Soldiers help coax New Orleans' holdouts from their homes

"Well, we found a bunch of abandoned buildings and we are actually going to go ahead and try to retrieve some of these Ak-47s assault rifles that they have been using to shoot at helicopters and some of the people trying to get back into the city to get it back up and running."

Nagin's everyone-out directive — which superseded an earlier, milder order to evacuate made before Hurricane Katrina crashed ashore Aug. 29 — came after rescuers scouring New Orleans found hundreds of people ignoring warnings to get out.

Several residents said they heard Nagin's latest order on portable radios and were reluctantly complying.

Dolores Devron and her husband, Forcell, finally agreed to go. Dolores Devron said she was relieved the couple were allowed to take their dog with them but angry they were ordered out.

"There are dead babies tied to poles and they're dragging us out and leaving the dead babies. That ain't right!" she screamed, waving her arms as she was directed onto a troop carrier truck.

Picola Brown, 47, hobbled slowly down the street on her crutches. She said she had not been able to leave because a truck ran over her left foot shortly before the storm struck, breaking a toe.

"The mayor said everybody's got to go. I got ready. I just don't want them knocking on my door," she said.

"Where do you want to go?" asked a soldier from the 82nd Airborne Division.

She answered, "Wherever it's comfortable."

Patricia Kelly, 41, sat under a tattered, dirty green-and-white-striped patio umbrella in front of an abandoned barber and beauty shop in the devastated Ninth Ward. Her home was flooded; she was not able to get back in, but did not want to leave the neighborhood.

"I'm going to stay as long as the Lord says so," Kelly said. "If they come with a court order, then we'll leave. I hope it doesn't get to the point where we're forced out."

Sgt. Joseph Boarman of the 82nd Airborne, standing on a corner, said he understood the reluctance to leave: "It's their home. You know how hard it is to leave home, no matter what condition it's in."

In Washington, President Bush and Congress pledged on Tuesday to open separate investigations into the federal response to Katrina and New Orleans' broken levees. "Governments at all levels failed," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., repeated her call for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be made autonomous from the Department of Homeland Security and for an independent commission to investigate the federal response to the disaster.