(2006-08-25) — New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who this week answered criticism about the speed of his administration’s reconstruction efforts by noting that the World Trade Center site in New York still sits vacant, today pledged that his city would be fully restored faster than two other devastated metropolitan areas.

“New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed in five years,” Mr. Nagin said, “and look at Atlantis and Babylon — still a mess more than a generation later. We’re on pace to finish the job well before either one them.”

Mr. Nagin refused to answer any more questions on New Orlean’s recovery delays “until Mike Wallace sits down with the mayors of those two towns and holds them accountable for their mismanagement.”