Poll: Katrina Aftershock Equals Preparedness Paralysis

12/9/2005 1:14:00 PM


Contact: Sarah Howe of the Council for Excellence in Government, 202-530-3270, showe@excelgov.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the United States in recent times, the public shows little indication that it is better prepared for an emergency today than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

That is the key finding of a new poll released today by the Council for Excellence in Government and the American Red Cross. The survey-conducted by bipartisan pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff -shows that a plurality of Americans (38 percent) were not motivated at all by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to prepare for an emergency. Only 12 percent say they've done a great deal to prepare for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency.

The percentage of Americans who said they hadn't prepared because they didn't know what to do actually increased by nine percentage points after Katrina. Despite the televised pleas of family members separated by Katrina, most Americans still have no plan on how to communicate with family members during or after a disaster. Just 36 percent report that they have prepared a communications plan to contact loved ones in an emergency if they get separated. Only one-quarter have established a specific meeting place in the event that they or their family are evacuated or cannot return home. Only one in three have stored extra food or bottled water for emergencies. And only one in ten have stocked up on first aid kits or emergency supplies since Katrina.

More than half of Americans say that one reason they have not done more to prepare is because they do not think another disaster is likely to happen to them.

"It is surprising that people across the country were moved to open their hearts and wallets to help the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government when releasing the report. "But they were not moved to prepare themselves and their families for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency. We're worried about our leaders being better prepared next time. What about us?"

The poll, which was originally conducted before and during Hurricane Katrina (Aug. 26-31) and then replicated two months later (Oct. 26-30), provides a unique freeze-frame of public attitudes before and then after the flood waters and headlines receded. Other findings include:

-- More than half of Southerners say that the hurricanes gave them motivation to prepare for a disaster. But just 35 percent of people in the West, 31 percent of people in the East and only 21 percent of Midwesterners have been motivated to prepare.

-- Only 18 percent of Americans are familiar with their city or town's emergency plan. Even fewer (16 percent) are aware of their state's plan. Knowledge of workplace plans (45 percent) and local schools (28 percent) is better, but not where we need to be.

-- The percentage of Americans who have actually prepared a disaster supply kit has not increased since the hurricanes (43 percent in October v. 42 percent in August).

-- When asked about emergency alert systems within their community, the public prefers old-fashioned technologies. Fully three-quarters (76 percent) think that a siren system would be a good investment for their communities. A majority also expresses interest in receiving alerts in case of an emergency through a landline telephone (59 percent), followed by cell phones (43 percent), email (39 percent), and cell phone text messages (33 percent).

"We are our own best first responders, and it is up to each of us to create a family communication plan, put together emergency supplies and practice evacuation plans," McGinnis added. "This report makes clear that we are not as nearly prepared as we should be."

The poll -- conducted by Peter Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies -- comprised two samples: the first among 1008 randomly selected adults in the United States, conducted from August 28 to 31, 2005, the days immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast but before the full devastation in New Orleans was widely known; the second among 1000 randomly selected adults in the United States conducted from Oct. 26 to 30, 2005. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percent.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Poll: Katrina Aftershock Equals Preparedness Paralysis; Midwest Least Prepared for Disaster

12/9/2005 1:17:00 PM

Contact: Sarah Howe of the Council for Excellence in Government, 202-530-3270 or showe@excelgov.org

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In the wake of the worst natural disaster to hit the United States in recent times, the public shows little indication that it is better prepared for an emergency today than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

That is the key finding of a new poll released today by the Council for Excellence in Government and the American Red Cross. The survey -- conducted by bipartisan pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff -- shows that a plurality of Americans (38 percent) were not motivated at all by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to prepare for an emergency. Only 12 percent say they've done a great deal to prepare for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency.

The percentage of Americans who said they hadn't prepared because they didn't know what to do actually increased by nine percentage points after Katrina. Despite the televised pleas of family members separated by Katrina, most Americans still have no plan on how to communicate with family members during or after a disaster. Just 36 percent report that they have prepared a communications plan to contact loved ones in an emergency if they get separated. Only one-quarter have established a specific meeting place in the event that they or their family are evacuated or cannot return home. Only one in three have stored extra food or bottled water for emergencies. And only one in ten have stocked up on first aid kits or emergency supplies since Katrina.

More than half of Americans say that one reason they have not done more to prepare is because they do not think another disaster is likely to happen to them.

"It is surprising that people across the country were moved to open their hearts and wallets to help the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," said Patricia McGinnis, President and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government when releasing the report. "But they were not moved to prepare themselves and their families for a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other major emergency. We're worried about our leaders being better prepared next time. What about us?"

The poll, which was originally conducted before and during Hurricane Katrina (Aug. 26-31) and then replicated two months later (Oct. 26-30), provides a unique freeze-frame of public attitudes before and then after the flood waters and headlines receded. Other findings include:

-- More than half of Southerners say that the hurricanes gave them motivation to prepare for a disaster. But just 35 percent of people in the West, 31 percent of people in the East and only 21 percent of Midwesterners have been motivated to prepare.

-- Only 18 percent of Americans are familiar with their city or town's emergency plan. Even fewer (16 percent) are aware of their state's plan. Knowledge of workplace plans (45 percent) and local schools (28 percent) is better, but not where we need to be.

-- The percentage of Americans who have actually prepared a disaster supply kit has not increased since the hurricanes (43 percent in October v. 42 percent in August).

-- When asked about emergency alert systems within their community, the public prefers old-fashioned technologies. Fully three-quarters (76 percent) think that a siren system would be a good investment for their communities. A majority also expresses interest in receiving alerts in case of an emergency through a landline telephone (59 percent), followed by cell phones (43 percent), email (39 percent), and cell phone text messages (33 percent).

"We are our own best first responders, and it is up to each of us to create a family communication plan, put together emergency supplies and practice evacuation plans," McGinnis added. "This report makes clear that we are not as nearly prepared as we should be."

The poll -- conducted by Peter Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies --comprised two samples: the first among 1008 randomly selected adults in the United States, conducted from Aug. 28 to 31, 2005, the days immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast but before the full devastation in New Orleans was widely known; the second among 1000 randomly selected adults in the United States conducted from Oct. 26 to 30, 2005. The margin of error is +3.2 percent.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

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December 11, 2005
Editorial
Death of an American City
We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.

There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.

At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need to understand that for New Orleans the words "pending in Congress" are a death warrant requiring no signature.

The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where they landed.

The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives.

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?

Losing a major American city.

"We'll not just rebuild, we'll build higher and better," President Bush said that night in September. Our feeling, strongly, is that he was right and should keep to his word. We in New York remember well what it was like for the country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has flourished. New Orleans can too.

Of course, New Orleans's local and state officials must do their part as well, and demonstrate the political and practical will to rebuild the city efficiently and responsibly. They must, as quickly as possible, produce a comprehensive plan for putting New Orleans back together. Which schools will be rebuilt and which will be absorbed? Which neighborhoods will be shored up? Where will the roads go? What about electricity and water lines? So far, local and state officials have been derelict at producing anything that comes close to a coherent plan. That is unacceptable.

The city must rise to the occasion. But it will not have that opportunity without the levees, and only the office of the president is strong enough to goad Congress to take swift action. Only his voice is loud enough to call people home and convince them that commitments will be met.

Maybe America does not want to rebuild New Orleans. Maybe we have decided that the deficits are too large and the money too scarce, and that it is better just to look the other way until the city withers and disappears. If that is truly the case, then it is incumbent on President Bush and Congress to admit it, and organize a real plan to help the dislocated residents resettle into new homes. The communities that opened their hearts to the Katrina refugees need to know that their short-term act of charity has turned into a permanent commitment.

If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.

Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or dies.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

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Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina Resettle Along a Racial Divide
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Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes.

By Tomas Alex Tizon and Doug Smith
Times Staff Writers

December 12 2005

Hurricane Katrina may have emptied whole sections of New Orleans, but it hasn't set in motion the great national diaspora that was widely foreseen. Instead, the vast majority of displaced households are staying close to their former homes, postal records show.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

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December 15, 2005
Federal Loans to Homeowners Along Gulf Lag
By LESLIE EATON and RON NIXON
Hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast families, hoping to rebuild their homes after the hurricanes using low-interest government loans, are facing high rejection rates and widespread delays at the federal agency that administers the disaster loan program.

The Small Business Administration, which runs the federal government's main disaster recovery program for both businesses and homeowners, has processed only a third of the 276,000 home loan applications it has received.

And it has rejected 82 percent of those it has reviewed, a higher percentage than in most previous disasters, saying that many would-be borrowers did not have incomes high enough, or credit ratings good enough, to qualify. The rejections came even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency has referred more than two million people, many of them with low incomes, to the S.B.A. to get the loans.

To a large degree, that high rejection rate appears to reflect a mismatch between existing government aid programs and the large number of low-income people affected by this year's hurricanes. Despite the widespread poverty in the most damaged regions, the Small Business Administration has not adjusted its creditworthiness standards, which are roughly comparable to a bank's.

In fact, the loans that have been approved appear to be flowing to wealthy neighborhoods in New Orleans but not to poor ones, according to a list of loans released by the government and mapped by The New York Times.

Under the disaster loan program, homeowners can borrow up to $200,000 at low interest rates to repair houses. Owners and renters can borrow up to $40,000 to replace damaged furnishings.

As of Tuesday, the agency had approved 17,463 home loans, for almost $1.2 billion, although only $62 million had been disbursed to homeowners, who must be ready to start repairs to get the money. More than 77,000 applications have been rejected.

The high rejection rate and the slow processing of applications are causing concern among government officials, academic experts and homeowners. Many say the problem undermines government pledges of aid, embodied by President Bush's promise in September to "do what it takes" to help citizens rebuild.

One such homeowner is Albertha Hastens, 55, a member of the school board in White Castle, La., which is between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Strong winds damaged the roof and tore siding off her house, Ms. Hastens said, but the Small Business Administration turned her down for a loan, citing her low income. (She receives a small stipend from the school board along with her Social Security payments.)

"It makes you tired and disgusted," Ms. Hastens said of her experience with the agency. "For poor working people, you don't know what to do."

Agency officials say they are doing their best under difficult circumstances, noting that they recently approved $44 million in home and business loans in a single day.

They lay the blame for any problems on the huge size of the disaster and the small size of the agency, which has hired thousands of temporary workers to help process hurricane-related requests.

"We don't have tens of thousands of people waiting for a disaster," said Hector V. Barreto, the agency administrator. "We had 800 people. Now we have 4,200 people working, most brand new."

As for the rejection rate, agency officials say the Small Business Administration's loan program could not risk taxpayer money by lending it to people with low incomes or poor credit. "We're just dealing with the demographics in the area," said Herbert L. Mitchell, the associate administrator who runs the agency's disaster assistance program.

Both agency officials and some critics of the federal government say that many applicants do not really want loans, but must go through the agency's loan process - and be rejected - in order to be eligible for certain grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (FEMA does not dispute this but says it cannot give these grants to people who have enough money to take out loans. It gives other grants for home repair in certain circumstances, but only for up to $15,600.)

The slow pace of the agency's response to the hurricanes is a reason Representative Nydia M. Velázquez of New York, who is the senior Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, called on Mr. Barreto yesterday to resign.

"We have reached a point where we need to get someone who can run the office in an effective way," Ms. Velázquez said. "He doesn't have what it takes at a moment of crisis."

In addition to the problems with the homeowners program, Ms. Velázquez cited the even slower pace of loans to businesses in the Gulf Coast States. The Small Business Administration has also allowed large corporations to get $2 billion in federal contracts under the guise of being small businesses, she said, and morale at the agency is low.

Responding to the criticism, Raul E. Cisneros, the agency's director of communications, said in a statement: "Unfortunately, the current political environment in Washington, D.C., is not lacking for individuals who are anxious to throw stones. This administration is focused on helping the people of the Gulf Coast rebuild after these devastating hurricanes."

Mr. Cisneros said the agency had passed the billion-dollar loan approval mark five weeks faster than after the hurricanes in Florida last year.

But Republicans have also been critical of the agency's response. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the Maine Republican who is chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has sharply questioned agency officials at two hearings.

Ms. Snowe also sent members of her staff to investigate the situation at the agency's loan-processing office in Fort Worth, where they found that workers have been putting in long hours but have been hampered by management missteps and a new - and, by some accounts, balky - computer system.

To get Small Business Administration loans, homeowners must submit applications and give the agency access to tax returns so loan officers can see if applicants have enough income available to cover the debt.

The agency also sends out inspectors to check the damaged homes, and makes sure that the loans are not used for costs already covered by insurance. The agency checks applicants' credit histories and, for loans over $10,000, also requires collateral, just as home mortgage lenders would.

For borrowers who could not borrow elsewhere, the interest rate is about 2.7 percent on loans that can extend for 30 years; those who do have access to other credit have to pay about 5.4 percent.

For weeks, small business organizations and government officials have been criticizing the pace of similar loans the agency makes to companies; fewer than 3,000 such loans have been approved, and roughly 800 checks have been sent out, for less than $11 million.

Housing is a crucial issue in the Gulf Coast States, where hundreds of thousands of houses were damaged and close to 170,000 were destroyed, according to the American Red Cross.

Historically, insurance proceeds, not government programs - and certainly not the Small Business Administration - contributed most of the money to rebuild houses, said Mary C. Comerio, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of a 1998 book on disaster recovery. But, Ms. Comerio added, "There is still this expectation that the government is going to do something to make people whole."

Indeed, less than 20 percent of Louisianans think that insurance should cover the costs of rebuilding, while more than 50 percent say that the federal government has the primary responsibility to pay for it, according to a survey of 653 state residents released in late November by the Public Policy Research Lab at Louisiana State University.

But for even the most fortunate victims of the hurricanes, it may take both insurance proceeds and a Small Business Administration loan to give them even a chance of rebuilding.

Craig S. Sciambra, 34, describes himself as blessed, even though his two-year-old house in the Lakeview section of New Orleans had five feet of water inside and has been declared a total loss. He still has his job as an engineer, his wife still has her job as a certified public accountant, and they had a lot of flood insurance.

Mr. Sciambra has also been approved for an S.B.A. loan and mortgage refinance. "It would be really hard to make ends meet without it," he said.

Many of Mr. Sciambra's neighbors have also been approved for such loans, according to a list of loans released by the agency and mapped by The New York Times. Well-off neighborhoods like Lakeview have received 47 percent of the loan approvals, while poverty-stricken ones have gotten 7 percent.

Middle-class black neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city have lower loan rates, too, the data suggest, at least so far.

Some residents, like Diane Fleming, 57, are in limbo. A schoolteacher who lost her home of 26 years in New Orleans East, along with most of her possessions, Ms. Fleming has been shuttling between Houston and a friend's house in New Orleans.

FEMA referred her to the Small Business Administration, which said it would not make a decision about her application until she heard from her insurance company, Ms. Fleming said.

"Meanwhile," she said, "I have no place to live."



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House Panel Subpoenas Rumsfeld on Katrina

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON -- A House committee investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina issued a subpoena Wednesday to force Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to turn over documents but stopped short of sending a similar legal demand to the White House.

The subpoena commands Rumsfeld to produce internal records and communications about the Pentagon's response to the Aug. 29 storm, including efforts to send supplies to victims, stabilize public safety and mobilize active duty forces in the Gulf Coast. It requires the Pentagon to deliver the documents, spanning from Aug. 23 to Sept. 15, from Rumsfeld and eight other top military officials by Dec. 30.

Separately, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would comply with a judge's ruling that FEMA keep paying for hotel rooms for hurricane evacuees until Feb. 7. The agency also agreed to extend the program for eligible storm victims who have not been helped by that deadline.

The subpoenas were one focus of a House hearing that was marked by angry barbs between Gov. Kathleen Blanco, D-La., and Republicans who challenged her about why a mandatory evacuation for New Orleans was not ordered until the morning before Katrina hit. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for coastal parishes south and east of New Orleans before then.

