NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 4 -- The streets of this once vibrant city were ghostly silent Sunday after thousands of people had been removed by evacuation efforts during the past two days, and officials here began to slowly shift their efforts to gathering up those who died from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, speaking on a number of television programs in the morning, said that federal officials are in control of New Orleans and tried to deflect pointed questions of whether the initial federal response to the disaster was flawed.
He said officials are busy now dealing with the crisis and will have to wait to evaluate the problems of the past week.
"This is a tremendous medium-term and long-term challenge," Chertoff said on "Fox New Sunday." "We are basically moving the city of New Orleans to other parts of the country. We have to shelter people, we have to feed them, we have to educate their kids, we have to get them medium-term housing, and we've got to give them hope.
"So we are very much in the middle of the crisis, and we've got to continue to look forward, as well as continue with our ongoing operations."
Winds and storm surge from the hurricane swept across the Gulf region from Mobile, Ala., to New Orleans last Monday, smashing homes, washing out roads, disrupting communications and energy production and eventually causing the breach of some of the levees that protected New Orleans. Much of that city still remains under water, although work continues on rebuilding the levees, and water in some of the areas is receding.
But in places such as the Superdome, where once thousands of angry residents waited for days for relief, it was quiet Sunday. People who had been hoping for rescue at the convention center and along highways were largely gone, too. Overnight, most of the people who had been brought to the airport -- many of them hospital patients or others who were sick or injured -- were also flown out to safety.
Still on Sunday, more residents continued to come out of neighborhoods looking for help and they were being evacuated.
Boat search-and-rescue operations were expanding Sunday, reaching many areas that they could not get to before. The Coast Guard asked residents seeking help to hang out brightly colored or white sheets or towels to signal a rescue. And helicopter crews continued to search across the city for others who needed rescue.
The storm and the rescue efforts have taken a toll on New Orleans police and firefighters, Mayor Ray Nagin said Sunday, according to the Associated Press. "I've got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much traumatized," he said. "And we've already had a couple of suicides so I am cycling them out as we speak, but we have a problem. I can get them to Baton Rouge, but once I get them to Baton Rouge there's no hospitals. They need physical and psychological evaluations."
Many people were still angry about how long it took to mobilize the relief effort. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans, began to cry on NBC's "Meet the Press" as he related the story of a rescue official's mother who called repeatedly for help.
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything," Broussard said. "His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you.' Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night."
