Pace of Recovery Efforts Picks Up

After almost two weeks of relentless tragedy, federal officials offered the city a glimmer of hope Saturday, saying that flooded parts of the city and nearby areas would be pumped dry within 37 days, not the 80 days originally estimated.

Local officials said that some residents of nearby Plaquemines Parish could return home this morning and that New Orleans’ international airport would reopen Tuesday.

In Mississippi, whose coast Hurricane Katrina also raked, power was restored to nearly 98% of residents. And in Houston, officials announced that the 7,327 people remaining in the Astrodome and other temporary facilities would be moved to more permanent housing by the end of this week.

The search for bodies continued. Rescue teams searched for survivors. And political debate intensified over the pace of the federal government’s response to the hurricane.

President Bush, in his weekly radio address, and Vice President Dick Cheney, on a tour of disaster relief centers in Texas, avoided discussing Friday’s decision to remove Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as head of hurricane recovery.

Bush sounded a positive theme in his address, linking the nation’s compassionate response to hurricane victims with its aid to those who suffered in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “Our greatest resource in such times is the compassionate character of the American people,” he said. “America will overcome this ordeal, and we will be stronger for it.”

At the Austin Convention Center shelter, Cheney praised the resilience of evacuees and congratulated state officials who had announced that the number of people staying overnight in temporary facilities like the Astrodome was steadily dwindling.

The vice president ignored about two dozen demonstrators who were demanding that the White House fire Brown as head of FEMA. Although he declined to discuss the issue, Cheney said that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff “made those decisions and I certainly support him.”

But a member of the now-disbanded Sept. 11 commission, former Rep. Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.), said on CNN that America had “failed” its first major disaster response since Sept. 11. He said the White House had not put into effect several of the commission’s key recommendations to prepare the country for disasters.

The confirmed death toll was 154 in Louisiana and 211 in Mississippi.

The federal government said Saturday that it would permit the news media to observe recovery operations. A day earlier, Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore had told reporters there would be “zero access” to the corpse recovery operation, prompting CNN to file a lawsuit in federal court to prevent any limitations on news-gathering.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison in Houston granted the cable news network a temporary restraining order Friday evening. At a court hearing Saturday morning, Assistant U.S. Atty. Edward Wyatt told the judge that officials from FEMA, the Justice Department and the military had consulted in late-night conference calls and had decided to alter their policy.

In an optimistic sign for the battered region, engineers were pumping floodwater out at such a steady pace that estimates of the time needed to “de-water” areas have decreased sharply, Dan Hitchings, director of regional business for the Army Corps of Engineers, said in Baton Rouge, La.

Standing water is expected to be gone from much of New Orleans by Oct. 2, and from eastern New Orleans and Chalmette by Oct. 8. Drainage will take longest in Plaquemines Parish, which is expected to be dry by Oct. 18.

At the end of pumping efforts, “there will be small pockets of wetness,” Hitchings said.

The timetable could be moved up because more pumps were operating, Hitchings said. The city had 35 permanent pumps back in action, out of 148 total, plus 39 portable pumps, he said.

Most of the water goes into Lake Pontchartrain, Hitchings said.

In Plaquemines Parish, a narrow, 100-mile-long strip of land southeast of New Orleans that stretches to the Gulf of Mexico, officials said several thousand of its 28,000 residents would be allowed to return to their homes today.

About 60% of the parish is still underwater, authorities said, and it remains under curfew between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. Residents may return only to homes and businesses in Belle Chasse, the parish government seat, said a parish engineer, Emily Campbell, and residents are not allowed past the Alliance Refinery on Belle Chasse’s southern outskirts.

The parish permitted the return because Belle Chasse, which did not suffer serious hurricane or flood damage, has power and running water.

Returning residents may stay as long as they like, but must bring their own food and supplies, Campbell said. “We hope people come back and restart their lives, and that business owners get supply lines established and we can rebuild our community.”

An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 residents were evacuated from Plaquemines Parish. Eleven towns and villages were inundated when the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico washed over and through levees on both sides of the narrow parish.

Campbell said FEMA and the Red Cross had arrived several days after the flooding and were just beginning to offer assistance.

“If we wait for the federal government to get anything done, we’ll have a long wait,” Campbell said. “We’ve been pushing ahead on our own all along.”

In New Orleans, officials said fewer people needed to be evacuated. State and National Guard officials said they were taking weapons from the newly evacuated and were not forcibly removing anyone.

Meanwhile, officials announced that Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport would reopen two of its four concourses Tuesday morning, with as many as 30 flights departing.

The third concourse will continue to be used for evacuee flights and inbound relief efforts, and the fourth will serve as a hospital and triage center. The airport, whose largest carrier is Southwest Airlines, averaged about 170 departures a day before the storm.

Roy A. Williams, the director of aviation for the city-run airport, said customers probably would include evacuees returning to survey damage to their homes and businesses, as well as government aid workers, insurance adjusters, architects and planners.

Daily departures should grow to 40 by the end of the month and possibly 100 by Thanksgiving, he said.

“It’s our heritage, transportation. The reason New Orleans is here is the Mississippi.... We want [the airport] open,” Williams said.

The airport was closed Aug. 28 and has suffered about $55 million in damage. Winds battered about 30 buildings and sent some walls crashing onto cars. But the complex avoided worse damage because the airport is in Kenner, on higher ground.

In Mississippi, the power utility that serves 23 counties in the southeastern corner of the state said service was 98% restored.

“More than 159,000 of our customers now have power,” Mississippi Power spokesman Kurt Brautigam said in a statement. “We estimate there are only 3,000 customers left to reconnect.”

As the magnitude of regional recovery needs became clear, Red Cross officials Saturday launched a drive for 40,000 new volunteers -- its largest such initiative ever.

There are 36,000 volunteers in the field serving three-week hurricane-related stints, and “we are going to need more people,” spokesman John Degnan said at a briefing in Baton Rouge.

Operating shelters is “like operating small cities” set up overnight -- complete with thousands of diapers changed and meals served daily, Degnan said.

Joseph G. Sullivan, a former U.S. ambassador who is a diplomat in residence at New Orleans’ Tulane University, said at a briefing that cash and other international contributions were pouring in.

He said 115 countries and 13 international organizations had sent donations.

The gifts include $460 million, fuel, technical expertise, and specific items such as 2 tons of disposable diapers from South Korea.

Tunisia sent 20 tons of relief supplies, and “extremely generous” contributions had come from Canada and Mexico, he said.

Sullivan described an elderly woman in Lithuania who sent her life savings, which amounted to 1,000 euros -- about $1,241 -- to aid hurricane victims.

“She remembers the assistance that the U.S. provided to her country,” he said. “And we should remember that this aid has a human face. It’s not just government to government. It’s people to people.”

Barry reported from Baton Rouge, Zucchino from Plaquemines Parish and Getlin from New York. Times staff writers Ashley Powers and Nicholas Riccardi in Baton Rouge, Elizabeth Mehren in Biloxi, Miss., Mary Curtius in Washington and Matea Gold in New York also contributed to this report.