Some who returned to New Orleans consider leaving

Jack Sutton's family has sold antiques and art in New Orleans's French Quarter for three generations, but if things don't get better soon, the clan may head to Las Vegas.

Everyday life in New Orleans brings more recovery from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city on August 29, 2005. But some long-time residents feel they may be forced to move if the improvement does not accelerate, and they could take an important part of the culture - small shops and neighbourhood professionals - with them.

A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 15 per cent of Katrina survivors who had returned to the community they lived in before the storm hit would like to move away, and that an additional 15 per cent would like to stay but may move. Only 68 per cent definitely planned to stay.

Doctors are having trouble reconnecting with patients, retailers cannot survive in still-shuttered neighbourhoods and high-end small business people like the Suttons are waiting for tourists.

Some who are considering leaving see a leadership vacuum in local and state government, fretting that bureaucracy is not easing and there are no signs of help, such as a national campaign to reassure and draw tourists.

"You know that things are bad when you know everybody walking up and down the street," Mr Sutton said. "If business doesn't return, we'll have to go elsewhere."

The family has visited south Florida and Boston and is planning to scout locations in Las Vegas next.

"It's the first time in my life I have had to think about all my options," he added, saying that if business did not return to an acceptable level in the next several months, his family would not have a choice but to move.

Small businesses throughout the French Quarter are reducing inventory and living on savings and reduced cash flow, said John Williams, director of the University of New Orleans hotel, restaurant and tourism school.

"It is the heart of the community, when you look at those individual shopholders," he said. But, he added, "This consumer who would have walked the streets from one shop to another is not there."

Katrina killed about 1,500, according to the National Hurricane Centre, flooding 80 per cent of New Orleans and flattening much of the Mississippi coast.

About half of the New Orleans city population has returned, and the metropolitan area may have as many as 80 per cent of its former occupants, many squeezed into available housing outside city limits. In addition, construction industry workers and some adventurers are moving to the recovering city. But large parts of the city are still in trouble. International Shipholding Corp., run by an old New Orleans family, in June said it would move its headquarters to Mobile, Alabama after a crucial shipping channel was silted in by the storm.

"Our roots are in New Orleans and it pains us to leave," Chairman Erik F. Johnsen said in a statement at the time. Doctors also are having difficulty finding patients, since many have not returned and others cannot find their providers.

Despite surveys showing New Orleans is suffering from a mental health crisis, psychologist Carlos Kronberger said that he was receiving fewer new calls for help than before Katrina. His client base is a shadow of its pre-storm level because so few have returned to the city, and the shutdown of Charity hospital resulted in many mental health professionals losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, working in Georgia, where Mr Kronberger's family fled the hurricane, is much easier than in New Orleans.

"Atlanta is a huge city. It is booming. There are people who have very good insurance, who are willing to pay cash for their services. We don't have that yet," he said.

Ultimately the fate of the city's professionals and business people may rest in the hands of government.

Mr Kronberger is adamant that he wants to stay in New Orleans, but he said that he has not seen leadership in the city that would bring in people such as himself. The city is still working on a reconstruction plan, for instance.

"At a city-wide level what has prevented people getting together is a lack of leadership," he said. "If there is a meaningful role for me to play, I think I'll stay."

Mr Sutton sees his best hope as a massive media campaign by the state to let America know that the French Quarter is open for business - and needs its help. Louisiana Lt Governor Mitch Landrieu agreed that the threat to small businesses was a "definite problem."

The city and state have launched a national advertising campaign, spending about 80 per cent of $10 million allocated, and the state has applied for $28.5 million more to promote the city, convention centre chief Stephen Perry said.