The once-flooded city, known before the hurricane assault as a party town, marked the end of the year with traditional jazz funeral processions to remember the victims.

But people were also celebrating, drinking in the streets of the devastated city. Residents and, police said, a surprising number of tourists flocked to the French Quarter for a concert and fireworks over the Mississippi River.

The city will also put a Louisiana flavor to a New York tradition, dropping a giant gumbo pot -- instead of an illuminated ball -- from a pole to signal the start of 2006.

"They have crowds on Bourbon Street. They have been very, very good and peaceful and enjoying themselves," New Orleans Police spokesman Juan Quinton told AFP.

Authorities are forbidding people from launching fireworks because of the thousands of flammable blue tarps that cover storm-damaged damaged rooftops.

"Every individual who shoots a firearm on New Year's is a potential killer" and will be prosecuted, District Attorney Eddie Jordan warned.

Four months after Katrina pounded the city, causing floods that covered 80 percent of New Orleans, only 80,000 of its 460,000 residents remain.

Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead in New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana. Another 228 were killed in Mississippi, 14 in Florida and two each in Georgia and Alabama.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.