"We had mandatory evacuations," Blanco said. "We got 1.2 million people out. We ended up saving another 100,000 people and we lost 1,100. That's the whole story. We got people out."

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said Blanco's explanation was "a story that's not acceptable because 1,100 people is one half of the men and women we have lost in Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"You lost that many on one day," Miller said.

Shot back Blanco: "Then it's not acceptable for us to lose ... soldiers, either."

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., asked Blanco why New Orleans' emergency management and evacuation plans were not followed.

"It's detailed," Rogers said of the plan. "All it needed was for the mayor and/or the governor to say 'Let's go.'"

"We did that, sir. Don't pretend that we didn't do that," Blanco responded tersely.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers said they were frustrated by the administration's failures to provide the House investigation with internal memos, e-mails and other documents before and after the storm hit.

Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz said the panel's requests for information have been "very far-reaching and very broad, and we're doing everything we can to answer them as quickly as we can.

"We're going to provide the documents as fast as we can," Swiergosz said. "No one has been dragging their feet on these things."

The chairman of the special House committee rejected, for now, legal action against the White House, but left open the possibility of a future subpoena. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., asked lawmakers to wait until after a private briefing Thursday at the White House before deciding whether to go ahead with a subpoena.

"We cannot do our job if we don't get these documents, and we won't get these documents if we don't subpoena them," said Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La.

The committee, which plans to issue its findings on Feb. 15, has requested hundreds of thousands of documents more than two months ago from the administration and Gulf Coast state and local officials.

Louisiana has handed over more than 100,000 documents to the committee. Though the White House said it has provided 450,000 documents, lawmakers said it has claimed executive privilege to refuse e-mails sent to and from White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said lawmakers would be briefed by a high-level administration official and that he did not immediately anticipate a subpoena against the White House.

"I'm not expecting anything of that nature at this point," McClellan said. "What we have done is work to make sure that they get the information they need to do their job. We've worked in good faith."

The hearing came as FEMA pledged to continue paying for hotel rooms for evacuees still unable to find apartments, trailers or other stable housing by Feb. 7, a month beyond the agency's cutoff date.

A federal judge in New Orleans this week set the February deadline in a ruling to give victims more time in hotels as FEMA processes aid applications.

FEMA's acting director, R. David Paulison, did not cite an end-date for the hotel payments, but said "it won't be indefinite." He said FEMA will pay hotel bills for up to two weeks after evacuees receive temporary housing assistance because "sometimes it's tough to find an apartment."

An estimated 40,000 families still are living in hotels, compared with a peak of 85,000 two months weeks ago.

"We are going to be flexible, we will make changes to our plan as we move along," Paulison said. "And we are going to continuously work to make sure nobody falls through the cracks. And if they do fall through the cracks, we are going to find them, locate them and get them back into our system."

___

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldour contributed to this report.


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Feds Seek $1.5B for New Orleans Levee Fix By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago



President Bush is requesting $1.5 billion more to help make the levee system in New Orleans stronger than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

At a news briefing at the White House, officials dodged the question of whether the levees would be built to withstand a Category 5 hurricane, using broader language instead to promise that the city's citizens would be safe and the levees would be "stronger and better."

"The federal government is committed to building the best levee system known in the world," Donald Powell, the top U.S. official for reconstruction, told reporters. "It's a complicated issue."

The money the president is requesting is in addition to the $1.6 billion he has already committed to repair the breeches in the levees, correct the design and construction flaws and bring the levee to a height that was authorized before the hurricane, a Category 4 storm, hit on Aug. 29, killing more than 1,300 people.

"That work is being done as we speak," Powell said.

The additional $1.5 billion that the president is requesting would pay to armor the levee system with concrete and stone, close three interior canals and provide state-of-the art pumping systems so that the water would flow out of the canals into Lake Pontchartrain, Powell said.

Officials said the levee system would be rebuilt to its previous level of protection before the hurricane season next year, and that the process of strengthening them further would take two years.

The announcement came after Bush met in the Oval Office with Powell, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

Louisiana officials say that bringing the levees to Category 5 level is crucial to the future of New Orleans, as it would be hard otherwise to entice the many people displaced by the storm to come back.

"We understand that the people of New Orleans need to be assured that they will safe when they get back home — that their city has an infrastructure that is capable of sustaining a possible storm next season or in the seasons afterwards," Chertoff said.

Bush's public schedule in recent weeks has been almost completely bare of references to Katrina or appearances related to the disaster. But Chertoff said the attention at the federal level has not faded.

"Not a day goes by that we don't think about what's going on in New Orleans and what we can do to promote the process of reconstruction and recovery for the people who have been afflicted all over the Gulf Coast," Chertoff said. "We continue to do everything we can to help communities get back on their feet."

Nagin thanked Americans for the money to rebuild New Orleans and told former residents of the city to come home.

"It's time for you to come back to the Big Easy," he said. "This action today says come home to New Orleans."

Nagin said the levee system will be stronger than ever. Officials said the levee system would be rebuilt to its previous level of protection before the hurricane season next year, and that the process of strengthening them further would take two years.

"These levees will be as high as 17 feet in some areas. We've never had that," he said. "We will have the holy trinity of recovery — levees, housing and incentives."

Nagin acknowledged that the most heavily devastated areas of the city — Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward — were not ready for returning residents, but he promised they would be eventually. He suggested that officials may need to find housing elsewhere in the city in the meantime.

"At the end of the day, our entire city will be rebuilt," he said.

On Capitol Hill, meantime, Senate tax-writers embraced the casinos, golf courses and liquor stores as part of a roughly $7 billion program of tax incentives to rebuild Gulf Coast businesses damaged or destroyed by hurricanes.

The Senate could act as soon as Thursday on a package of tax breaks and other assistance that fulfills Bush's call for a special business zone in the Gulf Coast. Lawmakers hurried to finish the bill before taking a holiday break. The House earlier had denied including the casino and other businesses in the tax relief.

The House last week passed its own package of aid. Its key benefits matched the Senate and included increased write-offs for small business investments and an additional write-offs for other businesses purchasing equipment and new property.



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December 16, 2005
White House to Double Spending on New Orleans Flood Protection
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and JAMES DAO
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - The Bush administration agreed on Thursday to double what it would spend on flood protection for New Orleans, promising a system that it said would make the city safe from catastrophic flooding from a storm as powerful as Hurricane Katrina.

At a briefing at the White House, the coordinator of the federal response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Donald E. Powell, said the government would add $1.5 billion to the $1.6 billion already promised for the levees.

The protection, Mr. Powell said, would "be better and stronger" than ever and would encourage homeowners and businesses to return.

"I'm convinced that what we're doing here today, if there is another Katrina that hits New Orleans, that we would not see the catastrophic results that we saw during Katrina," he said.

He added that there could still be "manageable type" flooding.

The plan, to be completed within two years, fell far short of the protection against Category 5 hurricanes that Louisiana leaders have said is vital to rebuild New Orleans, which could cost more than $30 billion. Outside engineering experts said the plan might protect against storms of Hurricane Katrina's strength, but not necessarily bigger ones.

Hurricane Katrina had been a Category 5 in the gulf but was at Category 4 at most when it landed southeast of New Orleans near Buras, La.

The administration commitment was welcomed as an important first step by elected officials from Louisiana, including Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans, who was at the White House, and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who was here to push for billions in storm relief. The two officials said the announcement would provide a psychological comfort level to residents worried about the next storm.

"I want to say to all New Orleanians, to all businesses, 'It's time for you to come home,' " Mr. Nagin said. "We now have the commitment and the funding for hurricane protection at a level that we have never had before."

Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said it was "just the first step of about 10 that we need to take."

Ms. Blanco called it a "down payment" and said the plan would upgrade the levees to a "true Category 3 level."

The administration has come under mounting criticism that federal agencies have been slow to respond to the plight of people along the gulf and that Washington has been slow to make good on President Bush's promise to oversee ambitious rebuilding.

The levee announcement was issued as the White House was negotiating with lawmakers from the Gulf Coast and Republican Congressional leaders on a $35 billion package to aid devastated homeowners, businesses, schools, local governments and farmers. The levee reconstruction would be part of that package, which negotiators are trying to attach to a Defense Department appropriations bill that Congress has to vote before adjourning in a few days.

Even before the announcement, the White House had put forth a plan to allocate $17 billion for Gulf Coast reconstruction. The administration has balked at a plan by Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, to double that sum.

Mississippi and Louisiana have been seeking additional aid for businesses and homeowners without flood insurance, as well as for schools that have enrolled large numbers of evacuated students.

Louisiana has also asked Congress to waive $3.7 billion it is expected to owe the Federal Emergency Management Agency for disaster response and to cover 100 percent of its Medicaid costs for displaced people.

The administration sidestepped questions about whether the improvements would allow the levees to deal with the most severe hurricanes, Categories 4 and 5. Mr. Powell said that the plan would substantially improve the levees by raising them in places to compensate for subsidence and fortifying them with stone and concrete.

"Once this is complete," he said, "the levee system will be better, much better, and stronger than it ever has been in the history of new Orleans."

The program calls for closing three canals that contributed to the flooding and installing a more powerful pumping system along Lake Pontchartrain. Experts in flood control have long argued that the canals, dug more than a century ago through marshland, now introduce miles of vulnerability deep into city neighborhoods.

Installing concrete and stone at the bases of the levees will protect the surrounding soil from being scoured away if water washes over the floodwalls. The scouring can undermine the levees from underneath, leading to collapse, the phenomenon caused by water from Lake Borgne that destroyed miles of the eastern levee systems in Hurricane Katrina.

A system fortified against scouring can have water flow over the top without being breached, so that the protected areas are just briefly flooded and drainage can occur.

Thomas F. Wolff, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the college of engineering at Michigan State University, who has helped investigate the levee failures, said that the added $1.5 billion had "significantly improved" the disaster response to the disaster and that closing the canals was long overdue.

"I would still have some questions as to whether that is a complete solution and provides Category 5 protection," Mr. Wolff added.

Louis Capozzoli, a consulting engineer on the Louisiana team that is investigating the levees, said the sum being discussed was too little.

"I think they're off by an order of magnitude," he said. "That's not going to come close to protecting New Orleans, let alone the other areas" in southern Louisiana.

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, said he received assurances on Thursday from Karl Rove, President Bush's closest political adviser, that the administration was prepared to pay for the levee improvements even if the cost exceeded $3.1 billion.

Asked whether they were satisfied with the safety level under the program, Louisiana officials noted that the budget included for a study on whether more needs to be done.

"Currently, there's no science to go higher than what they're doing today," Mr. Nagin said.

Mr. Vitter and Ms. Landrieu also said they would continue to push for legislation to give Louisiana as much as $3 billion a year in revenues from offshore oil drilling that currently goes to the federal government. The senators have proposed that the money be dedicated to restoring coastal wetlands and constructing Category 5 hurricane protection, projects that could cost more than $30 billion.

On Thursday, a White House official provided a two-hour closed door briefing to members of a select House committee that is investigating the preparations and response for Hurricane Katrina. Republicans said they considered the briefing, by Mr. Bush's deputy domestic security adviser, Ken Rapuano, candid and helpful.

Democrats said the briefing failed to answer major questions about the handling of the disaster, and they renewed their call for the committee to subpoena records from Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, and other senior officials. The Republican majority has already rebuffed that call once.

John Schwartz in New Orleans contributed reporting for this article.



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More than three months later, New Orleans still in harm's way Centre Daily Times
Sitting at his computer recently in a messy office at Louisiana State University, civil engineer Hassan Mashriqui tapped out a few commands on his keyboard and his screen came alive with tiny swirling arrows and flowing fields of color. Within seconds the arrows organized themselves into the unmistakable spiral of a raging hurricane plowing into a virtual version of the southeastern Louisiana coast. "We can create the hurricane," Mashriqui said, describing how computer simulations are making it much easier for scientists to figure out how to protect New Orleans.
Louisiana's Deadly Storm Took Both the Strong and the Helpless New York Times
Katrina Killed Across Class Lines Los Angeles Times
Indianapolis Star - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette - Ottawa Citizen - The Ledger - all 40 related »

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December 19, 2005
Leaders in Congress Agree on Aid for Gulf Recovery
By ERIC LIPTON
GULFPORT, Miss., Dec. 18 - Since Hurricane Katrina hit, billions of dollars in federal aid has poured into the devastated areas of Mississippi and Louisiana, primarily for the most critical emergency needs: providing temporary housing, restarting governments and cleaning up the mountains of debris.

On Sunday, leaders in the House and Senate moved to switch from a relief effort to recovery, agreeing to appropriate large chunks of money to rebuild the region and, at least in part, to bail out some of the tens of thousands of people who were financially devastated by the storm.

The recovery package allocates $11.5 billion in new grant money, mostly for Mississippi and Louisiana. State officials have indicated they intend to use much of it to compensate some of the estimated 110,000 families whose homes were flooded by Hurricane Katrina but who did not have flood insurance.

The deal also includes $2.68 billion to strengthen the levees, protect the watershed and take other flood-control measures around New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. There is $2.75 billion to reimburse states for highway repairs.

An additional $1.6 billion is for education aid, including reimbursement of schools that took in students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And $125 million is designated for helping state and local police departments replace lost or damaged equipment and vehicles.

The $29 billion package, which still must be approved by the full House and Senate, comes on top of action on Friday by Congress that created about $8 billion in tax breaks and incentives to stimulate the Gulf Coast economy.

The new aid is intended to not add to the deficit because it involves the reallocation of money from the original $62 billion in relief that Congress approved this summer as well as cuts elsewhere in federal spending.

To elected officials from the Gulf Coast region, the agreement Sunday was a sign that Washington was making good on the promise that President Bush made in a Sept. 15 speech in Jackson Square in New Orleans, where he vowed "to help the citizens of the Gulf Coast to overcome this disaster, put their lives back together and rebuild their communities."

In a statement Sunday, Representative Chip Pickering, Republican of Mississippi, said, "When these funds make it to Mississippi, individuals and families will be able to rebuild their homes, restore their communities, reopen their schools and hospitals, and boost the Gulf Coast economy to create and retain jobs."

News of the recovery package brought relief in such cities as Gulfport, Pascagoula and Biloxi, where Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters affected thousands of residents in areas not defined by official federal maps as susceptible to flooding.

Typically, only homeowners in areas defined as within the so-called 100-year flood zone are required to buy federal flood insurance. Yet standard homeowners' insurance offered by private companies includes a provision that excludes water damage caused by "flood, surface water, waves, tidal water, overflow of a body of water, or spray from any of these, whether or not driven by wind."

Because there is a $26,200 cap on federal disaster aid to families, many people faced the possibility of taking out a second mortgage to rebuild their homes or perhaps even filing for bankruptcy.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, Bob Frederic, 51, of Pascagoula had just invested $70,000 on renovations to his home, putting in a new kitchen and living room. His neighborhood is about a mile from the beach and there are no streams, ponds or other bodies of water in the area, so it had never occurred to area residents that their homes might be flooded, Mr. Frederic and several neighbors said.

"I hate to get a handout, but then again, this is something that has never happened before," said Mr. Frederic, adding that Hurricane Katrina brought whitecaps into his backyard.

James Kirby, 74, of Gulfport had made payments for 28 years on his 30-year mortgage when Hurricane Katrina flooded his house, leaving it nearly worthless. "You work all your life on something," he said. "And then it is nothing."

Approval of the additional assistance was credited in part to two important Republican allies from Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran, who is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Gov. Haley Barbour, a former Washington lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Louisiana officials said they too welcomed the aid, though it was probably far short of what is needed to compensate the estimated 70,000 households that were flooded but did not have flood insurance. While the new package includes enough money to rebuild the levee system in New Orleans, it is far short of what is needed to protect the city from a Category 5 storm.

"This is a shot in the arm to the recovery that will make a big difference," said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the body set up to help lead the rebuilding effort.

So far, the federal government has committed to $19.53 billion for Hurricane Katrina relief, including $3.1 billion for trailers and mobile homes, $3.5 billion for emergency housing, $2.2 billion for state and local governments and $4.35 billion to other federal agencies, particularly the Army Corps of Engineers, which is leading the debris-removal work.



