New Orleans revels in recovery

Dancing, drinking revellers filled the streets of New Orleans yesterday as parades rolled through on the final day of a Mardi Gras that locals said marked another step toward recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Thousands lined the sidewalks just blocks from neighbourhoods still damaged from the August 29, 2005, storm to beg for beads thrown by masked krewe members on passing floats as this year's Carnival season came to an end.

In the French Quarter, people threw beads from balconies overlooking Bourbon Street where others jostled through crowded streets with drinks in hand.

Bigger crowds appeared to have turned out for the pre-Lenten celebration that began February 9 compared to last year, when the scaled back celebrations were more a show of survival. Estimates of last year's attendance ranged as high as 700,000, well below the usual one million.

The storm flooded 80 per cent of the historic city and killed more than 1,300 people when it burst surrounding levees. Many neighbourhoods are still in ruins, but the French Quarter and wealthy Uptown area, located on higher ground and where tourist concentrate, were not badly damaged.

On Fat Tuesday, many people wore wildly coloured costumes that poked fun at local leaders who have been criticized for letting the city languish in the devastation.

One group of four dressed like characters from the Wizard of Oz and carried a sign that read Follow the Red Tape Road, in a dig at the difficulties faced by homeowners trying to get rebuilding money from Louisiana's Road Home programme.

Keien Davis, who played Dorothy, said the colour and excess of Mardi Gras had been important for New Orleans, which still has less than half its pre-storm population of 480,000.