One day before Mayor Ray Nagin plans to start letting residents return, the commander of the federal recovery effort warned Sunday that the city simply isn't ready.
Dangers abound, said Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen. The city's levees are too weak to protect against another storm. An evacuation plan to clear the crippled city in the event of another disaster isn't complete. The city still lacks drinkable tap water and working telephones, and bacteria-tainted floodwaters pose a serious health hazard.
As the death toll from Hurricane Katrina neared 900, New Orleans business owners continued to dribble into the city on Sunday, assessing damage and cleaning debris.
Under Nagin's plan, announced last week, the first residents will be allowed to return today to Algiers, across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans.
Allen said he would meet with Nagin today and provide a ''frank and unvarnished report'' on the city's status. He said he hoped their meeting would lead to ''a logical plan forward to repopulate the city.''
Nagin was not available Sunday to talk about the return plan or Allen's comments. On Saturday, his office issued a statement contending that his re-entry plan ''balances safety concerns and the needs of our citizens to begin rebuilding their lives.... Promoting the return of commerce to New Orleans and the region is key if we are going to realize our common objective: to bring New Orleans back.''
Louisiana state officials also expressed concern with the mayor's plan.
''The party line is simple -- we'd rather people not go back to New Orleans,'' said Mark Smith, spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
''But there is no way we can prevent anyone -- short of military action -- from going in,'' Smith said. ''That's his city. That's his parish.... Sooner or later, people have to be able to return to their lives.''
Large parts of the city are far from being ready for people to return.
A two-hour aerial survey Sunday exposed vast flooding south of New Orleans and a section of the northeast portion of the city. Searchers aboard rescue boats scoured the University Park area, where the water appeared to be 3 to 4 feet deep in places.
South along the Mississippi toward the river's mouth, an estimated 40 miles of land was submerged, said Maj. Randell Venzke with the National Guard in Madison, Wis.
In Washington, former President Bill Clinton, asked by President Bush to help raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, offered harsh public criticism of the Bush administration's disaster-relief effort Sunday on the ABC News program This Week, saying, ''You can't have an emergency plan that works if it only affects middle-class people up.''
The White House has been under siege from critics for more than two weeks, assailed first for the speed and effectiveness of its response to the storm, and challenged more recently by questions about the long-term fiscal implications of its plans for rebuilding in the Gulf States.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan did not respond directly to Clinton's remarks about the hurricane relief effort or mention the former president by name. But in a statement on Sunday, McClellan suggested it was unfair to link the plight of low-income victims of the hurricane to the economic policies of the Bush administration.
Also Sunday, House Republicans were looking at delaying some federal spending, including money for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare and thousands of highway projects, to offset the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, leading GOP fiscal conservative Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said Sunday.
However, Democrats appearing on Sunday news programs questioned how President Bush can trim the budget to pay for Katrina recovery and support tax cuts for the wealthy.
''Where is he going to find roughly half a trillion dollars over the next several years for Iraq and for Katrina?'' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked on Late Edition on CNN. ''I think we're not leveling with the American people.''
Another storm that could end up crossing the Gulf of Mexico was approaching the Florida Keys on Sunday, and authorities issued a hurricane watch for the island chain. At 11 p.m. EDT, Tropical Storm Rita had top sustained winds of about 50 mph.
Smith, the Louisiana homeland security spokesman, said authorities were concerned about the possibility of additional rainfall from storms, some brewing in the Gulf of Mexico.
''We are keeping a very close eye on those storms,'' he said.
Distributed by the Associated Press
