Bruce Chambers, Orange County Register via AP National Guard Spc. Manuel Ramos of San Diego runs from a house in the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans, carrying Edgar Hollingsworth, 74, to an ambulance. Peter Czuleger, a doctor at the scene from California Task Force 5 Search and Rescue team of Orange County, said the severely dehydrated man had about 24 hours to live if he hadn't been discovered. Click photo for larger image.

NEW ORLEANS -- Rescuers from California discovered an emaciated 74-year-old man still alive in his New Orleans home yesterday, two weeks after he was trapped there by Hurricane Katrina.

Members of a San Diego unit of the California National Guard and the California Task Force 5 Search and Rescue team of Orange County found Edgar Hollingsworth on the first floor of his flood-damaged home and transferred him into the care of New Orleans medics for hospitalization.

Orange County Register reporter Keith Sharon wrote in a newspaper blog that rescuers spotted Hollingsworth's foot sticking out of a couch. At first they thought the man was dead, but decided to investigate anyway. Sharon said rescuers broke down the door and discovered the man was barely alive.

Sharon estimated Hollingsworth weighed only 80 pounds when he was found, 14 days after the storm came ashore.

The rescue was a bright spot on a day in which the owners of a nursing home were charged in the deaths of dozens of patients killed by hurricane floodwaters, the death toll in Louisiana jumped to 423 and the New Orleans mayor warned that the city is broke.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin said yesterday the city was working "feverishly" with banking and federal officials to secure lines of credit through the end of the year, but for now, it is unable to make its next payroll.

	Rick Bowmer, Associated Press The first container ship docks at the Port of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina yesterday evening. Click photo for larger image.

Amid the discouraging news, there were signs of progress on many fronts: The New Orleans airport reopened to commercial flights, the port resumed operations, and the mayor said dry sections of the ravaged city -- including the French Quarter and the central business district -- could be reopened during the daytime as early as Monday, provided the Environmental Protection Agency finds the air is safe.

"We're out of nuclear-crisis mode and into normal, day-to-day crisis mode," Nagin said.

The death toll climbed by more than half in a single day to 423, including last week's grisly discovery of 34 dead patients and staff members at St. Rita's nursing home in the town of Chalmette in hard-hit St. Bernard Parish.

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti charged the husband-and-wife owners of St. Rita's with 34 counts of negligent homicide for not doing more to save their elderly patients.

"The pathetic thing in this case was that they were asked if they wanted to move them and they did not," Foti said. "They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these people."

Salvador A. Mangano and his wife, Mable, surrendered and were jailed.

	Shane Bevel, The Times via AP A front-end loader pushes thousands of gallons of oily sludge down the street in Chalmette, La., yesterday. The oil spilled into a residential neighborhood after Hurricane Katrina breeched storage tanks at the Murphy Oil Refinery. Click photo for larger image.

Their attorney, Jim Cobb, told CNN that his clients had followed their evacuation plan and also notified relatives of the residents they planned to stay. When the water came up, the owners were there and they did all they could to get people out, he said.

"They abandoned no one," Cobb said. "They saved 52 lives."

He said the owners waited for a mandatory evacuation order from St. Bernard Parish, according to their evacuation plan, but the order never came.

"If you evacuate these patients, many of whom are on oxygen, many of whom are on feeder tubes, many of whom won't survive the evacuation, many of those people are going to die," Cobb said.

He noted that three people from another nursing home had died while being evacuated ahead of the storm. Tammy Daigle, a nurse who worked at the home, also said the owners had been worried about trying to evacuate a few of the residents who they knew wouldn't survive the move.

Tom Rodrigue, whose mother died in the home, was still angry yesterday.

	Mike Wintroath, Associated Press Members of the Arkansas National Guard wear protective suits as they talk with a resident of Metairie Club Estates yesterday. The soldiers were wearing the proximity suits as protection from chemicals and bacteria in the sludge left in the New Orleans suburb by receding floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina. Click photo for larger image.

"She deserved the chance, you know, to be rescued instead of having to drown like a rat," he said.

In addition to St. Rita's, the attorney general said he is investigating the discovery of more than 40 corpses at flooded-out Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. A hospital official said the 106-degree heat inside the hospital as the patients waited for days to be evacuated probably contributed to the deaths.

Even though the airport and waterfront were running at just a fraction of their capacity, the symbolic importance was not lost on a city that only days before had all but collapsed into looting and desperation.

"From a commercial and psychological standpoint, this is five stars," port president Gary LaGrange said between an outgoing barge shipment of auto parts to Alabama and the arrival of a ship carrying coffee and wood from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. "This shows the people of New Orleans their city is back in business."

Some experts had predicted it would take up to six months to get the port operating again after the hurricane damaged terminals and knocked out the electricity to operate cranes. A backlog of vessels had formed along the Mississippi River, waiting to load and unload cargo.

The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which escaped widespread damage from Katrina but was reserved for humanitarian flights in the storm's aftermath, received its first commercial arrival, a flight with about two dozen emergency workers and returning residents.

"Welcome home," airport director Roy Williams said as he greeted the passengers. "We're glad to see you."

	Cheryl Diaz Meyer The Dallas Morning News via AP "God Bless You Nancy" was painted on a piece of wood yesterday near a temporary gravesite marked with a five foot tall cross in New Orleans. Click photo for larger image.

Airport officials hope to be up to 60 flights a day within the week and back to full operation of 350 flights a day in six months. Before Katrina hit, the airport was on pace for a record 10 million passengers this year.

During a tour of hurricane-stricken Mississippi, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta pronounced Katrina the worst disaster for transportation in U.S. history and estimated the damage to bridges and highways -- including broken and disjointed stretches of vital Interstate 10 -- at $3 billion.

The Army Corps of Engineers reported significant progress running the operation to pump out flooded areas of New Orleans and neighboring parishes.

Col. Duane Gapinski estimated that half of the flooded area or less was still under water, and at the rate of 8 billion to 9 billion gallons a day, the city was on target to be almost completely drained by Oct. 8.

The mayor said more than 40 pumping stations were operating in the city, including the city's biggest pump.

"That will change the world as we know it," he said.

Amid the encouraging signs from the streets, there were promises from the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to learn from their mistakes and intensify efforts to help the victims.

In Washington, President George W. Bush said "I take responsibility" for the government's failures in dealing with the hurricane, and he said the disaster raised questions about the nation's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terrorist attacks.

"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," the president said.

The new acting director of FEMA, R. David Paulison, promised to get thousands of evacuees out of shelters and into temporary housing.

"We're going to move on and get them the help they need," Paulison said.

	Erich Schlegel, The Dallas Morning News via AP Plaquemines Parish Deputy Sheriff Paul Ridgell gives a stranded bull some fresh water yesterday on State Highway 23 in Port Sulphur, La. Click photo for larger image