Evacuees Return To Power Outages

In Metairie, La., Stacey Stiel, right, who runs Stiel Insurance and has no electricity at her home, stocks up on ice. (By Jahi Chikwendiu -- The Washington Post)
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New Orleans originally planned to admit evacuees by phases, with major corporations and retailers permitted to return Wednesday and the general populace on Thursday. But after scenes of frustrated evacuees stuck at police checkpoints, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin dropped the phased reentry system.

Anyone with identification showing residency in the New Orleans metropolitan area was allowed into the city, and police began waving residents through checkpoints on roads leading into the city.

Many evacuees expressed relief at finding only minor damage to their homes, in comparison to the devastation that greeted them when they returned after Hurricane Katrina.

"Everything is fine," said the Rev. Larry Payton, 53, who lives in the West Bank section of New Orleans. "Now I'm just waiting for power."

In New Orleans, Dawn and Dax Bordenave arrived at a Salvation Army truck after it ran out of food. They had only hot dogs, milk and bread with them and were anxious about the conditions in New Orleans in the coming days. "It's the uncertainty," Dawn said. "We don't know what's open. That's the scary part."

Staff writers David Montgomery in New Orleans, Philip Rucker in Gulfport, Miss., Dan Eggen in Baton Rouge, and Spencer S. Hsu, Steven Mufson and Howard Schneider in Washington; staff photographer Jahi Chikwendiu in St. Bernard Parish; and special correspondent Mike Perlstein in Clinton, Miss., contributed to this report.