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Despite tough talk from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, and scare stories about disease and toxins from the US Centers for Disease Control, residents determined to stay seem to have successfully stalled implementation of forced evacuations. Local reports indicate Louisiana State Police troopers and National Guard units in New Orleans are unwilling to participate in forced evacuations.
Public sympathy for the plight of the people of New Orleans is still a significant factor, as is the reluctance of street-level law enforcement to risk battles with residents. Police and military officials are instead focussing on saving the lives of those still holed up in the shells of eroding houses and apartments.
 Nagin instructed police and National Guard troops "to compel the evacuation of all persons from the city of New Orleans, regardless of whether such persons are on private property or do not desire to leave."
But Art Jones, a senior official with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said Louisiana State Police troopers and National Guard units in New Orleans had no plans to participate in forced evacuations.
"We personally will not force anyone out of their homes," Jones said at a briefing, adding that "for their own common sense, they should get out as quick as they can."
Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, has authority over National Guard troops in the state, and the federal Posse Comitatus act prevents active-duty troops from performing any domestic law enforcement unless authorized by the president.
Mark Smith, a spokesman for Louisiana Homeland Security, said Nagin would have to formally request state authorities to allow National Guard troops to join forced evacuations. So far, Smith added, Nagin has not made that request.
"It is still up to our discretion whether we would support the request," Smith said. "We are not required by law to provide military troops to force people from their homes."
Without help from Guard units, the toughened stance would be left to New Orleans' exhausted, demoralized police force, which has shrunk to 1,000 officers after more than 200 desertions in the last week.
STARVE THEM OUT
FEMA are still blocking supplies in a strategy local people have called "trying to starve us out".
FEMA director Michael D. Brown, admitted Wednesday that scores of police and volunteer firefighters from around the nation, as well as trucks loaded with donated water, are being prevented from entering New Orleans while troops conduct house-to-house searches.
"They can't just yet," said Brown according to local KTLA news station. State and local officials in Louisiana have accused FEMA of making the situation worse with red tape.
Local reports say health officials were going to spray the city with a toxic spray to kill mosquitoes. Preliminary tests of the water showed dangerous levels of bacteria that threaten anyone who comes in contact with it, Environmental Protection Agency officials said.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, was blunt in her warning: "For the evacuees who haven't left the city yet, you must do so."
The death count stood at 83 in Louisiana by Wednesday morning, but State officials said federal emergency teams had amassed more than 25,000 body bags.
Compiled by BFN from local TV affiliates and news agency reports
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