Bourbon Street Curfew Lifted

NEW ORLEANS — For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the city’s Bourbon Street bars and other businesses will be allowed to stay open all night.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced Wednesday that he was lifting the city’s 2 a.m. curfew for all areas west of the Industrial Canal beginning Friday.

Nagin also announced that residents would officially be allowed to stay overnight in more areas of the city deemed safe for rebuilding.

The announcements effectively reopen 75% of Orleans Parish, he said, although many homes in the newly reopened areas remain far from habitable.

The reopened areas include the city’s Lakeview neighborhood near Lake Pontchartrain, where some homes flooded to the eaves after the nearby 17th Street Canal broke.

Nagin said power, water and sewage had been restored to areas west of the Industrial Canal. He urged residents to move back permanently as soon as they could repair their homes.

“Although these areas took on various levels of water, we are still optimistic that residents will return to the city,” he said.

Nagin said neighborhoods east of the canal, including the devastated Lower 9th Ward, would continue to be off-limits between midnight and 6 a.m.