NEW ORLEANS — The city's famous hotels are starting to reopen, but like New Orleans itself, business as usual is a long way off.

At the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street, travelers must step through two containers of cleaning solution before entering the lobby. At the W New Orleans Hotel downtown, guests are greeted by a guard wearing combat fatigues and toting an assault rifle.

The guests aren't the normal crowd of tourists and conventioneers, either. They're relief workers, police officers, soldiers and news reporters and, for now, they're about the only people who can claim one of the scarce rooms available.

This crowd isn't demanding.

"It's a bed. It's air-conditioned. It's better than having to drive 35 miles out of town and having to drive back in," says Sgt. Ric Swartz, 59, of Little Rock, a Salvation Army chaplain who managed to snag a room at the Sheraton New Orleans on Canal Street.

Guest service is scaled down. At the Sheraton, the electricity works, phones ring, toilets flush, guests can shower to their hearts' content and TVs show HBO. There's even Internet access. But there's no room service, doormen or bellboys. Bed sheets are changed once or twice a week. The Sheraton's restaurant has ditched its regular menu in favor of hot and cold buffets, a luxury given that the city's famous restaurants are all closed.

To make even reduced service possible, shrunken hotel staffs must surmount logistical obstacles daily. Many employees have evacuated, requiring temporary workers and then getting them and necessary supplies through police checkpoints around the city. Hotels have brought in giant truck-mounted air-conditioning units, generators and dehumidifiers from around the country.

The 1,110-room Sheraton trucks in 200,000 gallons of clean water a day in an almost continuous shuttle service to protect its plumbing system from contamination by city water.

As a result of these kinds of heroic efforts, "We believe the hotels are going to lead the recovery effort," says Stephen Perry, CEO of the New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau.