The police and fire departments are being asked to recheck about 400 Louisiana addresses where authorities have consistent information about residents missing since Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, eager to welcome back his city’s residents, says he’s fighting a national impression “that we’re tainted, we’re not ready".

Searchers smashed through doors in New Orleans, bringing their hunt for the dead to homes that had been locked and to blocks hardest hit by Katrina’s flooding.