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December 27, 2005
One Parish
With Coastline in Ruins, Cajuns Face Prospect of Uprooted Towns
By JERE LONGMAN
GRAND CHENIER, La. - Cameron Parish, where generations of Cajuns have hunted ducks and pulled up redfish, lost about 400 people to Hurricane Audrey in 1957. Last fall, when Hurricane Rita destroyed thousands of structures and flattened the coastline, some state officials began to question whether life there was still worth the risk.

Now Louisiana planners are proposing an idea that would have been unimaginable here a few months ago: moving an entire string of seaside towns and villages - and the 4,000 longtime residents who live in them - 15 or 20 miles inland to higher and presumably safer ground.

"If we could get 100 percent participation, which admittedly is extraordinarily difficult, if possible at all, we could conceivably take the entire population of Cameron Parish largely out of harm's way for future events," said Drew Sachs, a consultant to the Louisiana Recovery Authority. He has been asked to develop bold suggestions for rebuilding the state's coastal region in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The idea, of course, is already encountering resistance, particularly among younger residents. The tightly knit group of Cajuns who have lived here in unincorporated villages like Cameron, Johnson Bayou, Holly Beach, Creole and Grand Chenier are fiercely independent and self-sufficient. They have resided for generations on inherited family property in the state's southwest corner, 160 miles to the west of New Orleans, living off the land and giving resonance to Louisiana's nickname as the Sportsman's Paradise.

"My grandfather would roll over in his grave if I sold our land," said Clifton Hebert, 44, operations chief of the parish emergency operations center. "He'd haunt me the rest of my life."

But others admit there may be some wisdom in a move, as painful as it would be. Wanita Harrison, a retired biology and chemistry teacher from Grand Chenier, loves the way the marsh fills with pelicans when a cold front pushes through. Her husband, Lee, relishes the splendid rural isolation and the ability to run off to Houston for a week without bothering to lock the house.

With their ruined belongings now piled along Highway 82, however - the piano is somewhere back in the woods - the Harrisons are actually considering the idea. Mrs. Harrison, in fact, says that if she goes north, it will be beyond Cameron Parish.

"It's a good idea to consider moving inland," said Mrs. Harrison, 70. "I love my area, but we have to face reality."

No one died in Hurricane Rita, which struck early on Sept. 24, thanks to a vigorous evacuation plan, but the storm destroyed or rendered structurally unsound about half of the 5,400 parish homes and commercial buildings examined by the Army Corps of Engineers, parish officials said. They caution that many more structures may also have to be condemned. In the lower part of the parish, as few as 20 of 1,000 residences may be inhabitable, according to the most dire estimates. Residents remain scattered.

There is a great fear here, residents say, that the hurricane destroyed not only property but a way of life. Many of the parish's 10,000 residents say they feel both neglected by the federal response and suspicious that outsiders will dictate their future with prohibitive building codes and flood insurance requirements. They worry that even if they want to return to lower portions of the parish, they may not be able to afford it.

What will it cost to elevate houses 11 or 14 or 20 feet off the ground? asked Kenton Bonsall, 35, an equipment operator for the State Wildlife and Fisheries Department, echoing the concerns of many about new elevation requirements being imposed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. How will aging parents and grandparents climb those stairs? Will anyone provide flood and homeowners' insurance? At what cost? What if the hospital is not rebuilt? Or the school? Or the convenience stores? Will he have to drive 50 miles for an aspirin and a gallon of milk and gas?

"I'm afraid that everything I've known to be true is going to change and be gone," Mr. Bonsall said, sitting in a convenience store amid a lightning storm.

Hurricane Rita's storm surge of 17 to 20 feet again made clear just how vulnerable this low-lying parish is to hurricanes. The marshy area below the Intracoastal Waterway has become a ghost land of structural skeletons. Many houses are gone entirely, except for a concrete slab. All that remains of the post office in the village of Cameron is a pile of bricks and a spray-painted address.

Homes and buildings that remain standing seem to have been hollowed like pumpkins by the force of the water. The Hibernia Bank in Cameron is nothing more than a frame and a vault. The gym at Cameron Elementary School has basketball goals with nets but no roof or cinderblock walls.

Referring to Cameron Parish's seven elected officials, known as police jurors, Representative Charles Boustany Jr., the Republican who represents this district in Congress, said: "You can see fatigue in their eyes and concerns about whether or not they will have a community in the future. At the same time, there is a grim determination to get things back together."

James Lee Witt, a director of FEMA in the Clinton administration who is advising Louisiana officials on recovery, has urged the state to think creatively in seeking to reduce the risk of wind damage and storm surge to its most exposed areas.

One possibility, Mr. Witt and his associates say, is that the federal government could buy out private and commercial properties - at pre-Rita market value - along Highway 82, which runs along the Gulf of Mexico in lower Cameron Parish. About 4,000 people live in this area, parish officials said. Conceivably, entire communities, with their churches, businesses, schools and hospitals, could then relocate to better-protected areas in the north-central part of the parish.

Financing would come from the $2.5 billion to $4 billion that Louisiana expects to receive from FEMA in "hazard mitigation" money. State recovery officials stressed that participation in any relocation effort would be voluntary and that oil and gas and fishing enterprises requiring access to the coast could remain in place. Land at the coast could still be used as it is now for farming, hunting and fishing, said Mr. Sachs, an associate of Mr. Witt's who specializes in storm risk reduction.

"We'd be able to keep the community largely intact," Mr. Sachs said in an interview in Baton Rouge. "But they would be located in a part of the state that would be of lesser risk."

There are some precedents for relocating entire communities. The village of Valmeyer, Ill., near St. Louis, was moved several miles from a flood plain to a bluff after it was inundated by the Mississippi River in 1993. The population has grown to 1,100 from 900, and Valmeyer now has a new school, new churches, more modern utilities and increasing property values, said Jeff Berry, a city councilman at the time of the relocation and now a consultant to the village.

"We had weekly meetings, and I think it made the citizens feel like they were part of building the new town," Mr. Berry said. "We knew we'd lose residents if we didn't build quickly, in three or four years. Time was a big element."

Cameron Parish must complete its recovery from Hurricane Rita before it can seriously consider long-term plans for rebuilding, parish officials said. Nearly three months after the hurricane, an evacuation order remains in effect. Only in the last two weeks did a federal program begin for debris removal from private property.

Much of the lower parish seems untouched since the hurricane and persists as a safety hazard, officials said. Houses remain shoved against the highway or tossed into the marsh. Containers of hazardous material wait to be recovered, as if in a toxic Easter egg hunt. Cars are hidden under crushed homes and fallen trees. Plastic is draped in trees like Spanish moss. About 50 of the 300 coffins that floated out of the ground remain unaccounted for, said Theos Duhon, the parish sheriff.

At a community meeting in Grand Lake, many residents said they wanted to be left alone to rebuild as they did after Hurricane Audrey. Many voiced a long-held belief, unconfirmed by anyone, that the federal government preferred to turn the parish into a wildlife refuge.

"The hurricane took a whole culture away," said Kevin Warner, 30, a water company employee from Oak Grove. "They say it's going to be bigger and better. I'll have to see it to believe it."

Others are not waiting around to be bought out by the government. Mona Theriot, 65, who said she floated on creosote posts for 11 hours before being rescued as a teenager during Hurricane Audrey, has sold her property in Hurricane Rita's aftermath. She plans to rebuild with her husband, Daniel, some 30 miles north in Lake Charles.

"We're tired of running," Mrs. Theriot said of frequent storm-related evacuations along the coast.

At Holly Beach, Alma and Raywood Landry sat with their two dogs and a box of fried chicken and surveyed the slab and pilings that remained of their home and several hundred other residences on this shattered beachfront. Their home had burned several years ago and was rebuilt, only to be demolished again by Hurricane Rita, said Mr. Landry, 74. Mrs. Landry, 71, said she would consider a government buyout to move inland.

"This is the second time I've lost everything," she said. "This is a beautiful and quiet place, but I've had enough."



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December 27, 2005
Mental Health
Hurricane Takes a Further Toll: Suicides Up in New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER
NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 26 - Mental health professionals say this city appears to be experiencing a sharp increase in suicides in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and interviews and statistics suggest that the rate is now double or more the national and local averages.

At least seven people have killed themselves in the four months since the storm, officials say, here in a city whose population is now no more than 75,000 to 100,000. That compares with a national rate of 11 suicides per 100,000 for all of 2002, and a rate in New Orleans of about nine per 100,000 for all of 2004. There is broad agreement that the problem is likely to get worse.

Stevenson Palfi, 53, a well-known local filmmaker, was apparently the latest to take his own life. Mr. Palfi's house in the Mid-City section had taken eight feet of water, and he was in despair over losing years of files and photographs, a computer - in fact, all the contents of his office.

The aftermath of the storm pushed him "right off the cliff emotionally," said a friend, Mary Katherine Aldin.

"This just hit him so hard," she said. "It was a cumulative devastation to him emotionally."

Mr. Palfi sat down to write a suicide note and a will, then shot himself on the second floor of his Banks Street home in the early hours of Dec. 14, Ms. Aldin said.

The signs of despair are pervasive here: a woman, having returned to see her flooded-out house for the first time, runs screaming down Mirabeau Avenue in the Gentilly neighborhood, where the police find her babbling uncontrollably; in a Bourbon Street nightclub, a man draws a gun and shoots himself in the head, even as dancers sway to the music; from half-ruined houses, the police retrieve homeowners, weeping and distraught; psychiatrists report that previously stable patients are now preoccupied with death and suicide.

"I would call the scope of this disaster, the scale of mental health problems, unprecedented," said Charles G. Curie, the mental health administrator at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Officials say that among those who have killed themselves was Dr. James Kent Treadway, a pediatrician who was a fixture in the Uptown neighborhood. Dr. Treadway, 58, committed suicide in his partly destroyed house on Nov. 16.

"He's got no practice, the house is flooded, his office was destroyed," said his brother-in-law, Michael Caire. "He just doesn't know how he's going to make it in the future."

Officials have also reported suicides among evacuees in cities like Houston, where large numbers of them have settled.

And in addition to those who have killed themselves here, about two dozen have tried to do so, a rate that is most likely, officials say, also far higher than normal.

Jeff Wellborn, administrator of the Police Department's mobile mental health squad, said members of his unit were being called in frequently when a homeowner, witnessing the extent of losses for the first time, broke down.

"They're coming into town, and they get so depressed they can't handle it anymore," Mr. Wellborn said. "Most of the time they are crying."

"These are not the same people we dealt with before the storm," he said. "They had no mental health history. We are seeing almost exclusively new patients."

Health professionals confronting this tide of despondency view it as one more sign that New Orleans, with its miles of ruined neighborhoods, moribund downtown and enclaves of semi-normality, is far from recovered. Nobody here can escape the persistent evidence of the city's devastation. First exchanges are often about how much damage your house has suffered, or whether your house still exists.

"There are a lot of people walking around with an endemic low-grade depression," said Dale F. Firestone, a local psychotherapist.

For an undetermined number, it is worse, experts said.

"I've had some very depressed people from Katrina," said Dr. Douglas W. Greve, a psychiatrist with a practice in the French Quarter. "These are profound depressions. In the past I would have hospitalized these patients."

"I'm beginning to get experiences with acute anxiety," Dr. Greve said. "Anxiety and depression, abuse of alcohol, that's gone way up." A handful of his patients have been suicidal, he said, adding, "I think it's going to get worse."

Children, too, are suffering, said Dr. Douglas S. Pool, a psychiatrist who treats the young.

"You actually get kids as young as 5 talk about not wanting to live, wanting to die," Dr. Pool said.

Dr. Denise L. Dorsey, president-elect of the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Center, said that for many, the devastation was beyond an ability to cope.

"Looking down a street where it's house after house, and the garbage and the innards of the houses, there's something about it that people in general can't grasp," Dr. Dorsey said. "It's not within the realm of any experience anyone's ever had. Your ordinary American doesn't have that in their repertoire of experience."



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New Orleans Police Shoot, Kill Man Forbes
Police shot and killed a man who allegedly threatened an officer with a knife, marking the first shooting involving an officer since the city reopened after Hurricane Katrina. Officers on Sunday repeatedly asked the man to drop the knife and used pepper spray to try to subdue him, but he was still able to walk toward an officer and threaten him, authorities said. "Evidently the pepper spray had no effect," police spokesman David Adams said. A businessman had called police after a confrontation with the 38-year-old victim in the Lower Garden District west of downtown.
New Orleans Police Shoot, Kill Man ABC News
Cops fatally shoot man on St. Charles Avenue Times Picayune
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Spherion temps indicted in fraud Miami Herald
Temporary workers who were assigned to Red Cross call centers by Spherion have been accused of giving away thousands of dollars intended for Hurricane Katrina. At least 17 workers placed at a Red Cross call center by Fort Lauderdale-based Spherion have been indicted on fraud charges, raising the issue of screening checks done by staffing agencies that supply temporary workers. The workers are accused of rerouting donations made for Hurricane Katrina victims to family and friends, according to investigators. They are among 49 people under investigation in connection with a scam run out of the American Red Cross call center in Bakersfield, Calif., which bilked thousands of dollars in hurricane relief funds. Spherion said it did not have time to check the employees' criminal histories. ''Given the special circumstances and the urgent need to provide assistance to hurricane victims, all background checks could not be completed before placing the candidates on assignment,'' company spokesman Kip Havel said. Havel also noted that Spherion hired more than 1,000 workers for the Red Cross. A confidentiality agreement barred Spherion from discussing the details of the background checks required, but Havel said the Red Cross was aware that not all the candidates had been screened. ''The Red Cross takes financial stewardship very seriously and has a robust system of checks and balances in place to uncover fraud as we did at the Bakersfield Call Center,'' the organization said in a statement. Staffing companies and temporary agencies do not automatically perform background checks, said Raul Botifoll, the manager of ManPower Miami, a competing staffing service. ''It's dictated by the client,'' he said. While about 70 percent of ManPower's retail customers don't require background checks, large corporations and government agencies often require intensive criminal checks and drug screening, he said. ''But it also depends on the urgency of some of these assignments,'' he said. "When there are natural disasters -- even if, let's say, a government contract does call for background and drug testing -- in some cases they may waive them.'' The incident comes at a time of rapid growth in the temporary worker industry. In the Miami-Palm Beach corridor, 227,000 people work in the labor market niche that includes temps -- which accounts for one in every 10 private-sector jobs. The category is growing at 8.8 percent a year, fueled in part by companies wanting to keep a lid on labor costs. Spherion is an industry giant with more than $2 billion in annual revenue. Still, profit margins in the industry have fallen recently as customers wring out costs. The indicted call center workers were allegedly providing pin numbers to their friends and family, who would then go to Western Union to collect the funds. The Red Cross contacted the FBI after an audit of the call center showed an unusually high number of claims paid out at Western Union outlets in the Bakersfield area. Red Cross officials emphasize that the amount stolen was a tiny fraction of their program. This report was supplemented with information from Miami Herald wire services.
A Red Cross Call Center Gets a Black Eye Destination CRM
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http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle....ISEN.xml&rpc=23

Hurricane insurance losses $57.6 bln: Advisen
Tue Dec 27, 2005 11:09 AM ET



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Advisen Ltd. on Tuesday estimated worldwide insurance and reinsurance losses related to the three major hurricanes that hit the United States this year would amount to $57.6 billion, making the cumulative catastrophe losses the largest on record.

By predicting unreported losses from State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the largest personal lines insurer, as well as unreported and unfiled losses elsewhere, Advisen projects pre-tax insured losses per hurricane to be $40.4 billion for Katrina, $6.4 billion for Rita, and $10.8 billion for Wilma.

The losses amount to more than twice the annual total for other U.S. natural disasters and one-and-a-half times the losses from the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

Several variables could prompt Advisen's estimates to increase dramatically, the company warned. Flood losses could elevate Advisen's estimates by billions of dollars if lawsuits to force insurers to cover flood damage related to Hurricane Katrina are successful.

