Mayor announces plan to reopen New Orleans
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-16 20:45

While the areas set to be reopened were never part of the 80 percent of New Orleans under water, they still suffered from the failure of services that left them prey to the looting that gripped this city after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29.

Katrina did not leave the Quarter entirely untouched — magnolia trees were uprooted, awnings were shredded and looters broke into some stores — but the old city center often looks worse after Mardi Gras.

Nagin also said Thursday that the city's convention center, which became a symbol of the city's despair when thousands of refugees were stranded there for days after the hurricane, will now become a hub of the rebuilding effort. Three major retailers will set up there to sell lumber, food and other supplies.

Security will be tight in the reopened neighborhoods. Nagin said a dusk-to-dawn curfew will be enforced, and residents and business owners will be required to show ID to get back in.

If the initial resettlement goes smoothly, Nagin said residents in other areas will slowly be brought back to join in what he called perhaps the biggest urban reconstruction project in U.S. history.

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