Rescuers Deployed for Photo-Op
From the Dallas Morning News
Excerpt: Two Richardson firefighters recently headed to Louisiana believing they would help with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Instead, they were asked to do little – except stand behind President Bush at a news conference. ...
...After spending a couple of days training in Atlanta, Mr. Whitson said that he and Mr. Saldivar were flown Sept. 5 on a charter flight to New Orleans, where they were supposed to stand in the background with other firefighters while Mr. Bush held a news conference. But the president didn't make it to his planned appearance in New Orleans that day.
Mr. Whitson said the group of 50 firefighters were then put on a bus headed for Baton Rouge, where the president was scheduled to meet with evacuees, Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other officials. But the firefighters didn't arrive in time for those presidential visits... More

Labels: bush, katrina

Chertoff Delayed Federal Response
From Knight-Ridder via PA Times Leader
Excerpt: The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show... More

Labels: agency, FEMA, katrina

Firms with Bush-Cheney ties clinching Katrina deals
From USA Today
Excerpt: Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton... More

Labels: bush, cheney, contractors, FEMA, katrina, spending

Evacuation Delayed to Accommodate Hotel Guests 
From WWL-TV
Excerpt:  The evacuation of Superdome refugees was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt hotel. They were move to the head of the line to be evacuated -- much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome for days.

The 700 had been trapped in the Hyatt just like the others, but conditions were considerably cleaner, even without running water, than the unsanitary crush inside the dome. More

Labels: katrina

Levee's Fate Sealed in Washington  
From the Los Angeles Times

Excerpt:  For years, Washington had been warned that doom lurked just beyond the levee. And for years, the White House and Congress had dickered over how much money to put into shoring up century-old dikes and carrying out newer flood
control projects to protect the city of New Orleans.
As recently as three months ago, the alarms were still sounding -- and still being brushed aside.  More

Labels: congress, katrina

Congress Likely to Probe Guard Response
From the Associated Press
Excerpt:  Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress. 

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday. More

Labels: congress, katrina

Offers of Aid Refused ~ Levee Fix was Photo Op 
Press Release from Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu
Excerpt: "I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker
aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but
FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate
significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately
needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site
yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this
critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment."...More

Labels: bush, katrina

Troops Met by Despair, Not Violence 
From the Los Angeles Times

Excerpt:  ...The truck lurched through the streets, past buildings burning unabated and MPs in gun turrets. When they stopped to gear up for their arrival at the New Orleans Convention Center, where more than 15,000 people had been living in squalor since Katrina, these words echoed — for the first time, one would imagine — through the intersection of Poydras Avenue and Carondelet Street: "Lock and load!"
"Sixteen in the clip!" one Guardsman shouted, a common refrain used to indicate that rifles are fully loaded.
But when they arrived, they did not find marauding mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people who had lost everything in the storm and, since then, their dignity... More

Labels: katrina, troops

Halliburton Hired for Storm Cleanup
From the Houston Chronicle
Excerpt:  The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.  More

Labels: cheney, halliburton, katrina

Flashback Bush Budget Cuts Emergency Preparedness
From KOMO-TV Seattle
Excerpt: President Bush targeted scores of federal programs on Monday to make room for his $1.6 trillion tax cut, proposing to slash funds for emergency preparedness, urban police patrols, energy conservation and pediatrician training...
...The budget also would eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Project Impact, a $25 million effort to help communities get ready for natural disasters.
More

Labels: bush, katrina, spending