Also, hurricane-related pollution lawsuits could add hundreds to Advisen's totals, it said.

Advisen provides analytics and market information to the commercial insurance industry.



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New Orleans' old homes prove they were built to last
The city's architectural cornerstones will be among the easiest to
restore, possibly inspiring reconstruction. By Kris Axtman
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0104/p01s04-ussc.html?s=hns

January 12, 2006
Bush Notes Progress in New Orleans Cleanup
By MARIA NEWMAN
President Bush, in his first visit to New Orleans since October, said he was struck by the contrast in the city now compared to the days just after Hurricane Katrina, when flooding destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and forced the city to evacuate all of its residents.

"From when I first came here to today, New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to visit," the president said today at a roundtable discussion with 11 small business owners and community leaders. "It's a heck of a place to bring your family."

He went on to say: "For folks around the country who are looking for a great place to have a convention, or a great place to visit, I'd suggest coming here to the great city of New Orleans."


His comments were in contrast to those of the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, who on Wednesday said he had counseled the president to lower his expectations of what he would find as he toured New Orleans and Mississippi today to review recovery efforts from the devastating storm.

"I had to manage his expectations this morning, because while there has been great progress, there continues to be great need - indescribable need," Mr. Card told the United States Chamber of Commerce.

The Gulf Coast economy is struggling and only about half of the 90 million tons of debris from Hurricane Katrina in August has been cleared.

In New Orleans, about a quarter of residents who fled have returned, and many neighborhoods are still abandoned wastelands, with uninhabitable homes, no working street lights and sidewalks piled with moldy garbage. The levee system is as vulnerable as ever.

But Mr. Bush was more upbeat in his assessment to business owners and community leaders.

"I will tell you, the contrast between when I was last here and today is pretty dramatic," he said as he sat next to Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans.

The president said that the federal government has appropriated $85 billion to the Gulf Coast and $25 billion has been spent so far. He said that spending for the remaining $60 billion "is in the pipeline."

He also said he believed that Congress should restore the $1.4 billion that was removed late last year for rebuilding and reinforcement of the levees.

"There have to be strong levees to encourage investors to New Orleans," he said.

Later, in Bay St. Louis, Miss., Mr. Bush again said in a speech that he was struck by the progress, and in the contrast in "what was, and now what is, and I can see what's going to be too and it's going to be a better Gulf Coast, Mississippi."

In that community, according to The A.P., trees still lay snapped in two, debris is strewn across the landscape and people are living in tents and trailers set up in front of homes with missing roofs and shattered windows.

Many commercial buildings were destroyed. Some of those still operating among the wreckage displayed yard signs that said, "We are staying!"

Mr. Bush's message will be that while the recovery will be long and expensive, the federal government is in it for the long haul, said White House spokesman Trent Duffy, according to The A.P.

"The destruction down there looks like it just happened yesterday," Mr. Duffy said. "It's easy for people outside the region to forget the challenges they still face."

It is Mr. Bush's first visit to the region since Oct. 10 and 11. The president was criticized just after the August storm for not acting quickly enough to lend aid to an area along a wide swath of the Gulf Coast that suffered wide devastation. Then, he made six visits in eight weeks.

The president's visit comes on a day when Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, who criticized the slow pace of federal aid in the days just after the storm, is traveling to the Netherlands, much of which is below sea level, to see flood control systems. Her office was upset about the scheduling, but White House officials said they had made every effort to coordinate schedules.

"We reached out to all those officials and they had another commitment," Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters on the trip, according to a pool report.

The recovery efforts in New Orleans are limping along. On Wednesday night, residents of the city's most devastated neighborhoods responded with anger when the city's rebuilding commission unveiled its most contentious proposal: giving neighborhoods in low-lying parts of the city from four months to a year to prove they should not be bulldozed.

The commission was created to draw up a master plan to remake a city that suffered what was widely described as the worst urban disaster in the country's history.

The floodwater that covered 80 percent of the city caused half its houses to sit in four feet or more of foul, murky water for weeks, according to a draft of the final report, and it destroyed much of the public works in the city. Rebuilding the city is sure to cost billions in federal money.

In his visit today, Mr. Bush met business and community leaders in the city's Lower Garden District, which was not flooded.

He said of New Orleans: "It's a great place to find some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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January 13, 2006
In New Orleans, Bush Speaks With Optimism but Sees Little of Ruin
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 12 - President Bush made his first trip here in three months on Thursday and declared that New Orleans was "a heck of a place to bring your family" and that it had "some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun."

Mr. Bush spent his brief visit in a meeting with political and business leaders on the edge of the Garden District, the grand neighborhood largely untouched by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, and saw little devastation. He did not go into the city's hardest-hit areas or to Jackson Square, where several hundred girls from the Academy of the Sacred Heart staged a protest demanding stronger levees.

Mr. Bush's motorcade did pass some abandoned neighborhoods as it traveled on Interstate 10 into the city.

"It may be hard for you to see, but from when I first came here to today, New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit," the president told the local leaders at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, an independent group set up to attract business and tourism to the city.

Mr. Bush added that "for folks around the country who are looking for a great place to have a convention, or a great place to visit, I'd suggest coming here to the great New Orleans."

Mr. Bush, who appeared to be trying to spread optimism in a city that is years away from recovery, did not tell the group or the city's residents what many were hoping to hear: that he would commit the federal government to building the strongest possible levees, a Category 5 storm protection system.

Instead, on a day when the Bush administration revised the deficit upward to more than $400 billion and blamed it largely on Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Bush restated his support for spending $3.1 billion of federal money on building "stronger and better" levees.

Local engineers say those levees would protect against the 100-mile-an-hour winds of a Category 2 hurricane and the low barometric pressure of a Category 3 or weak Category 4 storm. Hurricane Katrina peaked as a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico and hit land as a Category 3 storm.

The president ignored questions about the city's new rebuilding plan, introduced Wednesday night to enormous community criticism, and White House officials traveling with Mr. Bush declined to offer opinions. The plan, which depends on nearly $17 billion more from the federal government, gives neighborhoods in low-lying parts of the city from four months to a year to attract sufficient numbers of residents or be bulldozed.

The federal government has so far authorized $85 billion in relief to the Gulf Coast, with $25 billion spent.

"We're not going to weigh in," Donald E. Powell, the president's Gulf Coast recovery coordinator, told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday morning. "It will be their plan."

In the meeting at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Mr. Bush sat between Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitchell J. Landrieu. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, the Democrat with whom Mr. Bush has a chilly relationship, was in The Netherlands looking at the country's flood-control system.

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said that the president had not deliberately timed his visit on a day when Ms. Blanco was not in town, and that the White House had reached out to her but she had a scheduling conflict.

Ms. Blanco's press secretary, Denise Bottcher, said that Ms. Blanco would be returning to New Orleans on Thursday night, just hours after the president left the city, and that she was "disappointed" she had missed his visit.

From New Orleans, Mr. Bush traveled to Waveland and Bay St. Louis in Mississippi, where he viewed destruction along the Gulf Coast. He then headed for Palm Beach, Fla., for a closed-door $4 million fund-raiser for the Republican National Committee and Republican candidates at the home of Dwight Schar, a homebuilder and a co-owner of the Washington Redskins.



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2 Million Displaced By Storms

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 13, 2006; Page A03

The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday increased its count of people displaced from the Gulf Coast by hurricanes Katrina and Rita by nearly a third, to about 2 million people. A FEMA spokeswoman attributed the sharp rise to a reporting error.

According to a news release, FEMA is paying rental assistance to 685,635 families whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the Aug. 29 and Sept. 24 storms, an increase of 167,000, or 32 percent, over a month ago. FEMA officials generally estimate three people per household as a rule of thumb.

In December, the agency counted only recipients of a transitional housing assistance program created Sept. 23, FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said. Shortly before Christmas, FEMA discovered that it had not counted families receiving rental assistance under a traditional disaster aid program, she said.

"We've never had a situation where an entire American city was evacuated, and they weren't able to go home," she said. "These numbers represent that phenomenon."

The figure exceeds initial post-hurricane estimate of 300,000 displaced families and an October estimate by FEMA to Congress of 450,000 to 600,000 households.

The estimate of 2 million displaced also dwarfs the number of people forced from their homes by past U.S. natural disasters, such as hurricanes Andrew, Charley, Ivan or Hugo, as well as the Dust Bowl migration.

Also yesterday, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered FEMA to allow hurricane evacuees in that city to stay in subsidized hotel rooms until March 1, extending a Feb. 27 deadline FEMA set Monday. FEMA also was required to continue providing lodging for at least two weeks for occupants nationwide whose eligibility for rental housing assistance is determined after Jan. 30, whenever that occurs.

Red stickers, 30-day notices loom for New Orleans homeowners Houston Chronicle
Patricia Lucas knows that her home in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward is going to be demolished. "It moved across the street," said Lucas, 52, who now lives in a Dallas suburb. The pillars of her house are still in place, she said, but aside from that, "I can't salvage nothing. It's totally gone." Lucas has not been contacted by any city officials about the impending demolition, but the red sticker that inspectors placed on her house is enough to let her know its fate. A federal judge's ruling this week clears the way for New Orleans officials to begin demolishing parts of the city badly ravaged by Hurricane Katrina — but it also forces the city to notify property owners in advance. The settlement, which was approved on Tuesday, was in response to a lawsuit filed in late December by a group representing residents and other advocacy groups to stop the city from proceeding with its plans to tear down within weeks 2,500 buildings that posed an imminent threat to the public. Homeowners were outraged last month when a top official made the announcement. "We already knew (the city) was going to be doing this at some point" and were waiting for the opportunity to contest this, said Ishmael Muhammad, a lawyer working with the People's Hurricane Relief Fund legal group, which represented residents and other grassroots advocacy organizations in the case. "You can't just go and start demolishing people's homes without giving them notifications." Under the agreement, homeowners of about 120 properties that were seriously damaged or pose an immediate threat to the public will be given seven to 10 days notice. A 30-day notice will be given to the owners of about 1,900 other houses slated for demolition. Residents can challenge the demolitions. Albert Thibodeaux, a lawyer for New Orleans, said the decision "was give-and-take on both sides, but we are satisfied with the consent." The city will post in the Times-Picayune the addresses listed for demolition. The information also will be available on the city's Web site, and residents will be notified by mail. Muhammad said his group believes the city must establish a culture in which officials are connecting with the community about their decisions on demolition and reconstruction plans. They are concerned that the city will not do that. "The only thing we're confident about is the city is going to do what the order makes it do," Muhammad said. "Anything that the city cannot do it's not going to do. And we don't think it's in the city's interest to make sure people are notified because it means people may fight." Stephen Bradberry, head organizer for New Orleans Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, said he is not confident the steps taken to notify families is adequate. "How is someone in Utah supposed to get information?" he asked. "There is no system for people to adequately find out about what is going on in the city of New Orleans" besides the national news media or Internet, he said. There are many small but important issues — issues essential for residents to know as they try to decide their future — that don't make the national news, he said. "We're not getting any kind of communication from New Orleans," said Dorothy Stukes, spokeswoman for the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association now living in Houston. "We need to know what's going on. Some people haven't even had a chance to survey their property."
New Orleans to notify homeowners before razings Boston Globe
New Orleans Agrees to Give Demolition Notices Los Angeles Times
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Victims of Katrina Fall Through Cracks
By LYNN BREZOSKY, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 20, 2:14 PM ET

After Hurricane Katrina socked the central Gulf Coast, Eldo and Julia Allen watched the news and waited in vain for word from their son in Biloxi, Miss.

They waited for nearly four months, not knowing the horrific truth: that their son and daughter-in-law died as the storm surge swallowed their Beach Boulevard apartment. That their bodies had long since been found and identified at the Harrison County, Miss., coroner's office. And that they were about to be "disposed of" after going so long unclaimed.

The agencies the Allens had been calling all those months hadn't contacted the coroner, and the coroner hadn't checked with the agencies.

"Nobody talked to nobody," Eldo Allen said, his voice wrapped in grief. "That's why we just was almost too late. If we'd been a little later they would have disposed of the bodies with 'next of kin unknown,' and that would have been ... "

He bowed his head over a dining room table laden with family photo albums, sympathy cards from the retirement community, and the black box holding his son's ashes, before completing his thought: "That would have been more than I could stand."

___

Some 18,000 people were reported lost in the wake of the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes; more than 4,200 are still reported missing in some fashion. The unprecedented number of displaced people prompted the federal government to expand the definition of missing to just about anyone who had a relative who didn't know where they were.

But despite scores of people calling around on behalf of government and nonprofit agencies, some victims, like the Allens, just fell through the cracks.

John David Allen, a 48-year-old construction worker, lived with his wife, Susan, 53, in an apartment near the Biloxi waterfront.

His cell phone must have been on the blink before the storm, when his parents saw maps of the swirling mass called Katrina heading his way and tried to call him. "This number is not available," a recording said.

But after the storm, the parents insisted, John would have known they were worried. He would have found a way to call.

By the end of the second day after the Aug. 29 storm, Eldo Allen was on the phone with the Red Cross, which gave him a case number and told him to put his son and daughter-in-law's names on their online list of missing people.

With no leads weeks later, the Allens gave up on the Red Cross and tried the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA gave them a telephone number for finding missing family, which they called once or twice a week for months. The answer was always the same: No information.

By December, they were certain their son was dead. The telling clue came when a Social Security official told them John was earning money until the day before the storm; since then, there'd been nothing. The same worker was able to contact people John had worked for. No one had seen him.

By now, the Allens had had enough.

"Where did you take the bodies?" Eldo asked a FEMA representative. "Maybe I can come down and identify them myself."

The FEMA staffer told him to try the local coroner. That was Dec. 19.

A lady named Joy answered the phone at the Harrison County, Miss., coroner's office.

"She told me immediately, 'He did not survive the storm and neither did his wife Susan and we've known for over two months but couldn't find any of his family members,'" Eldo Allen said. "So they didn't check. They didn't talk with FEMA, FEMA didn't talk with them and the Red Cross didn't talk to either."

The bodies had already been cremated.

"The bodies were in such bad shape they said there was no other way," Julia Allen said.

Other frustrations with FEMA would be comic if they weren't so tragic. The Allens applied for burial assistance and got a letter denying an application for a small business loan. John's Social Security number, not Eldo's, ended up on the application. A lady called asking if they would be moving back to Mississippi.

"They are so swamped I guess that they're not getting much of anything right," Eldo said.

FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said it is the local medical examiner's job to call the next of kin. And when the coroner can't find next of kin? He said there might be "some discussion in the future of insuring that the local coroner has the ability to do that."

"We grieve with this family," he said.

Tom Corl, director of international family tracing services for the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross had offered an online service to help loved ones locate one another — more than 340,000 people had signed on — but had never gotten involved with the storm's deaths.

"We tried not to let any information about deceased parties be posted simply because we didn't know if it was verifiable," he said.

The Harrison County coroner did not return repeated calls for comment.

___

They were free spirits, John and Susan. John liked to play guitar and write songs, Susan was known for her candor and the way she clapped her hands and exclaimed, "Yeah, baby!" when she was happy. She worked as a school custodian full time, with a part-time gig dealing blackjack at one of the casinos.

Once, when the topic of hurricanes came up, the elder Allens expressed fear that one would devastate the Texas coast. John told his father he should move to Biloxi — the city's stately old mansions were proof that hurricanes never hit there.

Eldo Allen hasn't been able to find out exactly how long his son's and daughter-in-law's bodies lay in the post-storm debris before they were found, only that it was "a whole lot of days."

He searched the Internet last week and found a New York Times story about the Biloxi devastation, and it mentioned that an apartment building had been hit by a gambling barge in the storm, burying eight people.

In the article, someone points to a foot and then a knee visible in the rubble. "That's J.D.," the person says. "And that's Sue."

No belongings were returned — no wedding rings or other jewelry, not the eagle necklace John always wore.

John was identified through his fingerprints, which matched prints taken decades earlier when he served in the Air Force. Then it was easy to identify Susan.

