from Tropical Storm Rita, Nagin said he “would rather err on the side of conservatism.”
Hours earlier he balked at the federal government’s warnings, proffered by both President Bush and Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, that conditions were still too dangerous. The episode featured fresh sniping between federal and local officials, with Allen criticizing the reentry decision and Nagin wondering if Allen didn’t fashion himself as “the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans.”
The real mayor is eager to open his city for business, and no wonder why. The city can’t begin to rebuild until her people have had a chance to assess the damage for themselves, and until those who can get back to work. However, the safety of Nagin’s citizens, and those heroic folks responding to their needs, comes first, and reopening neighborhoods should be a gradual process.
The slower citizens return, the more likely they will find a functioning infrastructure. If new problems should arise because of the lack of clean water or hospital beds, or the need to maintain civil order, they will be exacerbated by the number of people. More flooding, obviously, would bring countless problems.
Only a few gas stations and convenience stores were open in the Algiers neighborhood Monday. That was the first area officially open under Nagin’s plans, but dozens, if not hundreds, of residents went back into other flood-damaged neighborhoods, ratcheting up an already dangerous situation.
President Bush on Monday said it could be weeks before residents can safely return. Allen, who’s heading the federal efforts there, didn’t give a date. “What we’d rather do is establish measures of effectiveness – when you have potable water, when the 911 system is restored …” Bush cited environmental concerns and unsafe levees, saying more rain could cause them to break.
Nagin had hoped to re-open four neighborhoods this week. The French Quarter already had begun to perk up, and Nagin wants to hear jazz, not helicopters.
Don’t we all. But for now, New Orleans has got its hands full.
