Hurricane Katrina Aftermath (and other stuff I find interesting)

Unflooded portions of New Orleans may be opened to residents, perhaps as early as Monday, Mayor Ray Nagin said in an upbeat and wide-ranging news conference Tuesday afternoon.The possibility of repopulating areas of the city so quickly marked a stunning turnaround from earlier predictions that New Orleans could remain uninhabitable for months. Nagin said the final decision on the date would hinge on pending results of federal tests measuring the toxicity of the city's air and water, but he said initial reports are turning out much better than expected."I'm starting to get into the mode of how do we reopen the city," Nagin said, speaking from the steps of Washington Artillery Park in the French Quarter, one of four areas targeted for early reopening. The others are Algiers, the Central Business District and parts of Uptown. "We are out of nuclear crisis mode and are in to day-to-day crisis mode," Nagin said.

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