Susan was estranged from her family in Wisconsin, but the Allens say someone must care. Eldo yearned to tell them that she finally was cared for in death, that "She didn't just get 'disposed of.' That's such a terrible word, 'disposed of.'"

On Wednesday, friends joined the Allens as they buried a coffin containing two ash-filled urns: One for John, and one for Susan.



Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


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January 22, 2006
Competing Plans to Repair New Orleans Flood Protection
BY JOHN SCHWARTZ
At the halfway mark between the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina last year and the beginning of the 2006 hurricane season on June 1, the Army Corps of Engineers has completed only 16 percent of its planned repairs to New Orleans's battered flood protection system, according to corps representatives.

The corps says its work is on track for restoring the system to its pre-hurricane strength by the June 1 deadline, but in the meantime many groups that have studied the disaster are coming up with proposals of their own that they say could be cheaper, faster or stronger.

The Bring New Orleans Back Commission, the group formed by Mayor C. Ray Nagin to produce a blueprint for the city's recovery, issued a proposal on Wednesday to upgrade hurricane protection with measures beyond what the corps has called for. To prevent storm surges from pushing into the city's drainage canals, the commission proposed a series of jetties to stand in front of the three canals, which it says could be built quickly and cheaply and provide New Orleans with some much-needed peace of mind.

"There is, very much, a tension between things that can be done quickly versus those that might take a little longer," Lawrence Roth, deputy executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said in a telephone interview on Friday. His group has weighed in with far-reaching recommendations, and other groups are preparing proposals of their own.

The mayor's commission also proposed a network of dams that would block or slow the opening between the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal and Lake Pontchartrain, and block storm surges from flowing up the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a navigation channel that has been blamed for a storm surge funnel effect that increased the damage to eastern New Orleans.

The group is also calling for long-term flood-control structures that would block or slow surges at the two passes between Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico.

The fast-track structures would cost $100 million to $170 million, according to the commission's estimates, a fraction of the $3.1 billion the federal government has proposed spending on flood control measures in the area. The commission said its proposals would not interfere with any of the corps's plans, but would be add-ons that complement the current plans.

The proposals have not yet found broad support among other engineering experts who have been working on strengthening New Orleans's storm defenses, but Dan Hitchings, the director of the corps's Task Force Hope, which is coordinating the hurricane response in Louisiana and Mississippi, said the plans were welcome and would be examined.

Mr. Roth, of the Society of Civil Engineers, said there would always be competing ideas about how to improve flood protection. The idea of jetties, he said, might be made moot by closing off the canals and putting in new pumping stations at the lake, as the corps has planned.

"Many different people can look at a problem and come up with many different solutions, all with tradeoffs," he said. "Which would be better - jetties or a pump station? You might never get an answer to that."

Meanwhile, the corps's work to restore flood protection to its pre-hurricane levels continues around the clock. This month the corps solicited bids for building temporary closures and pumps at the mouths of the city's three drainage canals, and it is rebuilding long stretches of levee in St. Bernard Parish and along the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal.

The corps is looking to measures that will further strengthen the flood protection system, including restoring levees to their originally designed heights. These measures can be in place by September 2007, according to the corps.

Beyond that, the corps has embarked on a two-year, $8 million study to determine how to strengthen the hurricane protection system for New Orleans and southern Louisiana. A preliminary version of that report is due in June.

While the Bush administration's top official on Gulf Coast reconstruction, Donald Powell, has said the government will build a system that is "better and stronger" than what was there before, the administration has not committed to what the people of New Orleans desperately want: protection from Category 5 storms, the toughest that nature can dish out.

Mr. Hitchings said that the corps was slightly behind schedule but that he expected things to move quickly. "It's not linear," he said, because the "gear-up time" to get contractors in place and to make materials like the enormous quantities of soil available was so great.

Now "they're really moving out," he said. The corps built 30 days of weather delays into the schedule, he said, and with a little help from favorable weather, "I'm very optimistic that they will regain their schedule and in the end get it all finished with plenty of time."

The corps's long-term study, he said, would probably have a lot in common with the outside proposals that are beginning to flow in, but "right now, we're focused on the very near term."

The engineering society is investigating the failure of the levees and is working with the groups that will monitor the corps's progress. Its recommendations include "armoring" the dry side of levees so they are not eroded away from underneath if water spills over the top. Without armoring, Mr. Roth said, "failure is catastrophic because it causes the wall to fail."

The corps has said that the armoring process, like other projects that would go beyond the restoration of the levees to pre-hurricane strength, will have to be approved by Congress.

"It's going to take people being willing to take a chance, to be bold, to sort out Louisiana's levee problems," said Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and a member of Team Louisiana, the group formed by the state to investigate the causes of the levee failures. His group, too, will be making proposals for upgrading protection for the region.

"We may get lucky," he said. "Nature may give us another 10 years before we get another Katrina, or maybe not. But we've got to seize the moment or we're going to lose coastal Louisiana."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 24, 2006
White House Was Told Hurricane Posed Danger
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - The White House was told in the hours before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans that the city would probably soon be inundated with floodwater, forcing the long-term relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, documents to be released Tuesday by Senate investigators show.

A Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, "Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."

The internal department documents, which were forwarded to the White House, contradict statements by President Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, that no one expected the storm protection system in New Orleans to be breached.

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," Mr. Bush said in a television interview on Sept. 1. "Now we're having to deal with it, and will."

Other documents to be released Tuesday show that the weekend before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Homeland Security Department officials predicted that its impact would be worse than a doomsday-like emergency planning exercise conducted in Louisiana in July 2004.

In that drill, held because of common knowledge that New Orleans was susceptible to hurricane-driven flooding, emergency planners predicted that in a Category 3 storm, one million people would be forced to move away, 17 percent of the nation's oil refining capacity would be knocked out and as many as 60,000 lives might be lost.

"Exercise projection is exceeded by Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts," the Aug. 27 department report said, two days before the storm hit New Orleans.

The loss of life in Hurricane Katrina was far less - at least 1,350 deaths have been confirmed so far - but the estimated number of dislocated residents was not far off.

A White House spokesman, asked about the seeming contradiction between Mr. Bush's statement on Sept. 1 and the warning as the storm approached, said the president meant to say that once the storm passed and it initially looked as if New Orleans had gotten through the hurricane without catastrophic damage, no one anticipated at that point that the levees would be breached.

The Senate investigators have also found evidence that at least some federal and state officials were aware last summer that the hurricane evacuation planning in the New Orleans area was incomplete.

"We're at less than 10 percent done with this trans planning when you consider the buses and the people," said a summary of a July briefing held with local, state and federal officials regarding a possible hurricane in Louisiana and referring to transportation planning. "If you think soup lines in the Depression were long, wait til you see the lines at these collection points," the summary said, referring to buses that were supposed to help pick up people to evacuate New Orleans.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who is chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that despite such evidence, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency had told investigators that leading up to Hurricane Katrina they believed that local and state governments could handle the evacuation on their own.

"It is another example of a lack of coordination and planning and a disconnect between what the FEMA officials' perception was and what the reality was facing state and local officials," Ms. Collins said.

Separately Monday, a Democrat on the House committee that is also investigating Hurricane Katrina urged Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, who is the chairman of the House inquiry, to enforce a subpoena presented to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld for documents related to the storm.

The Democrat, Representative Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, said in a letter that recent interviews by House investigators had produced evidence that "the Defense Department frustrated FEMA's attempts to get this aid delivered to the stricken region," and that the documents from the Pentagon were necessary to address the accusations.

A Defense Department spokesman declined to comment on the letter.



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January 25, 2006
White House Declines to Provide Storm Papers
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.

The White House this week also formally notified Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, that it would not support his legislation creating a federally financed reconstruction program for the state that would bail out homeowners and mortgage lenders. Many Louisiana officials consider the bill crucial to recovery, but administration officials said the state would have to use community development money appropriated by Congress.

The White House's stance on storm-related documents, along with slow or incomplete responses by other agencies, threatens to undermine efforts to identify what went wrong, Democrats on the committees said Tuesday.

"There has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation that we have a responsibility to do," Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said at Tuesday's hearing of the Senate committee investigating the response. His spokeswoman said he would ask for a subpoena for documents and testimony if the White House did not comply.

In response to questions later from a reporter, the deputy White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said the administration had declined requests to provide testimony by Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff; Mr. Card's deputy, Joe Hagin; Frances Fragos Townsend, the domestic security adviser; and her deputy, Ken Rapuano.

Mr. Duffy said the administration had also declined to provide storm-related e-mail correspondence and other communications involving White House staff members. Mr. Rapuano has given briefings to the committees, but the sessions were closed to the public and were not considered formal testimony.

"The White House and the administration are cooperating with both the House and Senate," Mr. Duffy said. "But we have also maintained the president's ability to get advice and have conversations with his top advisers that remain confidential."

Yet even Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, objected when administration officials who were not part of the president's staff said they could not testify about communications with the White House.

"I completely disagree with that practice," Ms. Collins, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in an interview Tuesday.

According to Mr. Lieberman, Michael D. Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, cited such a restriction on Monday, as agency lawyers had advised him not to say whether he had spoken to President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or to comment on the substance of any conversations with any other high-level White House officials.

Nevertheless, both Ms. Collins and Representative Thomas M. Davis III, a Virginia Republican who is leading the House inquiry, said that despite some frustration with the administration's response, they remained confident that the investigations would produce meaningful results.

Other members of the committees said the executive branch communications were essential because it had become apparent that one of the most significant failures was the apparent lack of complete engagement by the White House and the federal government in the days immediately before and after the storm.

"When you have a natural disaster, the president needs to be hands-on, and if anyone in his staff gets in the way, he needs to push them away," said Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican and member of the House investigating committee. "The response was pathetic."

Even before the House and Senate investigations began, Democrats called for the appointment of an independent commission, like the one set up after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to investigate the response to the most costly natural disaster in United States history. The 9/11 Commission, after extensive negotiations, questioned Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and received sworn testimony from Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser.

"Our fears are turning out to be accurate," Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Tuesday. "The Bush administration is stonewalling the Congress."

Mr. Duffy, along with officials from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, said that although not every request had been met, the administration had provided an enormous amount of detailed information about nearly every aspect of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Department of Defense, for example, has provided 18 officials for testimony, and 57 others have been interviewed by Congressional staff members, said Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Pentagon spokesman. It has also turned over an estimated 240,000 pages of documents.

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, said his agency, which oversees FEMA, had been similarly responsive, providing 60 officials as witnesses and producing 300,000 pages of documents.

But the White House and other federal agencies have been less helpful, members of the investigating committees said, particularly the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is the subject of the sole subpoena issued so far.

"We have been trying - without success - to obtain Secretary Rumsfeld's cooperation for months," Representative Charlie Melancon, Democrat of Louisiana, said in a letter to Representative Davis on Monday. "The situation is not acceptable."

Mr. Davis, in a written response to Mr. Melancon on Tuesday, said he felt that the Pentagon, after the subpoena, had largely honored the committee's requests.

The Congressional investigations began in September, shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, flooding New Orleans, devastating much of the rest of the region and causing more than $100 billion in damage.

Both of the committees are rushing to try to complete their investigations - the House by Feb. 15, and the Senate by the middle of March - in part because of the approaching Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1.

The separate action this week by the Bush administration to oppose an effort to create what would have been called the Louisiana Recovery Corporation evoked great disappointment among state officials.

Mr. Baker's bill would have bought out owners of ruined homes, offering them at least 60 percent of their pre-storm equity, while also giving mortgage companies 60 percent of their loans on damaged properties. The bonds needed for the project would have been paid off through the sale of federally acquired land to developers.

"The Baker bill as a tool was very efficient in terms of helping people sell out, or clear title to the land," said Sean Reilly, a member of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. "We're going to have to go back to the drawing board and do the best with the tools we have."

Donald E. Powell, the Bush administration's Gulf Coast recovery coordinator, said in a statement that the government was prepared to help victims in other ways.

"We share the common vision, the common objective of Congressman Baker, to assist uninsured homeowners outside the flood plain," Mr. Powell said.

Mr. Powell's spokeswoman, D. J. Nordquist, said the administration was open to discussion if the community development money turned out to be insufficient.

Adam Nossiter contributed reporting from New Orleans for this article.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

White House slowing Katrina inquiry, senators say Boston Globe
The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday. In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won't answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said. A White House spokesman said the administration is committed to working with separate Senate and House investigations of the Katrina response but wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisers. "No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House." Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee's Republican chair, said she respects the White House's reluctance to reveal advice to President Bush from his top aides, which is generally covered by executive privilege. Still, she criticized the dearth of information from agency officials about their contacts with the White House. "We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period," Collins said. "So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day." She added, "It is completely inappropriate" for the White House to bar agency officials from talking to the Senate committee. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the administration's deputy homeland security adviser, Ken Rapuano, has briefed House and Senate lawmakers on the federal response. A "lessons learned" report from Homeland Security Adviser Frances Fragos Townsend also is expected in coming weeks, Duffy said. But he defended the administration's decision to prohibit White House staffers or other presidential advisers from testifying before Congress. "There is a deliberate process, and the White House has always said it wants to cooperate with the committee but preserve any president's ability to get advice from advisers on a confidential basis," Duffy said. "And that's a critical need for any U.S. president and that is continuing to influence how we cooperate with the committees." Collins and Lieberman sidestepped questions about whether they plan to subpoena the White House to get the information they seek, though Collins said she does not believe subpoenaing the Homeland Security Department is necessary. The Senate inquiry is scheduled to conclude in March with a report detailing steps the federal government took -- and didn't take -- to prepare for the Aug. 29 storm. Investigators have interviewed about 260 witnesses from federal, state and local governments and the private sector. Additionally, the committee has received an estimated 500,000 documents -- including e-mails, memos, supply orders and emergency operation plans -- outlining Katrina-related communications among all levels of government. But Lieberman said the Justice and Health and Human Services departments "have essentially ignored our document requests for months" while HHS has refused to allow interviews of its staff. He described the Homeland Security response as "too little, too late." Collins offered a rosier view of Homeland Security's cooperation, noting that Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson and department chief of staff John Wood were scheduled to talk to investigators later this week. A special House committee created to review the government's readiness for Katrina is to release its findings by Feb. 15. Although Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the panel's chairman, earlier considered subpoenaing the White House, the panel backed away after the Rapuano briefing. However, Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., is pushing to subpoena Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in response to the Pentagon's reluctance to release his correspondence about the storm. Davis spokesman David Marin said Rumsfeld's papers may not be necessary, saying, "We have more than enough information to find serious fault with the administration's preparation for and response to Katrina. And we will." Katrina, which was a maximum-strength Category 5 storm as it headed toward New Orleans, was downgraded to a still powerful Category 3 when it made landfall.
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White House Declines to Provide Storm Papers New York Times
Katrina Warnings Ignored ABC News
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January 26, 2006
A Mountain of Documents on Hurricane Response, but Democrats Seek More
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 — In their four months of digging, House and Senate investigators have collected hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and testimony from governors, mayors, Homeland Security and Pentagon officials and dozens of others touched by Hurricane Katrina.

To the Republican leaders of the two committees, the mountains of still-accumulating evidence are sufficient to answer questions about why the government did not do more to prevent a well-predicted disaster scenario from turning into a catastrophe.

Democrats say crucial holes still remain, particularly related to what senior White House aides and the president knew, and how they reacted to this knowledge, right before the storm and after it.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and other Democrats on the investigative committees say they are not looking for a smoking-gun document implicating the White House. Instead, they say, they are trying to resolve contradictions and questions that have come up.

"What do they have to hide?" Representative Gene Taylor, Democrat of Mississippi, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "Why don't they just come forward and say, 'This is what we knew, when we knew, and this is how we reacted?' "

The White House said on Tuesday that it would deny requests for e-mail and other correspondence among top White House aides, including the chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. and the homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

In September, speaking in New Orleans, President Bush vowed to "work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough," and his aides say he has done that.

