BOSTON -- Broadcast news prepared for short-term challenges and a long-term commitment in and around New Orleans as coverage of Hurricane Katrina entered its second week.

"I think it will dominate our news agenda for the foreseeable future," NBC News anchor Brian Williams said in an interview Sunday night.

After days where the only reliable communication in and out of the three-state hurricane zone was by satellite truck, food and water were scarce and news crews' safety became an issue in the then-lawless Gulf Coast, network executives said those concerns were now not as much at issue. Some technological problems remain.

"We still have many stories to report ahead of us," said Marcy McGinnis, senior vp CBS News. "How do people start to rebuild their lives? How do they find members of their families? How do they find out if their family and friends are even alive or dead? Where are they going to start their new lives?"

Williams said that what happened before, during and after Hurricane Katrina was likely to spark a sustained national discussion on issues as disparate as oil, race, class, the environment and infrastructure, as well as the continuing human toll.

Early explorations on both cable and network news have focused on these and other issues. Executives also have said the recovery of the dead, as well as the political ramifications for what has been perceived as a slow federal response to the disaster, are going to be in the news for weeks and months.

"It's our job to get answers to the many questions still out there, to tell the human stories -- about the living and about those who died -- and to get as much information out to the public as possible," CBS' McGinnis said Monday. "We have no intention of leaving anytime soon. We will stay there as long as it takes to tell the stories that need to be told."

ABC News' Jon Banner, executive producer of "World News Tonight," agreed.

"There are a ton of angles yet to be pursued or that we will continue to pursue," Banner said. "There's still a large question of how many people died and how they determine it, and why did so many people die."

Williams reaffirmed that commitment for NBC and embodied it as well. The anchor returned to New York over the weekend after an epochal seven days, where he rode out the storm at the Superdome, then had a firsthand view of the devastation that flooded 80% of New Orleans and killed what authorities can still now only estimate as thousands of people.

"What we saw has come as close to indescribable as any journalist will ever come," Williams said. He was planning to return to the region as soon as possible. Williams anchored "NBC Nightly News" from New York on Monday night.

ABC News sent "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel to New Orleans, where he began broadcasting Monday night. Koppel will travel with the U.S. Army First Calvary Division, which has been sent from Fort Hood, Texas, to help with hurricane relief before returning to Iraq. ABC's Diane Sawyer was scheduled Tuesday to conduct a town-meeting style broadcast on "Good Morning America" about issues related to the relief effort.

CBS "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith spent a week in the region, anchored "Sunday Morning" from New York City and is on his way back to New Orleans.

Health concerns are also weighing on the TV journalists, who are living among what is promising to be a major health crisis of Third World proportions. Network crews are being issued rubber gloves and rubber pants as well as other supplies as needed.

"Our attention will be focused on this story for a long time to come," Banner said. "One of the things that are challenging to us is that there are so many different angles to this story and places that require our attention."

Meanwhile, CBS affiliate WWL was the only New Orleans station to remain live on the air -- a Hearst Argyle station was able to convert to webcasting with the flooding of its facilities -- throughout the crisis.

Belo Corp.'s WWL-TV was fortunate to have its transmitter located in Gretna, La., in a dry section, though WWL, like the rest of the stations, saw floodwaters force the evacuation of its broadcast facilities in the French Quarter. WWL fell back on an emergency plan that had it broadcast from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. WWL also is being seen on digital channels in Louisiana and Mississippi as well as on public television in Louisiana. Belo's Texas stations, WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth and KHOU-TV in Houston among them, are carrying WWL's coverage to evacuation centers in Texas.