September 9, 2005 - 9:20 PM

New Orleans bars get ready to open, help promised

By Kieran Murray

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans' famed French Quarter cleaned up its bars and clubs on Friday to get ready for business, the first step in a long and costly effort to rebuild a wrecked city that has still not picked up all its dead.

Hours after pledging to bankroll New Orleans' recovery, President George W. Bush said on Friday the plan should improve the lives of poor black communities hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina.

"As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality," Bush said at a solemn service, part of a national day of prayer and remembrance for Katrina's victims.

Ruined neighbourhoods still lie under water and many evacuees scattered in temporary shelters around the country are searching for family members, but some areas that escaped the worst damage are steadily showing more signs of life.

Mayor Ray Nagin wants business owners to return to the French Quarter and three other areas this weekend, and says about 182,000 residents, or 40 percent of the city's population, will be allowed back over the next 10 days.

Some have already slipped back in and were cleaning up on Friday, trying to get a head start on the city's recovery.

"We have a statement to make. Maybe we were down, but we're not out," said Julio Menjivar, the general manager of three clubs on Bourbon Street in the heart of the French Quarter.

He hoped to have a skeleton crew in place by Monday with electricity back on within a week. After that, all the bawdy, rowdy area needs is the return of its tourists, the lifeblood of New Orleans' economy.

"People really come to kick back a little. They come here to let loose," he said. "Bourbon Street will bounce back."

Generator trucks ran power into some buildings and cleanup crews swept the streets of stinking garbage that has piled up in the 18 days since Katrina battered much of the Gulf Coast.

Bush promised on Thursday night that his government will provide huge support in rebuilding the home of jazz and other towns and cities ravaged by Katrina.

"There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again," Bush said in a speech from the French Quarter's historic Jackson Square.

The president stopped short of offering a firm dollar commitment for a bill some members of Congress say could reach $200 billion, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

BOOM OR BUST

Some business owners predicted boom times ahead.

"It'll be better than ever," said Jason Mohney, the owner of four strip clubs on Bourbon Street. "A lot of federal money will be coming in here. Big-time developers will come, too."

Not everyone was so sure.

A Washington Post poll of evacuees staying in emergency shelters in the Houston area showed nearly half of them did not want to return to New Orleans.

U.S. consumer confidence sank to a 13-year low in early September, battered by Katrina and record gas prices, a closely watched University of Michigan report showed on Friday.

Although economists said the steep fall in confidence was a temporary reaction to the shock of Katrina, others said it could reflect a loss of confidence in the government following the botched rescue efforts in the first days after the storm.

Reeling from record-low public approval ratings, Bush conceded the response was poorly coordinated and all levels of government were overwhelmed: "Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency."

It took days for Katrina emergency teams to reach cramped and violent shelters or hospitals where dozens of patients died when power cuts knocked out life-support equipment and air conditioners.

"We were a universe unto ourselves for several days," said Valerie Englade, a spokeswoman for East Jefferson General Hospital in New Orleans. "We had no assistance."

More than two weeks later, many across the disaster zone are still incensed by the slow response first when Katrina struck and now as they try to rebuild. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has received sharp criticism.

"We have had no help from them for our citizens. ... It is criminal," said Ben Morris, mayor of the devastated town of Slidell outside New Orleans, where at least 10,000 people lost their homes and have nowhere to live.

Rescue teams are still scouring wrecked New Orleans neighbourhoods to check homes for the living and the dead.

The official death toll has climbed to almost 800, with about 70 percent of them in Louisiana. Decaying corpses can still be seen on New Orleans' streets and the death toll is expected to rise as flood waters recede.

But there are signs of recovery in some areas.

In Jefferson Parish just south of here, all 500,000 residents will be allowed back to their homes by Wednesday.

Army engineers are pumping out the waters that poured in from Lake Pontchartrain when New Orleans' levees broke during the hurricane.

Electricity will be restored to about 20 percent of the New Orleans area within two weeks, utility officials said.

And the resettling of the French Quarter, the central business district and two other areas of the city have raised the hopes of some.

"People have always had to be creative here," said Jimmy New, a 53-year-old barman and waiter at the Napoleon house in the French Quarter. "The residents will definitely come back and the tourists will be back.

(Additional reporting by Matt Daily and Maggie Fox in New Orleans and Ros Krasny in Chicago)