"There are some 120 administration officials that have been made available to the committees for interviews or for hearings," Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said Wednesday, adding that 15,000 pages of White House documents were provided. "We believe they're getting the information they need to do their job."

Yet certain questions remain. Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified to the House committee that he repeatedly e-mailed or spoke on the telephone to Mr. Bush, Mr. Card and Mr. Card's deputy, starting Saturday and Sunday before the hurricane struck.

Asked what kind of aid he requested, Mr. Brown replied, "I'm being advised by counsel that I can't discuss with you my conversations with the president's chief of staff and the president."

Documents uncovered during the investigation show that the White House was notified early Monday, hours before the storm hit later that morning, that it was probable that Hurricane Katrina would "lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching," adding, "This could leave the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months."

That night, after the storm passed, a report sent to the White House warned of a quarter-mile breach "in the levee near the 17th Street Canal" and that "an estimated 2/3 to 75 percent of the city is underwater."

Yet Mr. Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, in interviews after the storm hit, said they never expected the levees to be breached. They said that after the storm had passed Monday, they were convinced that the city had survived without catastrophic damage.

"There was a sense of relaxation," Mr. Bush said at a news conference in New Orleans on Sept. 12, recounting his reaction. "I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged."

Mr. Lieberman wants to know more about how the White House could have felt it was appropriate to relax.

"That is central to the investigation," Mr. Lieberman said in an interview Wednesday.

A closed-door briefing provided to investigators by Ken Rapuano, Mr. Bush's deputy domestic security adviser, did not resolve these and other discrepancies, Mr. Taylor said.

At the briefing, Mr. Rapuano acknowledged that the government's response was deeply flawed, participants said. But when asked about the involvement of Mr. Bush, Mr. Card or Ms. Townsend, he also declined to offer details, saying, "I am really not here to discuss specific information that was passed to the president," according to a written summary of the briefing prepared by Democratic staff members.

"It was as shallow and phony a presentation by the administration as they possible could conceive," Mr. Taylor said, adding that he walked out in frustration.

Democrats also said that the documents provided by the White House consisted largely of news conference transcripts or e-mail sent to many people, instead of correspondence disclosing the decision-making process at the White House.

But Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, said that based on what his committee had, he was convinced that the report would be complete.

"The Select Committee has all the information we need to fulfill our duties and produce a comprehensive, fair, no-holds-barred report about the failures in response to Hurricane Katrina," Mr. Davis said Tuesday.

Mr. Lieberman said Wednesday that he realized it was unlikely he could get the information he wanted by threatening to subpoena. Even if one were issued, the administration would probably fight it in court.

Mr. McClellan all but invited such a response Wednesday.

"The president believes that Senator Lieberman ought to have the right to confidential conversations with his advisers, just like all presidents have asserted they ought to have that same right," he said. "That's what this is about."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

January 27, 2006
Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return
By JAMES DAO
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — New Orleans could lose as much as 80 percent of its black population if its most damaged neighborhoods are not rebuilt and if there is not significant government assistance to help poor people return, a detailed analysis by Brown University has concluded.

Combining data from the 2000 census with federal damage assessment maps, the study provides a new level of specificity about Hurricane Katrina's effect on the city's worst-flooded areas, which were heavily populated by low-income black people.

Of the 354,000 people who lived in New Orleans neighborhoods where the subsequent damage was moderate to severe, 75 percent were black, 29 percent lived below the poverty line, more than 10 percent were unemployed, and more than half were renters, the study found.

The report's author, John R. Logan, concluded that as much as 80 percent of the city's black population might not return for several reasons: their neighborhoods would not be rebuilt, they would be unable to afford the relocation costs, or they would put down roots in other cities.

For similar reasons, as much as half of the city's white population might not return, Dr. Logan concluded.

"The continuing question about the hurricane is this: Whose city will be rebuilt?" Dr. Logan, a professor of sociology, writes in the report.

If the projections are realized, the New Orleans population will shrink to about 140,000 from its prehurricane level of 484,000, and the city, nearly 70 percent black before the storm, will become majority white.

The study, financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, was released Thursday, 10 days after the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, who is black, told an audience that "this city will be a majority African-American city; it's the way God wants it to be."

Mr. Nagin's remark was widely viewed as an effort to address criticism of a proposal by his own rebuilding panel, the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, that calls for a four-month building moratorium in heavily damaged areas. He said later that he had not meant to suggest that white people would not be encouraged to return.

"Certainly Mayor Nagin's comments reflected a concern on the ground about the future of the city," Dr. Logan said. "My report shows that there is a basis for that concern."

The study coincides with growing uncertainty about what government assistance will be available for property owners and renters. Louisiana will receive $6.2 billion in federal block grants under an aid package approved by Congress in December, part of which will be used to help homeowners. But that will not be enough money to help all property owners in storm-damaged areas, Louisiana officials say.

Those officials have urged Congress to enact legislation proposed by Representative Richard H. Baker, Republican of Louisiana, creating a corporation that would use bond proceeds to reimburse property owners for part of their mortgages, then redevelop the property. But the Bush administration has said it opposes the bill, out of concerns that it would be too expensive and would create a new government bureaucracy.

Asked Thursday about his opposition to the measure, President Bush told reporters that the $85 billion already allocated for Gulf Coast restoration was "a good start." He added that he was concerned that Louisiana did not have a clear recovery plan in place.

But Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat who has clashed frequently with the White House, said Mr. Baker's bill provided a clear plan.

"Administration officials do not understand the suffering of the people of Louisiana," Ms. Blanco said in a statement.

Demographers are divided over the likelihood of a drastic shift in New Orleans's population. William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who has studied the hurricane's impact on the city, called Dr. Logan's projections "a worst-case scenario that will come about only if these evacuees see that they have no voice in what is going on."

But Dr. Frey also said low-income evacuees might indeed begin to put down roots in cities like Houston or Dallas if they did not see movement toward reconstruction in the next six months.

Elliott B. Stonecipher, a political consultant and demographer from Shreveport, La., said that unless New Orleans built housing in flood-protected areas for low-income residents, and also provided support for poor people to relocate, chances were good that many low-income blacks would not return.

"If they didn't have enough resources to get out before the storm," Mr. Stonecipher said, "how can we expect them to have the wherewithal to return?"



Copyright 2006The New York Times

FEMA Response Inadequate, Documents Show

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 42 minutes ago

As Hurricane Katrina victims waited for help in flooded houses or in looted neighborhoods, hundreds of trucks, boats, planes and federal security officers sat unused because FEMA failed to give them missions, newly released documents show.

Additionally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency called off its search and rescue operations in Louisiana three days after the Aug. 29 storm because of security issues, according to an internal FEMA e-mail given to Senate investigators.

The documents, expected to be the focus of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Monday, highlight further evidence of FEMA's inadequate response to Katrina.

They also detail breakdowns in carrying out the National Response Plan, which was issued a year ago specifically to coordinate response efforts during disasters.

The Homeland Security Department, which includes FEMA, did not dispute the failures Sunday. Katrina "pushed our capabilities and resources to the limit — and then some," said spokesman Russ Knocke.

Responding to a questionnaire posed by investigators, Assistant Interior Secretary P. Lynn Scarlett said her agency offered to supply FEMA with 300 dump trucks and other vehicles, 300 boats, 11 aircraft and 400 law enforcement officers to help search and rescue efforts.

"Although the (Interior) Department possesses significant resources that could have improved initial and ongoing response, many of these resources were not effectively incorporated into the federal response for Hurricane Katrina," Scarlett wrote in the response, dated Nov. 7.

Scarlett added: "Although we attempted to provide these assets through the process established by the (response plan), we were unable to efficiently integrate and deploy those resources."

At one point, Scarlett's letter noted, FEMA asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help with search and rescue in New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and St. Tammany Parish "but never received task assignments."

The agency, part of the Interior Department, apparently went ahead anyway, according to the letter, which said that Fish and Wildlife helped rescue 4,500 people in the first week after Katrina.

Other Interior resources that were offered, but unused, included flat-bottom boats for shallow-water rescues. "Clearly these assets and skills were precisely relevant in the post-Katrina environment," Scarlett wrote.

Knocke, the Homeland Security spokesman, said up to 60,000 federal employees were sent to the Gulf Coast to response to Katrina. However, he said, "experience has shown that FEMA was not equipped with 21st century capabilities, and that is what (Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff) has committed as one of our top priorities going forward."

Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, who chairs the Senate committee that released the documents before the hearing, called them "the most candid assessment that we've received from any federal agency."

"Here we have another federal department offering skilled personnel and the exact kinds of assets that were so desperately needed in the Gulf region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and there no response that we can discern from FEMA," Collins said in an interview Sunday. "That is incredible to me."

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the committee's senior Democrat, said the documents underscore "an outrage on top of an outrage."

Lieberman and Collins both said they also were dismayed by an internal FEMA e-mail, dated Sept. 1, calling a halt to search and rescue task force efforts in Louisiana.

"All assets have ceased operation until National Guard can assist TFs (task forces) with security," said the e-mail, sent from FEMA headquarters.

Knocke said the halt was likely the result of looting, rioting and other security concerns in New Orleans in the days after Katrina hit. He said he did not know whether FEMA suspended its search and rescue missions indefinitely or just temporarily on Sept.1, and that this would be determined in the department's own review of the response.

But Lieberman said the e-mail shows that FEMA "left early," noting that response personnel from the Coast Guard, and other federal, state and local agencies continued looking for storm victims for days after.

"This is shocking and without explanation," he said.

The documents were among 800,000 pages of memos, e-mails, plans and other papers gathered by investigators for the Senate committee, which plans to issue a report of its findings in March.

Lieberman last week accused the White House of hindering the inquiry by barring some staffers from answering investigators' questions.

Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett maintained Sunday that the Bush administration would not give up specific internal documents or information from top advisers that might inhibit the separation of powers in the government.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the federal government will spend "well over $100 billion" to help rebuild the still-reeling Gulf Coast. The government has so far committed about $85 billion, including $67 billion in direct spending approved by Congress.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/katrina_congress

'Women of the Storm' push for more Katrina funding USA Today
Carrying umbrellas the same bright blue as the tarps that cover thousands of Katrina-ravaged homes, 140 women from the New Orleans area went to Capitol Hill on Monday and invited members of Congress to visit their ruined city. The "Women of the Storm" said they wanted to pressure politicians to see the storm's devastation in person and send more recovery money south. The group included the wives of some of the city's major business leaders and several women from New Orleans' Vietnamese community. Monday's visit by the women comes as the Senate homeland security committee is in the midst of two weeks of Katrina-related hearings as part of an investigation into the government's storm response. "Not enough senators and congressmen have come and seen the biggest natural disaster in the United States," said Caroline Reily of Metairie, whose home was flooded with 6 feet of water.
New Orleans Women Seek Congress' Support Forbes
New Orleans women mount mission to DC Boston Globe
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February 2, 2006
Investigators Criticize Response to Hurricane
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — No one from the federal government was clearly in charge of the response to Hurricane Katrina, Congressional investigators said Wednesday, and in the absence of clear leadership the general federal approach was "to wait for affected states to request assistance."

In a preliminary report, the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, criticized Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, for waiting until Tuesday, the day after the storm hit, to designate Hurricane Katrina an "incident of national significance," a status that more clearly put his department in charge.

"Government entities did not act decisively or quickly enough to determine the catastrophic nature of the incident," the report said. "In the absence of timely and decisive action and clear leadership responsibility and accountability, there were multiple chains of command."

The findings were immediately criticized by the Department of Homeland Security. The department's press secretary, Russ Knocke, called them "premature and unprofessional."

Mr. Knocke acknowledged, as the department had before, "that Katrina revealed problems in national response capabilities," but he said President Bush's emergency declaration the weekend before the storm clearly put the department and its Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge.

Separately Wednesday, Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans told a Senate committee investigating the storm that a conflict over who was in charge during the days after it hit severely hurt the response effort.

"There was an incredible dance going on between the federal government and the state government on who had final authority," Mr. Nagin said, referring to a dispute between the Bush administration and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco over who should control troops sent to the region. "And it was impeding, in my humble opinion, the recovery efforts, and it was very frustrating."

Mr. Nagin also said that perhaps 150 New Orleans police officers would be let go after an investigation into officers who abandoned their posts after the storm hit. It remains unclear, he told the committee, if the city will be ready for the 2006 hurricane season.

"Today we're not ready," Mr. Nagin said, adding that the Army Corps of Engineers was working to at least restore the levee system to its previous strength by June, when the hurricane season begins.

"If the Corps of Engineers does what they claim they will do — and it appears as though they will — the core of the city will be pretty well protected for the next hurricane season," he said.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

February 5, 2006
Rebuilding New Orleans, One Appeal at a Time
By ADAM NOSSITER
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 4 — Every day the line snakes down a spartan corridor on the eighth floor of City Hall here, as hundreds of people clutch a piece of paper inscribed with a fateful percentage that could force them to abandon their home.

The number is always over 50, and it means a house was so damaged in the flooding after Hurricane Katrina — more than half-ruined — that it faces demolition, unless the owner can come up with tens of thousands of dollars to raise it several feet above the ground and any future floodwaters.

But there is a way out, and that is why so many people stand in line every day, collectively transforming this battered city. "What you need to do is talk to a building inspector and get that lowered below 50 percent," a city worker calls out to the crowd. And at the end of the line, in a large open room down the hall, that is exactly what happens, nearly 90 percent of the time, New Orleans officials say.

By agreeing so often to these appeals — more than 6,000 over the last few months — city officials are in essence allowing random redevelopment to occur throughout the city, undermining a plan by Mayor C. Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission to hold off on building permits in damaged areas for several months until more careful planning can take place. That plan, greeted by widespread opposition, including from the mayor himself, is now essentially dead.

House by house, in devastated neighborhoods across the city, homeowners are bringing back their new-minted building permits and rebuilding New Orleans. As many as 500 such permits are issued every day, said Greg Meffert, the city official in charge of the rebuilding process.

And there is no particular rhyme or reason to who gets a permit, or consideration of whether their neighborhoods can really support its previous residents. One city building inspector, Devra Goldstein, called the proceedings on the eighth floor "really fly-by-night, chaotic, Wild West, get-what-you-want."

The floor, she said, represents "a plan by default."

It is also testament to the fierce desire of many displaced New Orleanians to re-establish themselves, no matter the odds.

"They told us, if things look close, chances are we can get the assessment lowered below 50 percent, and we can start rebuilding," said George Aguillard, a 65-year-old retired longshoreman waiting patiently in the largely African-American crowd at City Hall.

"At my age, there's no starting over in a new house," said Mr. Aguillard, a resident of the flooded Pontchartrain Park neighborhood. His damage assessment came in at 52.13 percent.

But there may be a steep price to the city's largess in allowing so many people to move back into flood plains without having to elevate their homes. Past federal flood insurance directors say the practice violates the program, which established the 50-percent rule to guide safe building in flood-prone areas. Most communities have adopted it as a minimum standard, say officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the flood program.

In exchange for heavily-subsidized flood insurance for residents, the program expects cities to insist on flood-resistant construction. Some cities that violate the flood rules have been ousted from the insurance program, putting thousands of residents at huge risk.

"They should be suspended, absolutely," said J. Robert Hunter, a former head of the federal flood-insurance program who is now director of insurance at the Consumer Federation of America. "You can't fake it," he said. "I sympathize with these people. But you shouldn't say 'Well, you're poor, therefore you can build in a dangerous place where you can be flooded again, and killed.' "

He added, "You can't destroy the flood program to achieve a short-term goal."

Another early director of federal flood insurance, George K. Bernstein, was equally critical, saying the practice of reducing flood damage percentages was "just ripping off taxpayers."

"If New Orleans is phonying the damage reports so as to allow inadequate construction, they ought to get thrown out of the program," he said.

FEMA officials say they are keeping a close watch on New Orleans but consider the city to be following the rules.

"I understand they have a process in place," said Michael Buckley, deputy director for mitigation at FEMA. "I wouldn't characterize it as a process to change the determination." Mr. Buckley said he was "not aware" of any large-scale downsizing of damage assessments.

