Stop by the Blue Nile, where locals cheer from the balcony and revellers carrying cups of indiscriminate liquor spill into the street.

BBC: New Orleans outside of the French Quarter

"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen, " Nagin said in a phone interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi, fuming over what he said were scuttled plans to plug a 200-yard breach near the 17th Street Canal, allowing Lake Pontchartrain to spill into the central business district.

CNN: Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breaches