MORE DRAMA FOR NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS

New Orleans mayor gets an earful

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Frustrated New Orleans residents appeared before Mayor Ray Nagin Tuesday with complaints about the response to Hurricane Katrina, with two speakers asking why a nation fighting to stabilize Iraq can't resolve a crisis at home.

One woman suggested that New Orleans residents board buses and travel to Washington to complain to Congress, which has approved billions of dollars for relief efforts. "If they can destroy a country and build it up again, why can't they fix this state?" the woman asked.

A man added, "It's a hard thing to believe that the United States of America is spending nearly one billion [dollars] per week in Iraq, and here, in New Orleans, the United States, we're being neglected." "Why do we have to beg and plead with our president, our congressmen, our elected leaders to tell them that we need help, when it's on the media every day?"

Of more than a dozen speakers at a town hall meeting called by Nagin three months after Katrina, several sharply criticized the pace of restoring natural gas by Entergy New Orleans."I am in the cold," said a woman who identified herself as the owner of a bed and breakfast. "I can't cook. I can't do business. I can't take advantage of all the business people who are coming here."

...Residents also complained about a lack of debris and trash removal, inadequate or no response from police to calls, and price gouging by some landlords.

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