Mayor threatens to evacuate hurricane ‘holdouts’ with force

TO the estimated 10,000 residents still holed up in this ruined city, the mayor had a blunt new warning: get out now or risk being taken out by force.

As floodwaters began to slowly recede with the first of the city's pumps returning to operation, Mayor Ray Nagin instructed law enforcement officers and the US military to evacuate all hold-outs for their own safety. He warned that the fetid water could spread disease and that natural gas was leaking all over town.

By midday yesterday, however, no forced evacuations were reported. Police Captain Marlon Defillo said police were focusing for now on people who wanted to be rescued. And Art Jones of the state Homeland Security Department said the National Guard does not work for the mayor and has yet to receive orders from the military to force people out.

Mr Nagin's directive which superseded an earlier, milder order to evacuate made before Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore on August 29 came after rescuers scouring New Orleans found hundreds of people ignoring warnings to get out.

Scott Powell of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources is evacuating people by air boat.

"A lot of people don't want to leave," he said. "They've got dogs and they just want to stay with their homes. They say they're going to stay until the water goes down."

In Washington, US President George W Bush and Congress pledged on Tuesday to open investigations into the federal response to Katrina and New Orleans' broken levees.

Federal cost estimates for relief and recovery efforts are running as high as $150 billion (121bn).

Senator Hilary Clinton reiterated her call for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be made autonomous from the Department of Homeland Security and for an independent commission to investigate the federal response to the disaster, saying neither the US Congress nor the Bush administration should do it.

"I don't think the government can investigate itself," she said.

The pumping began after the Corps of Army Engineers used hundreds of sandbags and rocks over the Labor Day weekend to close a 60-metre gap in the 17th Street Canal levee that burst in the aftermath of the storm and swamped 80% of the below sea-level city.

Although toxic floodwaters receded inch by inch, only five of New Orleans' normal contingent of 148 drainage pumps were operating, the corps said.

How long it takes to drain the city could depend on the condition of the pumps especially whether they were submerged and damaged, the corps said.

Also, the water is full of debris, and while there are screens on the pumps, it may be necessary to clean them from time to time.

Workers struggled, meanwhile, to find and count the corpses decaying in the 90-degree heat. Even when cadaver dogs pick up a scent, workers frequently cannot get at the bodies without heavy equipment.

The mayor has estimated New Orleans' death toll could reach 10,000.

State Republican Nita Hutter said 30 people died at a flooded nursing home in Chalmette, just outside New Orleans. She said the staff left the elderly residents behind in their beds.

New Orleans Police

Superintendent Eddie Compass said lawlessness in the city "has subsided tremendously" and officers warned that those caught looting in an area where the governor has declared an emergency can get up to 15 years in prison. About 120 prisoners filled a downtown jail set up at the city's train and bus terminal.

Some National Guardsmen and helicopters were diverted from their search missions to fight fires, an emerging threat in a city that has no water pressure to fight fires or electricity, which has prompted holdouts to use candles.