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1/3 of New Orleans residents could return
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-30 20:38
At Igor's, a pub and coin laundry in the Garden District, owner Halina Margan
returned after Katrina and never left, despite Rita's threat last week. She was
ready to open for business on Thursday.
"It's lonely here. We need people," she said.
State officials say at least 140,000 homes and businesses across southeastern
Louisiana were so badly damaged that they must be torn down. The storms also
left 22 million tons of debris, including 350,000 cars and trucks, said Mike
McDaniel, chief of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.
"Just as the nation knew that we had to create economic greatness in New York
City after 9-11, the nation and the world needs south Louisiana," Gov. Kathleen
Blanco said in seeking federal tax breaks, incentives and grants to rebound.
Even as residents were to begin pouring back into New Orleans, the police
department said it was investigating a dozen officers accused of looting during
the lawlessness that engulfed the city after Katrina.
"The investigation does in fact show police officers with some items," acting
Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday. He said four of the 12
officers have already been suspended for failing to stop looting.
"It was not clear that they in fact looted," Riley said of the four. "What is
clear is that some action needed to be taken and it was not."
Riley drew a distinction between taking useful items such as food and jeans,
which he contended didn't amount to looting in a crisis, and taking luxuries
such as jewelry. He suggested that arresting looters was difficult amid the
chaos following the storm.
"Minor offenders, it was determined, we could not in fact
arrest them," he said.
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