NEW ORLEANS — It was people this time, not water, that poured into the streets of the storm-tossed city.
On Wednesday morning, police removed the roadblocks that had kept evacuees out of metro New Orleans. Thousands who had fled streamed back home, with wailing children in back seats and empty gas cans strapped to the tops of cars. They returned to a quiet city of fallen trees, spotty electric service, a fragile sewer system, and shuttered grocery stores and gas stations.
But at least it was mostly dry.
"I'm more than happy to be back -- I'm delighted, and relieved too," said Esther Padilla, 74, a widow who lives alone in a brick ranch home in the Lakeview area. Her house was inundated three years ago when the 17th Avenue levee ruptured. This time it was fine, save for some debris in the yard, which she promptly set to cleaning up.
The evacuees' return to New Orleans has proven to be trickier than their departure, which was widely praised as a model of thoughtful government planning. On Tuesday, many of those residents fumed as they waited at police checkpoints.
New Orleans reluctantly opened its borders at least two days before officials said it was ready, pressured by surrounding parishes' decisions to let their residents back. Mayor C. Ray Nagin warned that the city's infrastructure was still not prepared to support the massive influx of nearly 200,000 residents who had fled over the weekend.
"My big concern is public safety. We don't have the hospital situation straightened out," he said, referring to a lack of crucial power at medical facilities. Restoring power was proving to be a challenge.
"In my humble opinion, I think we're forcing the issue, but we're just going to deal with it," Nagin told WWL-TV. "I am really uncomfortable with this repopulation right now."
As south Louisianans returned home to assess the damage, officials in North Carolina and South Carolina were preparing for the predicted arrival of Tropical Storm Hanna on Saturday. Hanna, which has already killed more than 60 people in Haiti, is moving northwest over the Atlantic and could strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall.
Another storm, the Category 4 Hurricane Ike, is farther away in the Atlantic. It is too early to tell if it will hit any land.
Before Gustav, New Orleans' poor and infirm -- about 18,000 of them -- were transported out of the city, and it may take longer to get them back, Nagin said.
