New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday warned that residents who left the city ahead of Hurricane Gustav's arrival Monday may have to wait in shelters and hotels a few days longer, as anxious evacuees across the region sought to return home. “We have a massive caravan of [utility] crews coming to the city, and they should be here this morning to fix the rest of the power outages,” Nagin told CBS News. He warned that Tuesday would be too early for residents to return to the city, but said their homecoming was “only days away, not weeks.” The city's improved levee system helped avoid a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, which flooded most of the city, and officials also were helped by Gustav, which weakened just before hitting the Louisiana coast southwest of New Orleans. Eight deaths were attributed to the storm in the United States after it killed at least 94 people in the Caribbean. A mandatory evacuation order and curfew remained in effect for New Orleans. Electric crews began work on restoring power to the nearly 80,000 homes and businesses in New Orleans—and over 1 million in the region—that remained without power after Gustav damaged transmission lines. The city's sewer system was damaged, and hospitals were working with small staffs on backup power. Drinking water continued to flow in the city, and the pumps that keep New Orleans dry never shut down—two critical service failings that contributed to the death toll in 2005.
