KENNER, La. — As legions of Gulf Coast residents streamed out of harm's way, Tino Berlingieri thumbed his way in.

A thin but muscular man with a bushy mustache and calloused palms, he hitchhiked for nine days from Denver in hopes that jobs would be plentiful in hurricane country.

He hit the jackpot when he reached storm-swept Kenner on the doorstep to New Orleans. The exodus of locals has left the few businesses that remain open critically short of labor. Berlingieri found an unskilled construction job paying a third more than he made in the West.

Over the next couple of years, there could be thousands more like him. After the nation's most extensive natural disaster, the Gulf Coast could become a job-creating superconductor.

The prospect has Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao concerned about a possible widespread labor shortage as "tens of thousands" of workers race toward construction jobs in the South.

She said demand for some professions needed in rebuilding was already strained amid demand for new housing. A labor shortage could push up wages, she says. "We're going to see a tremendous boom in construction," Chao says. "People want to come back home."

Workers will be attracted by the money. President Bush vowed to spend "whatever it takes" to rebuild storm-damaged Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Louisiana's two U.S. senators want $250 billion to rebuild. The Red Cross says Katrina claimed 416,894 residences — before Hurricane Rita losses are added.

Rebuilding the Gulf Coast will be the biggest public works and private housing endeavor since the Great Depression, says Jerry Howard, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders.

Now, a month after Katrina displaced hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents, there are early signs of the need for more labor in the region.

The federal government has created 41,000 temporary jobs to help in the cleanup. In the absence of hundreds of thousands of workers who have moved inland or to other states, businesses in storm-damaged areas are struggling to find enough people to hire right away for jobs such as roofers, sweepers and trash collectors or fast-food preparers.

Recruiters have tacked signs to utility poles, made announcements over the radio and passed out leaflets for all kinds of unskilled jobs.

"They better get some people down here quick to New Orleans," warns Henry L'Host, manager of Temps Today, a temporary-employment firm in Metairie. Otherwise, "It might become like one of those (ghost) towns."

L'Host says his client list has doubled since Katrina. Now, he says, he could put 500 workers on the job immediately, 400 more than normal.

By the time rebuilding is in full force, "I anticipate you will have firms from all over the country" seeking to participate, says Ray Perryman, an economist who runs a Dallas-based consulting firm.

Florida, ravaged by hurricanes for years, has seen a regular influx of out-of-state builders after natural disasters. Officials in Brevard County, a sprawling community on central Florida's Atlantic coast, have quadrupled the number of temporary licenses for roofing contractors as crews flock in.