GALVESTON (Texas) - ONE week after Hurricane Ike wiped out whole neighbourhoods and nearly every basic service in Galveston, there is a plan to start letting some 45,000 evacuees back to their hobbled hometown.

No power, limited sewer services and spotty water utilities are among the trials that city officials say could await residents when a gradual reopening of Galveston begins next week.

'You will need to decide if you want to come back in those conditions,' city manager Steve LeBlanc said on Friday.

Authorities have finished searching for bodies on Galveston Island and the peninsula, though they cautioned more could be found.

They have blamed 60 deaths in the US on Ike, 26 of them in Texas.

At least 80 deaths in the Carribean were blamed on Ike.

Residents will be allowed to return in phases, starting from the least damaged areas, he said.

There's only limited fuel and other supplies. Businesses are slowly beginning to open, electricity is coming back on and cell phone service is improving.

But the strides are small, and island leaders emphasised that Galveston remained dangerous. Police will indefinitely enforce a 6pm to 6am curfew once the island reopens, and parents were warned their children could be exposed to infections.

Planes continued spraying the island to control mosquitoes, and officials urged returnees to wear masks to protect from mold and to properly dispose of spoiled food waste to stave off vermin.

Hundreds of stop signs were being trucked in to replace traffic lights, nearly all of which were blown away.

Residents of the harder-hit Bolivar Peninsula will also start seeing their homes next week, albeit for only a quick peek. And because the main road is impassible in many spots, residents will be loaded into dump trucks and other heavy vehicles for their tour.

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county's highest elected official, said 60 state troopers were patrolling the heavily damaged peninsula.

'We need the people's patience,' Mr Yarbrough said.

State Rep Craig Eiland, who represents Galveston, said officials are trying to gather the thousands of cattle that have been roaming free since the storm surge receded. The water that remains is so salty it could kill animals that drink it, and the grass they would normally eat also has been tainted, he said.

Power had been restored Saturday to more than half the customers in Texas whose electricity was cut by Ike, though state officials said about 1.2 million remained in the dark.

The nation's fourth-largest city continues recovering. Houston schools that have been closed since Ike are to begin reopening Tuesday, with all campuses to be open by Sept 29.

Nasa said on Friday that flight control of the International Space Station was returning to the Johnson Space Center, which shut down a few days before Ike's strike but did not sustain significant damage.

In Beaumont, near the Louisiana line, authorities lifted a mandatory evacuation order on Saturday that had been in effect since Sept 11, clearing residents to return to the city of 110,000 for the first time in more than a week.

More than 1 million people evacuated the Texas coast as Ike steamed across the Gulf of Mexico. Gov Rick Perry said 20,500 people were still staying in 190 shelters on Friday. -- AP