Some hurricane victims go home; death toll rises

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Residents returning to homes for the first time since Hurricane Katrina struck more than two weeks ago found both ruin and relief on Thursday as the U.S. Gulf Coast region tried to stagger back to life.

With the death toll from the August 29 storm rising to 711 and recovery teams removing more bodies from partially flooded New Orleans, Republican U.S. Senate leaders in Washington suggested a modern-day "Marshall Plan" be established for recovery, patterned after the effort to rebuild Western Europe following World War Two.
The storm will likely be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, with damage estimates ranging from $100 billion to $200 billion.

Residents of Gretna, Westwego and Lafitte, all suburbs of New Orleans, were allowed to return at daybreak after electricity, water and sewage systems were restored.
In Lafitte, a quiet fishing town where a summer seafood festival is the highlight of the social year, some homes were untouched, others piles of rubble.

"It was real hit and miss," said Lester Cipriano, whose home suffered only minor damage. A shattered mobile home nearby had lost its roof, with torn insulation covering the floor.
In Port Sulfur on the Mississippi River 45 miles south of New Orleans, residents were permitted to return for visits but not to stay.

"Our house used to be over there on Camellia Street," said Lynnell Taylor, 36, pointing to a spot about 50 yards (metres) away. The blue frame house evidently floated, almost intact, in the floodwaters, before collapsing in a tumble of boards and splinters.

"My daughter had the only upstairs room," added Taylor, fighting back tears. "It looks like everything in her room is salvageable" -- but nothing else was. Taylor said she planned to find a new home in another town.

In New Orleans, still technically under a mandatory evacuation order, some residents were sneaking back one by one to reclaim homes in areas that escaped heavy damage.

In the Garden District near downtown, where many gracious homes survived without heavy damage, some people had returned.

"It's better here than in a hotel," said David, who did not give his last name. He got past a security checkpoint through his girlfriend who has a medical ID and they moved back into their wood frame house, camping out with bottled water and flashlights.

That scene was in stark contrast to what was going on elsewhere in a city once home to 450,000 people. In the poverty-stricken 9th ward of New Orleans, the water had receded entirely but a thick layer of foul black and green sludge remained.

A refrigerator sat on top of one roof and a boat was shoved up on the door stoop of another. Dozens of houses had collapsed and disintegrated beyond apparent repair.

Body recovery teams in white coveralls were going to buildings marked earlier as containing human remains. They removed one body in a black bag then drove four blocks and carried out another.

The death toll in Louisiana stood at 474, with 218 dead in Mississippi. There were also 19 deaths in Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.