New Orleans looked all but empty today after the final evacuation of battered survivors of Hurricane Katrina, while top Bush administration officials, stung by anger at their relief efforts, were fanning out across the afflicted region.
Rescuers in a vast eight-hour operation cleared New Orleans' Superdome football stadium and the convention centre of thousands who had taken shelter there during the catastrophic storm only to fall prey to wretched conditions.
Hundreds of buses and helicopters carried evacuees to the airport where military cargo planes delivered them from the misery left in the city by Katrina, which struck the US Gulf Coast on Monday, possibly killing thousands and leaving many more homeless. Many evacuees were taken to Texas.
The streets were mostly calm and deserted as National Guard troops and US marshals patrolled the flooded city, stricken in recent nights by almost anarchic violence and looting.
It was difficult to determine how many civilians remained in New Orleans, which had a population before Katrina of more than 500,000. Many had locked themselves in their houses. Others were still trapped in homes stranded by floodwaters.
President George W. Bush, who admitted on Friday the results of his administration's relief efforts were unacceptable, said he would send 7,200 more active-duty troops over three days.
A further 10,000 National Guard troops were being to storm-afflicted Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total to 40,000. A total of 54,000 military personnel are now committed to relief efforts.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday he would spend several days in the New Orleans area to help integrate the military and civilian rescue efforts.
Defending the administration's response and disaster planning, he said the hurricane and flood that followed in New Orleans after protective levees broke were "two catastrophes" that presented an unprecedented challenge.
Critics have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has lost its effectiveness since it became part of the Homeland Security Department in a post-September 11th reorganisation.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will tour the Mobile, Alabama, area, in her native state. Ms Rice was criticised after she attended a New York performance of the Monty Python musical Spamalot on Wednesday, a day after New Orleans flooded.
On returning to Washington, she defended the administration against charges the slow response and the prolonged suffering of New Orleans' predominantly black storm victims were signs of racial neglect.
"That Americans would somehow in a colour-affected way decide who to help and who not to help, I just don't believe it," said Rice, the administration's highest-ranking black official.
Today's Washington Post reported that Bush administration officials were blaming state and local authorities for the disaster response problems. The newspaper said the administration was rebuffed in an effort to take control of police and National Guard units reporting to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat.