Slow recovery: Police comb city for stragglers

NEW ORLEANS — More stragglers seemed willing to flee the filthy water and stench of death Thursday as increasingly insistent rescuers made what may be their last peaceful pass through swamped New Orleans before using force.

"Some are finally saying, 'I've had enough,' " said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Michael Keegan. "They're getting dehydrated. They are running out of food. There are human remains in different houses. The smells mess with your psyche."

Meanwhile, President Bush declared Sept. 16 as a national day of remembrance for the dead, and he encouraged those displaced by the storm to sign up for $2,000 debit cards to help rebuild their lives. Congress also rushed to approve an additional $51.8 billion in emergency aid for the victims.

Bush dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to the region Thursday amid persistent criticism of the sluggish pace of the federal response. Stopping along a street of splintered homes in Gulfport, Miss., Cheney said much progress is being made in a relief effort he termed "very impressive."

As he spoke, a passer-by hurled an expletive at the vice president. "First time I've heard it," Cheney joked with reporters when asked if he was hearing a lot of such sentiments.

Later in New Orleans, Cheney visited a repaired levee and surveyed the damage as he rode through the streets in an armored Humvee.

Across a flooded city where as many as 10,000 holdouts were believed to be stubbornly staying put, police made it clear in orders barked from front porches and through closed doors that they would return — next time, getting tough.

Police said they were 80 percent done with their scan of the city for voluntary evacuees, after which they planned to begin carrying out Mayor Ray Nagin's order to forcibly remove remaining residents from a city filled with disease-carrying water, broken gas lines and rotting corpses.

"The ones who wanted to leave, I would say most of them are out," said detective Sgt. James Imbrogglio. "There may be a few left, so we're going to go check one of our last areas that's underwater today and then hopefully that will be it."

The job of carrying out the mayor's order was left largely to the 1,000 or so remaining members of New Orleans' beleaguered police force.

"We are not going to be rough," said Police Chief Eddie Compass. "We are going to be sensitive. We are going to use the minimum amount of force."