New Orleans ? As the residents of New Orleans were trying to flee their flooded and hurricane-destroyed city, Brad Scott and his crew from Maximum Tree Service in Cheney, Kan., were trying to get here.

After all, once the storm was over and the water was drained, Scott knew there would be a lot of trees, limbs and debris to clean up. And for him, that meant a chance to make money.

“I was about to enter my slow season,” he said last week as he and his eight-man crew were beginning to clear a lot in a subdivision. “This gave me the chance to keep my employees busy and keep making money.”

Although the businesses that make New Orleans so unique are mostly closed, business is booming in the city. At least it’s that way for the dozens of businesses and agencies that have flocked here to make money by helping to clean the city up and get it back to order.

And as the federal government commits money toward the restoration of the area, more companies are coming.

There are no statistics to show how many have come, and not all of the contracts are being tracked, a spokesperson for Mayor C. Ray Nagin said.

But working throughout the area – in addition to security companies, environmental cleanup crews and consultants – are ambulance companies from California, mold-removal specialists from North Carolina and disaster solution consultants from Texas.

Some companies, like Blackwater USA and Kenyon International Emergency Services, have government contracts to provide security for federal buildings and retrieve dead bodies. On a smaller scale, local boaters have been hired by those eager to tour water-covered areas to see their homes. Even evacuees whose homes didn’t suffer much damage are profiting by renting their furnished homes to these workers, as many of the hotels are closed.

Nagin said his office hasn’t received any reports of companies jacking up prices to gain profits. But he said as residents return, they will set up their own businesses and will begin soliciting work from the city, which should keep prices fair.

Still, it’s difficult to have that openness Nagin is referring to when many of the companies won’t disclose whom they are working for, who authorized their contracts and exactly how much they are earning.

Kroll Inc. has sent employees to New Orleans to help companies retrieve computerized data that may have been lost because of the storm. But the company won’t say how many people it has working in the city, whom it is working for or how much it is earning.

Blackwater swooped into New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck, first offering use of a helicopter to rescue stranded residents, said William Mathews, the executive vice president of the Moyock, N.C.-based firm. Now the security company has a $400,000 contract from the Office of Homeland Security to protect federal buildings, he said.

In addition to its government work, Blackwater also is monitoring businesses and won’t release information about whom they are working for or how much they are earning. The company has 250 employees in the region and expects that number to grow, Mathews said.

Mathews said the company has gotten a bad rap recently because people view its employees as mercenaries trying to intimidate residents and make a profit off a disaster.

“We’re people who want to make a difference and help,” Mathews said. “It’s time to set the record straight: We’re not bootstrapping, skull-crushing mercenaries. We don’t believe we’ll make a profit here. We ran to the fire because it was burning.”