But up on the eighth floor, the downward revisions are over in a matter of minutes. "It was pretty smooth," said Charles Harris, an Orleans Parish sheriff's deputy who had four feet of water in his eastern New Orleans home, and whose percentage of damage was changed to 47 from 52. "They were really helpful. I thought it was going to be a combative thing. I was ready to put on my shield. It wasn't like that at all."

Kevin François, an air-conditioning repairman with a house that was rated as 52 percent damaged, said, "It was basically an in-and-out process." He, left City Hall with a number several points less than 50.

Mr. Meffert, the city official, said the initial assessments sometimes contained errors. Homeowners have to justify any changes to their damage assessments, he said, and must provide the details of their rebuilding plans. "What's swinging the vote is, 'I'm going to do it this way,' " he said.

But some leaving City Hall here are still in a pugnacious mood, despite the friendly reception. "I didn't give them a chance," Florestine Jalvia said proudly, having brought her assessment down to 47 percent damaged from 52.5 percent. A tougher stand on rebuilding would have probably engendered the same kind of reaction as the now-defunct four-month moratorium idea. "I think the city is trying to avoid a major public fight," said Ms. Goldstein, the building inspector.

Out in the once-flooded neighborhoods, there is feverish activity, at intervals. Those hard at work scoff at the commission's idea of holding off on rebuilding until it becomes clearer which areas have a chance of coming back.

"I'm not listening to that, man," said Kristopher Winder, as he finished gutting his mother's house in the Gentilly neighborhood. He had brought it back down to its frame. Down the street, signs in front of one house carry defiant messages: "We're rebuilding, and don't try to stop us!" reads one, and "There's no place like home" reads another.

"I thought, when they said that four-month thing, I thought that was crazy," Mr. Winder said. "I was mad. I thought it didn't make no sense."

"I'm working on this house," he said. "She's going to be up and running in three to four months."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

February 8, 2006
Governor Threatens to Block Energy Leases Off Louisiana
By GARY RIVLIN
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7 — Seeking more money from Washington for hurricane relief, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco entered uncharted legal territory with a threat on Monday to block oil and gas leases worth hundreds of millions to the federal treasury unless the state received its "fair share" of the revenues.

"It's time to play hardball, as I believe that's the only game Washington understands," Ms. Blanco said Monday night as she opened the second special legislative session she has called since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Oil and gas companies pay for the right to extract natural resources from the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana collects royalties, as well as severance taxes on resources extracted within three miles of its border. Those programs add hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the state treasury. Louisiana receives no share of the leasing fees on oil and gas reserves beyond the three miles, which are in federal waters.

The federal government negotiates those leases, which give more influential states like Florida and Texas extended state waters, effective every August.

Ms. Blanco, a Democrat, said Monday that she sought to split the leasing fees 50-50. "If no effort is made to guarantee our fair share of royalties," she said, "I have warned the federal government that we will be forced to block the August sale of offshore oil and gas leases."

It remains to be seen whether the governor has the authority to block the leases. By statute, the Minerals Management Service, the agency in the Interior Department that oversees offshore leases, has to seek comment from the affected governors. It is not clear what occurs if a governor refuses to approve a pact.

"You can say we're in unprecedented territory here," said David E. Dismukes, associate director of the Center for Energy Studies at Louisiana State University.

Mr. Dismukes said there could be a protracted legal contest if no settlement was reached and the governor felt compelled to carry through on her ultimatum.

A spokesman for the Minerals Management Service, Gary Strasburg, said Congress could earmark a share of the leasing revenue to any state. As Mr. Strasburg described the process, seeking a governor's advice seemed little more than intergovernmental courtesy.

"It's not an issue of whether or not the governor approves of what we're doing, because if she voices an objection, we'll note that and continue with our negotiations one way or another," he said.

The federal government collected more than $1.5 billion in leasing fees last year from oil and gas companies along the Gulf Coast, a significant part from rigs off Louisiana.

The state faces a shortfall of nearly $1 billion in the current fiscal year.

The fight for a larger share of leasing revenue predates Hurricane Katrina, said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and is closely linked to the damage that pipelines and oil-service vessels inflict on coastal wetlands. The greater the coastal erosion, the greater the storm surge after a hurricane.

"There's a very clear connection between our role providing one-quarter of the oil and gas produced in this country and our vulnerability to hurricanes," Mr. Kopplin said. "The governor's point is that we need a greater share of the revenues from offshore oil and gas to help us restore and protect our coastline."

Even if Ms. Blanco never carries through on her threat, her speaking up may help by keeping the recovery question on the radar in Washington, said T. Wayne Parent, a political scientist at L.S.U. "The fear here is that the Congress and the president seem to be moving on to other things," Professor Parent said. "She knows that this will capture people's attention and force people to pay attention to Louisiana."

That fear has been particularly acute since last week, he said, when President Bush "barely mentioned Hurricane Katrina" in his State of the Union speech.

On Monday, Ms. Blanco also announced how the state plans to allocate the $7.7 billion from Washington for block grants and repairing hazards. The bulk of that, $4.6 billion, should be spent helping homeowners replace or repair houses damaged in the storm, she said.

She added that the money was not nearly enough to help compensate people who lost houses to the storms. "We had 10 times more businesses destroyed," Ms. Blanco said Monday. "We had five times more jobs lost. And we weathered more than 75 percent of the total property and infrastructure damage caused by the storm. However, we received only 54 percent of the block grant funding."



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

FEMA pays last hotel bills today Detroit Free Press
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will quit paying hotels today to house Hurricane Katrina evacuees, unless they have been approved for an extension, agency officials said Monday. As of Sunday, there were 10 hotels housing evacuees in Michigan -- less than half the number in December, according to FEMA. FEMA spokeswoman Barbara Ellis said Monday that the agency is trying to help evacuees find alternative housing, and evacuees may be eligible for additional rental assistance or help from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. If evacuees are not approved by FEMA for an extension, or the hotels do not pick up the bills for them, those who remain will have to pay for their rooms, Ellis said. Officials at some hotels said they will continue to board remaining evacuees after the deadline without forcing them to pay. "We are trying to help them," said Wallace Wells, the administrator of the Village of Hope, a nonprofit organization set up by the Southfield Inn to provide evacuees with assistance. Twenty evacuees occupy eight rooms at the hotel, and 10 people are expected to move out by the end of the week, Wells said. "We don't enable their own apathy," Wells said. "We ask every day, 'What are you doing about housing?' "
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February 10, 2006
The Inquiry
White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency official, Marty Bahamonde, first heard of a major levee breach Monday morning. By late Monday afternoon, Mr. Bahamonde had hitched a ride on a Coast Guard helicopter over the breach at the 17th Street Canal to confirm the extensive flooding. He then telephoned his report to FEMA headquarters in Washington, which notified the Homeland Security Department.

"FYI from FEMA," said an e-mail message from the agency's public affairs staff describing the helicopter flight, sent Monday night at 9:27 to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and recently unearthed by investigators. Conditions, the message said, "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting. Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought — also a number of fires."

Michael D. Brown, who was the director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on Sept. 12, said in a telephone interview Thursday that he personally notified the White House of this news that night, though he declined to identify the official he spoke to.

White House officials have confirmed to Congressional investigators that the report of the levee break arrived there at midnight, and Trent Duffy, the White House spokesman, acknowledged as much in an interview this week, though he said it was surrounded with conflicting reports.

But the alert did not seem to register. Even the next morning, President Bush, on vacation in Texas, was feeling relieved that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet," he later recalled. Mr. Chertoff, similarly confident, flew Tuesday to Atlanta for a briefing on avian flu. With power out from the high winds and movement limited, even news reporters in New Orleans remained unaware of the full extent of the levee breaches until Tuesday.

The federal government let out a sigh of relief when in fact it should have been sounding an "all hands on deck" alarm, the investigators have found.

This chain of events, along with dozens of other critical flashpoints in the Hurricane Katrina saga, has for the first time been laid out in detail following five months of work by two Congressional committees that have assembled nearly 800,000 pages of documents, testimony and interviews from more than 250 witnesses. Investigators now have the documentation to pinpoint some of the fundamental errors and oversights that combined to produce what is universally agreed to be a flawed government response to the worst natural disaster in modern American history.

On Friday, Mr. Brown, the former FEMA director, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He is expected to confirm that he notified the White House on that Monday, the day the hurricane hit, that the levee had given way, the city was flooding and his crews were overwhelmed.

"There is no question in my mind that at the highest levels of the White House they understood how grave the situation was," Mr. Brown said in the interview.

The problem, he said, was the handicapping of FEMA when it was turned into a division of the Homeland Security Department in 2003.

"The real story is with this new structure," he said. "Why weren't more things done, or what prevented or delayed Mike Brown from being able to do what he would have done and did do in any other disaster?"

Although Mr. Bahamonde said in October that he had notified Mr. Brown that Monday, it was not known until recently what Mr. Brown or the Homeland Security Department did with that information, or when the White House was told.

Missteps at All Levels

It has been known since the earliest days of the storm that all levels of government — from the White House to the Department of Homeland Security to the Louisiana Capitol to New Orleans City Hall — were unprepared, uncommunicative and phlegmatic in protecting Gulf Coast residents from the floodwaters and their aftermath. But an examination of the latest evidence by The New York Times shines a new light on the key players involved in the important turning points: what they said, what they did and what they did not do, all of which will soon be written up in the committees' investigative reports.

Among the findings that emerge in the mass of documents and testimony were these:

¶Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.

¶Mr. Chertoff failed to name a principal federal official to oversee the response before the hurricane arrived, an omission a top Pentagon official acknowledged to investigators complicated the coordination of the response. His department also did not plan enough to prevent a conflict over which agency should be in charge of law enforcement support. And Mr. Chertoff was either poorly informed about the levee break or did not recognize the significance of the initial report about it, investigators said.

¶The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators, "We put no plans in place to do any of this."

¶Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans at first directed his staff to prepare a mandatory evacuation of his city on Saturday, two days before the storm hit, but he testified that he had not done so that day while he and other city officials struggled to decide if they should exempt hospitals and hotels from the order. The mandatory evacuation occurred on Sunday, and the delay exacerbated the difficulty in moving people away from the storm.

¶The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money, had just three small boats and no food, water or fuel to supply its emergency workers.

¶Investigators could find no evidence that food and water supplies were formally ordered for the Convention Center, where more than 10,000 evacuees had assembled, until days after the city had decided to open it as a backup emergency shelter. FEMA had planned to have 360,000 ready-to-eat meals delivered to the city and 15 trucks of water in advance of the storm. But only 40,000 meals and five trucks of water had arrived.

Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the special House committee investigating the hurricane response, said the only government agency that performed well was the National Weather Service, which correctly predicted the force of the storm. But no one heeded the message, he said.

"The president is still at his ranch, the vice president is still fly-fishing in Wyoming, the president's chief of staff is in Maine," Mr. Davis said. "In retrospect, don't you think it would have been better to pull together? They should have had better leadership. It is disengagement."

One of the greatest mysteries for both the House and Senate committees has been why it took so long, even after Mr. Bahamonde filed his urgent report on the Monday the storm hit, for federal officials to appreciate that the levee had broken and that New Orleans was flooding.

Eyewitness to Devastation

As his helicopter approached the site, Mr. Bahamonde testified in October, there was no mistaking what had happened: large sections of the levee had fallen over, leaving the section of the city on the collapsed side entirely submerged, but the neighborhood on the other side relatively dry. He snapped a picture of the scene with a small camera.

"The situation is only going to get worse," he said he warned Mr. Brown, then the FEMA director, whom he called about 8 p.m. Monday Eastern time to report on his helicopter tour.

"Thank you," he said Mr. Brown replied. "I am now going to call the White House."

Citing restrictions placed on him by his lawyers, Mr. Brown declined to tell House investigators during testimony if he had actually made that call. White House aides have urged administration officials not to discuss any conversations with the president or his top advisors and declined to release e-mail messages sent among Mr. Bush's senior advisors.

But investigators have found the e-mail message referring to Mr. Bahamonde's helicopter survey that was sent to John F. Wood, chief of staff to Secretary Chertoff at 9:27 p.m. They have also found a summary of Mr. Bahamonde's observations that was issued at 10:30 p.m. and an 11:05 p.m. e-mail message to Michael Jackson, the deputy secretary of homeland security. Each message describes in detail the extensive flooding that was taking place in New Orleans after the levee collapse.

Given this chain of events, investigators have repeatedly questioned why Mr. Bush and Mr. Chertoff stated in the days after the storm that the levee break did not happen until Tuesday, as they made an effort to explain why they initially thought the storm had passed without the catastrophe that some had feared.

"The hurricane started to depart the area on Monday, and then Tuesday morning the levee broke and the water started to flood into New Orleans," Mr. Chertoff said on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Sept. 4, the weekend after the hurricane hit.

Mr. Chertoff and White House officials have said that they were referring to official confirmation that the levee had broken, which they say they received Tuesday morning from the Army Corps of Engineers. They also say there were conflicting reports all day Monday about whether a breach had occurred and noted that they were not alone in failing to recognize the growing catastrophe.

Mr. Duffy, the White House spokesman, said it would not have made much difference even if the White House had realized the significance of the midnight report. "Like it or not, you cannot fix a levee overnight, or in an hour, or even six hours," he said.

But Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said it was obvious to her in retrospect that Mr. Chertoff, perhaps in deference to Mr. Brown's authority, was not paying close enough attention to the events in New Orleans and that the federal response to the disaster may have been slowed as a result.

"Secretary Chertoff was too disengaged from the process," Ms. Collins said in an interview.

Compounding the problem, once Mr. Chertoff learned of the levee break on Tuesday, he could not reach Mr. Brown, his top emergency response official, for an entire day because Mr. Brown was on helicopter tours of the damage.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the homeland security committee, said the government confusion reminded him of the period surrounding the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Information was in different places, in that case prior to the attack," Mr. Lieberman said, "and it wasn't reaching the key decision makers in a coordinated way for them to take action."

Russ Knocke, a homeland security spokesman, said that although Mr. Chertoff had been "intensely involved in monitoring the storm" he had not actually been told about the report of the levee breach until Tuesday, after he arrived in Atlanta.

"No one is satisfied with the response in the early days," Mr. Knocke said.

But he rejected criticism by Senator Collins and others that Mr. Chertoff was disengaged.

"He was not informed of it," Mr. Knocke said. "It is certainly a breakdown. And through an after-action process, that is something we will address."

The day before the hurricane made landfall, the Homeland Security Department issued a report predicting that it could lead to a levee breach that could submerge New Orleans for months and leave 100,000 people stranded. Yet despite these warnings, state, federal and local officials acknowledged to investigators that there was no coordinated effort before the storm arrived to evacuate nursing homes and hospitals or others in the urban population without cars.

Focus on Highway Plan

Mr. Bradberry, the state transportation secretary, told an investigator that he had focused on improving the highway evacuation plan for the general public with cars and had not attended to his responsibility to remove people from hospitals and nursing homes. The state even turned down an offer for patient evacuation assistance from the federal government.

In fact, the city was desperately in need of help. And this failure would have deadly consequences. Only 21 of the 60 or so nursing homes were cleared of residents before the storm struck. Dozens of lives were lost in hospitals and nursing homes.

One reason the city was unable to help itself, investigators said, is that it never bought the basic equipment needed to respond to the long-predicted catastrophe. The Fire Department had asked for inflatable boats and generators, as well as an emergency food supply, but none were provided, a department official told investigators.

Timothy P. Bayard, a police narcotics commander assigned to lead a water rescue effort, said that with just three boats, not counting the two it commandeered and almost no working radios, his small team spent much of its time initially just trying to rescue detectives who themselves were trapped by rising water.

The investigators also determined that the federal Department of Transportation was not asked until Wednesday to provide buses to evacuate the Superdome and the convention center, meaning that evacuees sat there for perhaps two more days longer than necessary.

Mr. Brown acknowledged to investigators that he wished, in retrospect, that he had moved much earlier to turn over major aspects of the response effort to the Department of Defense. It was not until the middle of the week, he said, that he asked the military to take over the delivery and distribution of water, food and ice.

