Police step up efforts to clear last survivors from New Orleans

Using the unmistakable threat of force, police and soldiers went house to house to try to coax the last 10,000 or so survivors of Hurricane Katrina to leave storm-shattered New Orleans because of the risk of disease from the putrid, sewage-laden floodwaters.

“A large group of young armed men armed with M-16s just arrived at my door and told me that I have to leave,” said Patrick McCarty, who owns several buildings and lives in one of them in the city’s Lower Garden District. “While not saying they would arrest you, the inference is clear.”

A frail-looking Anthony Charbonnet, 86, grumbled as he locked his front door and walked slowly backwards down the steps of the house where he had lived since 1955.

“I haven’t left my house in my life,” he said as soldiers took him to a helicopter. “I don’t want to leave.”

Yesterday New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered police and the military to evacuate all citizens – by force if necessary. He warned that the combination of fetid water, fires and natural gas leaks after Hurricane Katrina made it too dangerous to stay.

The first government tests have confirmed that the amount of sewage-related bacteria in the floodwaters is at least 10 times higher than acceptable safety levels.

Dr Julie Gerberding, chief of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, warned stragglers not to even touch the water and pleaded: “If you haven’t left the city yet, you must do so.”

As of midday, local time, there were no reports of anyone being removed by force. And it was not clear how the order would be carried out.

Active-military troops said they had no plans to use force. National Guard officers said they did not take orders from the mayor. And even the police said they were not ready to use force just yet. It appeared that the mere threat of force would be the first option.

“We have thousands of people who want to voluntarily evacuate at this time,” police chief Eddie Compass said. ”Once they are all out, then we’ll concentrate our forces on mandatory evacuation.”

Mindful of the bad publicity that could result from images of weary residents dragged out of their homes at gunpoint, Compass said that when his officers started using force, it would be the minimum amount necessary.

The stepped-up evacuation came as workers trying to get into the city to restart essential services came under sniper fire. More than 100 officers and seven armoured personnel carriers captured a suspect in a housing project who had been firing on workers trying to restore mobile phone towers, authorities said.

Meanwhile, across miles of ravaged neighbourhoods of clapboard houses, grand estates and housing projects, workers struggled to find and count corpses sniffed out by cadaver dogs in the 90-degree (32 Celsius) heat.

The mayor has said New Orleans’ death toll could reach 10,000. Already, a temporary warehouse morgue in rural St Gabriel that had been prepared to take 1,000 bodies was being readied to handle 5,000.

Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency had 25,000 body bags on hand in Louisiana.

Asked if authorities expected as many as 25,000 bodies, he said: “We don’t know what to expect. It means we’re prepared.”

The floodwaters continued to recede, though slowly, with only 23 of the city’s normal contingent of 148 pumps in operation, along with three portable pumps.

John Hall, a spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers, said it was not clear how long it would be before all the pumps were running. “There’s a long way to go. We need to get a lot more capacity on line to make a real difference,” he said.

Because of the stagnant water, doctors were being urged to watch for illnesses caused by such things as E.coli bacteria, certain viruses, and a type of cholera-like bacteria common along the warm Gulf Coast.