Despite distress, some victims refuse to leave

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has said it will take as long as three months or more before vast stretches of fetid water can be drained from the city and services restored and it would be unhealthy for residents stay in their homes.

Large swathes of this historic city are dry, but Nagin wants remaining residents to leave those too.

"It's an issue of safety. A major concern is the toxic water, and the mosquitoes are ready to fly," he said, adding they could spread disease by feeding on decaying corpses and biting the living.

Remaining residents who refuse to leave will be "persuaded" by National Guards soldiers, Nagin said.

Many of the historic landmarks survived dry and relatively unscathed: the French Quarter and Warehouse District, the Victorian Garden District, the Central Business District and much of Uptown.

And, as of Sunday, an enclave of residents planned to stick it out indefinitely.

A woman in an oversized T-shirt, who wouldn't give her last name, was walking down Napoleon Avenue away from the boats and toward her house, which she had no intention of leaving.

"I've stockpiled," said Elizabeth.

"My ancestors built that levee," she said, referring to the barrier which gave way under the force of Hurricane Katrina last week and let in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain.

"I know the grounds. I know the low ground and the high ground. That's why I sit on the high ground," she said waving toward the Mississippi River.

"I'm an individualist, and that's it," she said. "Martial law cannot make me a prisoner."

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Riley said police did have the authority to force evacuations, but did not spell out whether officers are taking that step. In an earlier interview on WWL radio, Mayor Ray Nagin said that authorities were going to try to persuade people to leave. Officers will no longer be handing out water to people who will not evacuate, the mayor said.

Riley estimated that fewer than 10,000 people were left in the city. He said some simply did not want to leave their homes _ while others were hanging back to engage in criminal activities, such as looting.

"We don't know how long this is going to last," he said.

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The boat pulled up to the living room window on Read Boulevard and a volunteer rescuer, Stanley Patrick, began yelling: "Mr. Robert! Mr. Robert! Can you hear me?"

There was no sound in response, only the lapping of water in this reeking New Orleans East neighborhood, where the rooftops of cars were still covered early on Sunday afternoon, nearly a week after the city was inundated.

Patrick grabbed a sledgehammer, broke through the window of the tidy brick house and sloshed down a hallway into a back bedroom. It seemed unlikely that he would encounter anyone alive in this toxic water, in this fetid heat.

He found what he expected to find, an 83-year-old man, floating face down in stagnant water that had risen three and a half feet, or about one meter, into the home. A Louisiana state trooper asked that the man not be identified in full because his family had not been notified.

Rescuers were told there might be a woman in the house, too.

"I didn't see her, but if he's dead, she's dead," said Patrick, one of about 40 workers from R&R Construction in Lake Charles, Louisiana, who volunteered for the rescue effort using boats usually used for bass fishing. "If he didn't leave, she didn't leave."

As rescue operations went on, the frustrations of the police and volunteers mounted on Sunday, as a growing number of those who had stayed seemed to be dead, and many of those who remained alive refused to leave.

But Colonel Terry Ebbert, director of the New Orleans office of the Department of Homeland Security, said Sunday that he expected that nearly everyone would be removed from the city by Tuesday, as rescuers made block-by-block searches. He said he thought there were fewer than 1,000 residents left in the city. "We're going to remove them," he said.

Still, some residents are resisting, rescuers said.

"People don't want to come out," said Captain Tim Bayard, commander of the narcotics division of the New Orleans Police Department, who is supervising the water rescue effort. "They say they have enough water and food to sustain themselves. They don't understand. It's going to take six to eight weeks before the electricity comes on."

The water has receded only about a foot in many places, he said, adding that it was still 20 feet deep in spots. "They need to come out," Bayard said. But some residents fear that if they leave, their houses will be ransacked, he said.

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