Bush to get close-up view of New Orleans horror
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-12 21:31

President George W. Bush faced an uncertain welcome as he prepared for his first close-up view of storm-wrecked New Orleans, exactly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina turned one of America's proudest cities into a swamped horror, the Associated Press reported.

US President George W. Bush (R) looks down as he tours an emergency unit camp on the outskirts of New Orleans with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, two weeks after hurricane Katrina hit the city. Bush faced an uncertain welcome as he prepared for his first close-up view of storm-wrecked New Orleans, exactly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina turned one of America's proudest cities into a swamped horror. [AFP]

Relief and rescue efforts, meanwhile, inched forward on Monday. More pumps came online and helped lower flood levels in some districts, while health officials launched a insecticide spraying campaign to thwart mosquito-borne disease and some businesses hoped to open in New Orleans' downtown.

Passes to cross a security cordon around the city will be issued to help the owners of small shops, restaurants, hotels, gasoline stations and supermarkets to visit their properties, to allow them to begin the process of cleaning up, assessing the damage or continuing in anothe location, said Louisiana State Police spokesman Johnnie Brown.

The city's airport, Louis Armstrong International, was gearing up to reopen to commercial flights on Tuesday. It has handled only humanitarian and military flights since Katrina struck on August 29.

Despite the progress, the city's infrastructure is wrecked, and reconstruction will take many years and billions of dollars.

One sign of this was the sight of two giant cruise ships, which moored in New Orleans on Sunday to provide accommodation for more than 5,000 relief workers.

Many districts, especially in east New Orleans, remain under a deep brown flood up to two metres (deep), and streets there are only accessible by boat.

Teams fished out bloated corpses from the stinking, trash-strewn mess, and urged residents who have not done so to to leave for safe shelter, although they were not using force to apply an order to quit town.

In dry streets, skeletal dogs roamed for food, sometimes gnawing at the carcasses of dead pets.

An animal rescue official said she had seen dogs eating human cadavers on a highway exit ramp leading to a flooded street.

Bush, who has previously flown over the city but not seen the situation on the ground, was to be briefed on the highly-criticised relief effort while aboard the USS Iwo Jima helicopter carrier moored in New Orleans before touring the watery city in a military truck.

He was later to visit Gulfport, Mississippi.

Reflecting the likely view of many New Orleanians, the city's main newspaper said it was deeply skeptical of Bush's promise of help and Washington's actions to follow up his pledge.

"We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry," the Times-Picayune said in an editorial on its website.

"Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame."

Criticism has mounted over the government's sluggish response to Katrina and Bush has seen his approval ratings slump to their worst levels since he took office in January 2001.

Many Americans fault Bush's response to Katrina, saying his government did too little too late. One big criticism of the relief operation was that federal, state and local officials were hopelessly disorganised.

Katrina hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on August 29, inflicting the greatest natural disaster in US history.

One million people were displaced by the storm and an unknown number lie dead in their wrecked homes. The confirmed death toll across the region is more than 424 and is certain to be ultimately far higher, although officials are confident that it will be less than the 10,000 dead that last week was estimated for New Orleans alone.

Estimates about the cost of Katrina continue to balloon.

An estimate released on Friday by a private company, Risk Management Solutions, said the final bill will top 125 billion dollars, compared with 26.5 billion dollars notched up by Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992.

Swiss Re, the world's second largest re-insurer said Monday it now expected the total loss to the global insurance industry to be around 40 billion dollars (32 billion euros) rather than a previously estimated 20 billion.

"We are witnessing increasing natural catastophe events across the globe, affecting economies and societies with a higher frequency and severity," said Swiss Re chief executive John Coomber.

A fresh hurricane -- this time poised off the US east coast -- continued to worry weather-watchers.

Hurricane Ophelia crept toward the US state of North Carolina early Monday, forcing local officials to post storm warnings and urge residents to leave barrier islands.

The National Hurricane Center said the warnings were in effect for a 360-kilometer (225-mile) stretch of coastline from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Cape Lookout in North Carolina.

At 2:00 am (0600 GMT), Ophelia swirled in the Atlantic some 338 kilometers (210 miles) from Charleston, South Carolina, and about 435 kilometers (270 miles) southeast from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Ophelia is rated one on a five-point hurricane scale where five is the severest. A category one hurricane packs maximum sustained winds of 119-153 kilometers per hour (74-95 miles per hour), with a storm surge of about 1.5 metres (4-5 feet) above normal.

In contrast, Katrina was a far more powerful category four storm, with sustained winds hitting 210-249 kilometers per hour (131-155 miles per hour), and surges of four to five meters (13-18 feet) above normal.