New Orleans, Sept 19

Parts of New Orleans opened to residents

By Ellen Wulfhorst and Andy Sullivan

NEW ORLEANS, Sept 19 (Reuters) - New Orleans residents who fled Hurricane Katrina streamed back into selected areas on Monday but plans to reopen others fell into doubt after President George W. Bush urged caution and a new storm threatened to enter the Gulf of Mexico.

The devastated city is vulnerable to renewed flooding from Tropical Storm Rita, which so far was heading west to the Florida Keys, Bush said. A Louisiana official said the levees in New Orleans would fail if smashed by a new storm surge.

The latest projections have Rita striking somewhere in the Houston area on Saturday, but various maps show this storm could hit southeastern Louisiana.

The chief of federal recovery efforts in New Orleans, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, already voiced concern that ambitious plans by Mayor Ray Nagin for residents to come home could be dangerous, due to a lack of electricity, drinkable water and emergency services in most of the city.

"The mayor is working hard. ... He's got this dream about having a city up and running, and we share that dream," Bush told reporters at the White House. "But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans."

The president had come under heavy criticism for a slow federal response to initial Katrina relief efforts.

KEY MONDAY MEETING

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said there is heightened concern among his colleagues about resettling the stricken city because of Rita.

"The levee structures, in particular the areas that are being reworked ... would not hold up well to any event, to any type of major tide event or major surge event," he said.

With roads already damaged across the New Orleans area as a result of Katrina, there would be few options to evacuate if Rita strikes, said officials with the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

Allen and the mayor were scheduled to meet mid-afternoon to hash out their differences over the timetable for reopening the city to as many as 180,000 returning residents.

Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," Allen said: "Without potable water and a 911 system, the public will not be protected and we would not recommend anyone go back."

The mayor, whose plans call for areas to reopen gradually over the next week, issued a statement to residents saying: "You are entering at your own risk."

Armed with his warning, people poured into Algiers, across the Mississippi River from the historic French Quarter. Whereas Algiers residents may return home for good, residents elsewhere can return only to salvage belongs. Others have stayed without official permission.

Roads into Algiers, where water and power are restored, were jammed and traffic came to a near standstill.

"We're secure, we have phones, we have pure water.... We have sewer, we have garbage pickup, we have more and more stores ready to come on line," Jackie Clarkson, a New Orleans City Council member, told reporters in Algiers.

"Most importantly, we have a bunch of eager citizens that are ready to rebuild New Orleans," she said.

Algiers was hit by Katrina's fury but was not inundated by floodwaters.

CAUSEWAY REOPENED

Fay Faron, who came to Algiers to inspect her 92-year-old mother's house, found one wall torn off and the inside of the house exposed.

"It's like a dollhouse," she said. "You can just look in the side."

The house also had been robbed, she said, although it was such a mess "it would be impossible at this point to say what's gone and what isn't." Authorities also reopened the Pontchartrain Causeway, the 24-mile (39-km) span stretching across the lake of the same name, which burst its levees three weeks ago and flooded the low-lying city.

Much of the city remained a grim and grimy illustration the damage from Katrina, which slammed into Louisiana and neighboring states on Aug. 29 with 140 mile-per-hour (224 kph) winds and a 30-foot (nine-metre) storm surge.

St. Bernard Parish remained off-limits, due in large part to oil spilled from a refinery that left layers of black goo several feet thick in some yards. Authorities say as many as three-quarters of its homes may need to be razed.

The Louisiana death toll rose to 646 as of Sunday, bringing the total dead from Katrina to 883, including 218 in Mississippi and 19 combined in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

(Additional reporting by Matt Dailey in New Orleans and Ben Berkowitz and Kenneth Li in Baton Rouge)