New Orleans Residents Returning Home After Gustav

City and state officials tried to hold them off, but New Orleans residents would have none of it. After Hurricane Gustav brushed by the city, they wanted back in, and now.

So Mayor Ray Nagin relented and allowed the first of them to begin streaming in from evacuation Wednesday.

But more than a million homes and businesses across three states were still without electricity and officials said it could take as long as a month to fully restore power.

As residents came home to New Orleans, President Bush returned to the site of one of the biggest failures of his presidency to show that the government had turned a corner since its bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Faced with traffic backups on paths into the city, Nagin gave up checking ID badges and automobile placards designed to keep residents out until early Thursday. Those who returned said if the city was safe enough for repair crews and health care workers, it was safe enough for them, too.

"People need to get home, need to get their houses straight and get back to work," said George Johnson, who used back roads to sneak into the city. "They want to keep you out of your own property. That's just not right."