"In hindsight I should have done it right then," Mr. Brown told the House, referring to the Sunday before the storm hit.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/national/nation...trina-docs.html

A Closer Look at Some of the Documents
By ERIC LIPTON
Investigators now have the documentation to pinpoint some of the fundamental errors and oversights that combined to produce what is universally agreed to be a flawed government response to the worst natural disaster in modern United States history.
Audio: Eric Lipton on the Documents (mp3)



Long before Hurricane Katrina emerged, this document shows that federal official knew that if a major hurricane landed in New Orleans, local authorities would be overwhelmed. Go to Document
But investigators have concluded that the federal government, even when it saw this dire warning from the National Weather Service, did not act as if he knew this most basic reality: local authorities would not be able to fend for themselves. Here is an excerpt of the federal statement of the local incapacity to fend for itself and the weather forecast just before Katrina landed.
Go to Document

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On Sunday, Aug. 28, at noon, federal and state officials, including President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff participated in a teleconference call to discuss the approaching storm. Mr. Max Mayfield, the director of the National Hurricane Center provided some dire warnings. Mr. Chertoff asked FEMA director Michael Brown if there was anything he needed. Mr. Bush prayed for no loss of life. And Mr. Brown asked Col. Jeff Smith, Deputy Director of the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, if he needed any assistance.
Go to Excerpts From a Transcript of the Call


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Johnny B. Bradberry, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Transportation signed an agreement in April 2005 committing his department to "mobilize transportation to support emergency evacuation for at-risk populations," meaning the frail, elderly, disabled and others who might not be able to get out of the city on their own. But Mr. Bradberry admitted to investigators that he did not honor this agrreement. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, observed: "The initial evacuation from New Orleans in advance of the storm went relatively well. Approximately 1 million people left the greater New Orleans area in a much more efficient and orderly manner than in hurricane evacuations of years past. Then, so to speak, the wheels came off. Those without access to transportation out of the region found themselves stranded high and dry, but only in the figurative sense. Among those left behind were thousands of elderly, disabled and disadvantaged residents." Mr. Bradberry was interviewed by a Senate investigator.
Go Document


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In July 2005, at an emergency planning session sponsored by FEMA, state and local officials discussed evacuation planning for a possible hurricane in the region, which all parties recognized could cause thousands, if not tens of thousands of deaths. At the meeting, there was a consensus that they were far from ready, as only about 10 percent of the planning was finished for how they would evacuate the estimated 100,000 people in the area that did not have cars or other means of getting out of the city.
Go to Excerpts From a Transcript of the Meeting


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An official from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, which is charged with helping evacuate medical patients from disaster areas, asked a Louisiana state health official two days before Katrina landed if the state needed help moving patients out of harms way. The state official turned down the offer. The e-mails are in reverse chronological order.
Go to Document


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On Sunday, Aug. 28th, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit, FEMA issued a "situation report" on the storm that had several dire predictions, including that a direct hit by the storm could leave the city submerged by several feet of water and that at least 100,000 people lacked a way to get out of town.
Go to Document


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Without an organized plan to evacuate nursing homes before Katrina landed, 36 nursing homes failed to heed mandatory evacuation orders. Chaos followed, as once the storm hit and the flood waters rose, they were without electricity and often food and water. Dozens of patients died while they awaited rescue.

Excerpts from the testimony of Joseph A. Donchess Executive Director Louisiana Nursing Home Association to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee:
Go to Document


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City hospitals also did not evacuate. But city officials acknowledged during the investigation that they did not realize that many hospitals had their back up generators in areas that could be flooded. That meant that they too were often without electricity after the storm and flood.

Excerpts from testimony on the attempting to evacuate a New Orleans hospital:
Go to Document


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Reports that there were major breaks in the levees started on Monday morning, the day Katrina hit. But it would be nearly 24 hours before officials in the Bush administration, including President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, appeared to recognize the serverity of what had happened. Marty Bahamonde, a public affairs officer with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, heard the early reports on Monday and then told supervisors in Washington. News of his report, and helicopter flights he took to confirm the levee breach, reached the White House and the office of the Homeland Security secretary by Monday evening or late Monday night. Here are excerpts of testimony about the initial reports of the levee break. He is questioned by Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, who are the two leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Go to Excerpts From the Testimony


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Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA public affairs office, took this photograph on Monday Aug. 29, the day Katrina hit, at about 5:15 p.m. central time. In a Coast Guard helicopter, he flew directly to the site that had been described in a report he overheard Monday morning at about 11 a.m. to confirm that the levee had broken. As soon as he saw the spot, he said there was no question in his mind that the levee had collapsed, not just been overtopped, as it was obvious that only one side was flooded and he could see sections of the levee that had fallen over. (Click on the photo to enlarge the image.)


**********

At 9:27 p.m., Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's chief of staff, John Wood, and others in the Secretary's office, received an email from Brian Besanceney, the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, reporting that observations by a FEMA employee in New Orleans had found that conditions were "far more serious," than the media was reporting.
Go to E-Mail


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At 10:30 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 29, the day Katrina landed in New Orleans, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report detailing observations that had been made of the broken levee by Marty Bahamonde, the sole FEMA representative on the ground in the city that day. He had heard the report at 11 a.m. that morning and then confirmed it with a flyover in a helicopter that evening. This same report made its way to the White House Monday, shortly after midnight.
Go to Document


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New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency with a detailed list of emergency aid his city desperately needed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Most of the requested supplies and other assistance did not arrive for days, if at all, as FEMA was not prepared to deliver what the city said it needed.
Go to Document



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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Captain Timothy P. Bayard prepared this internal report assessing the role his city's Office of Emergency Preparedness played in the response to Katrina. He introduced the report to investigators by saying: "The New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness failed. They did not prepare themselves, nor did they manage the city agencies responsible for conducting emergency response to the disaster. Their function was to coordinate with state, federal and other local agencies, to enlist logistical assistance. We did not coordinate with any state, local or federal agencies. We were not prepared logistically. Most importantly, we relocated evacuees to two locations where there was no food, water or portable restrooms. We did not implement the pre-existing plan. We did not utilize buses that would have allowed us to transport mass quantities of evacuees expeditiously. We did not have food, water or fuel for the emergency workers. We did not have a back up communication system. We had no portable radio towers or repeaters that would have enabled us to communicate. The other mistakes have been mentioned previously." Go to Document

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The National Guard, which is made up of troops under the command of individual states, ultimately had at least 30,000 troops assigned to Louisiana to help with the response to Hurricane Katrina. But an "after action review" that evaluates the National Guard's own response found that it was hampered by poor coordination, insufficient communications and a lack of so-called situational awareness.

February 10, 2006
Response
Ex-FEMA Chief, in Reversal, to Answer Questions on Storm
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 — For months, Michael D. Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has declined to answer questions from Congress about his conversations during Hurricane Katrina with top Bush administration officials. But in an interview on Thursday, he said that his position had changed.

Now that he is a private citizen, he said, "I feel an obligation to answer any questions they put to me."

Mr. Brown will have that chance on Friday, when he is scheduled to testify to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is nearing the end of a five-month inquiry on the hurricane.

"The public needs to know the entire picture of what was going on," Mr. Brown said.

Mr. Brown's lawyer, in a letter sent Monday to Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, wrote that "unless there is specific direction otherwise by the president" that "Mr. Brown will testify, if asked, about particular communications he had" with White House officials and others in the executive branch.

As of Thursday evening, Mr. Brown and his lawyer, Andrew W. Lester, said they had received no calls or letters from the White House urging Mr. Brown to remain silent.

The testimony will make clear, Mr. Brown said, that senior administration officials, including President Bush, recognized the severity of the problem in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of the storm. But changes in the organization of FEMA and the powers of the director of the agency after it became part of the Homeland Security Department, Mr. Brown said, prevented him from effectively leading the response.

The administration has declined House and Senate investigators' requests to turn over e-mail messages and other correspondence from top White House officials involved in the hurricane response. Mr. Bush, asked last month whether Mr. Brown should testify about his White House discussions, seemed to urge him to not do so.

A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said he had nothing to add to that comment.

Mr. Brown, who has a permanent residence in Colorado but continues to live here, has formed a disaster-relief consultancy. He would not name clients but said he had signed up a number of companies, including firms that sell communications equipment and work on rebuilding on the Gulf Coast.



Copyright 2006The New York Times

Katrina Report Spreads Blame Washington Post
Hurricane Katrina exposed the US government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as leaders from President Bush down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives, according to a blistering report by House investigators. A draft of the report, to be released publicly Wednesday, includes 90 findings of failures at all levels of government, according to a senior investigation staffer who requested anonymity because the document is not final. Titled "A Failure of Initiative," it is one of three separate reviews by the House, Senate and White House that will in coming weeks dissect the response to the nation's costliest natural disaster. The 600-plus-page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council, according to a 60-page summary of the document obtained by The Washington Post. Regarding Bush, the report found that "earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response" because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance. The report, produced by an 11-member House select committee of Republicans chaired by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), proposes few specific changes. But it is an unusual compendium of criticism by the House GOP, which generally has not been aggressive in its oversight of the administration.
Brownie points Los Angeles Times
White House takes flak over Katrina, CIA leak case Globe and Mail
2TheAdvocate - RTE.ie - Detroit Free Press - Boston Globe - all 1,218 related »

February 13, 2006
Republicans' Report on Katrina Assails Administration Response
By ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — House Republicans plan to issue a blistering report on Wednesday that says the Bush administration delayed the evacuation of thousands of New Orleans residents by failing to act quickly on early reports that the levees had broken during Hurricane Katrina.

A draft of the report, to be issued by an 11-member, all-Republican committee, says the Bush administration was informed on the day Hurricane Katrina hit that the levees had been breached, even though the president and other top administration officials earlier said that they had learned of the breach the next day.

That delay was significant, the report says, rejecting the defense given by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security that the time it took to recognize the breach did not significantly affect the response.

"If the levees breached and flooded a large portion of the city, then the flooded city would have to be completely evacuated," the draft report says. "Any delay in confirming the breaches would result in a delay in the post-landfall evacuation of the city." It adds that the White House itself discounted damage reports that later proved true.

The report, by the select House committee examining the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, is the first of three major investigations into the subject; the others, for which reports are expected within one or two months, are being conducted by a Senate committee and by the White House.

The House report blames all levels of government, from the White House to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana to Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans, for the delayed response to the storm.

"Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare," the draft says. "At every level — individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental — we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina. In this cautionary tale, all the little pigs built houses of straw."

A White House spokesman said that President Bush was now focused on the future, not the past. A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said that Michael D. Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was partly to blame for failing to make timely reports to his superiors.

The response to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, in which about 1,400 people died along the Gulf Coast, raises troubling questions about the nation's ability to react to other threats to domestic security, the draft report says.

"If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not," the draft says, referring to the potential for a terror attack. "Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time."

Democrats declined to appoint members to the committee, raising concerns that the group would produce a whitewash, though several House Democrats participated in committee discussions. After the Republican report was prepared, Democrats praised it in a written response for being comprehensive and detailed, though they complained that it did not hold enough individual officials accountable and continued their call for an independent commission.

What is most disturbing about the hurricane response, the draft report says, is that the entire catastrophe was so easily foreseen — given the weather reports and the precarious position of New Orleans as a below-sea-level city in a major hurricane zone — yet still the response was so flawed.

"It remains difficult to understand how government could respond so ineffectively to a disaster that was anticipated for years, and for which specific dire warnings had been issued for days," the report says. "This crisis was not only predictable, it was predicted."

The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, and President Bush's own staff of White House domestic security advisers drew some of the most scathing criticism in the report, some of the contents of which were first reported Sunday in The Washington Post.

Mr. Chertoff, the draft report says, should have moved two days before Hurricane Katrina hit — when the National Weather Service issued dire predictions about the storm — to set up a special interagency leadership team to ensure that emergency supplies and rescue squads would be in place ahead of the storm. His department also should have done more to help evacuate the Gulf Coast, the report says.

The Homeland Security Department, the draft report says, "failed to anticipate the likely consequences of the storm and procure the buses, boats and aircraft that were ultimately necessary to evacuate the flooded city prior to Katrina's landfall."

These critical prestorm mistakes were only compounded, the draft report says, when the department failed another vital challenge: to determine rapidly whether the storm had breached a major levee.

A staff member from the department's Federal Emergency Management Agency who was on the ground in New Orleans learned on Monday morning, Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, that a major section of the 17th Street Canal levee had collapsed. He confirmed that report by Monday evening when he flew over the collapsed levee in a Coast Guard helicopter.

Between 10:30 p.m. and midnight, news of the finding reached Mr. Chertoff's top deputy, the White House and the Homeland Security Operations Center, or H.S.O.C., which is the Washington-based nerve center for domestic incidents.

The House investigators were told by Kenneth Rapuano, the deputy homeland security adviser to President Bush, that the administration did not immediately act on the report because it had other dispatches suggesting that such a breach might not have occurred.

"We weren't going to repair the levees overnight, and search and rescue was already operating in full gear, regardless," Mr. Rapuano told the committee, according to the draft.

But the draft says the failure to act on this report did apparently slow the response.

"Because the H.S.O.C. failed to confirm the levee breaches on Monday," the draft says, the first federal decision to line up buses needed to evacuate the city did not happen until Tuesday, when the federal disaster relief worker in New Orleans "saw the water reaching the Superdome and realized it would become an island."

Allen Abney, a White House spokesman, said President Bush had "full confidence" in his homeland security team and was involved in the storm response from beginning to end.

"The president is less interested in yesterday and more interested with today and tomorrow," Mr. Abney said, "so that we can be better prepared for next time."

The White House declined to provide copies of e-mail messages or other correspondence by senior advisers to the president, limiting the House investigators' ability to understand fully the White House's role in the response, the report says. But with the information the committee collected, it says, it is clear that the president's office is also to blame.

"The White House failed to de-conflict varying damage assessments and discounted information that ultimately proved accurate," the draft says. "The president's Homeland Security team did not effectively substantiate, analyze and act on the information at its disposal."

The draft's plainly worded criticism extends to the administrations of Governor Blanco, a Democrat, and Mayor Nagin of New Orleans.

Mr. Nagin, the report says, waited far too long to issue a mandatory evacuation order. The city and the state also had no reliable system to ensure that people in nursing homes or hospitals, or the estimated 100,000 residents without transportation, could get out of harm's way.

"Failure of complete evacuation resulted in hundreds of deaths and severe suffering for thousands," the draft report says, adding that individuals who remained in the city deserved part of the blame.

The response to Hurricane Katrina, the report says, ultimately was a failure of leaders to take action.

"If 9/11 was a failure of imagination," it says, "then Katrina was a failure of initiative."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

Disaster Response Changes Promised
Administration Admits Katrina Flaws, Moves to Retool Homeland Security

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; A01



The Bush administration acknowledged its mistakes yesterday and promised anew to re-engineer the nation's homeland security agencies in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, scrambling to contain the damage from sharp criticism by House investigators and testimony by the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

President Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, addressing 50 state emergency managers at a meeting in Alexandria, previewed results of a government-wide review due later this month that she said would make more than 100 recommendations to improve disaster response. They will include stronger mandatory evacuation policies, closer military involvement in homeland security, and larger regional FEMA offices to work with governors and mayors of large cities.

"It was the president who acknowledged the response to Hurricane Katrina was insufficient, and it was the president who first sought the lessons learned," said Townsend, who, as head of the Homeland Security Council, is leading the review ordered by Bush.

The White House offensive comes as the House and Senate are nearing completion of separate investigations that will cast a harsh light on the government's response to Katrina and Bush's management of homeland security more than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made that task his presidency's defining theme.

Yesterday, testimony by congressional and Department of Homeland Security auditors also highlighted flaws in the ongoing domestic reconstruction -- at $85 billion in congressional aid so far, nearly six months after the Aug. 29 storm -- finding millions of dollars in waste, dubious eligibility of tens of thousands of people who received aid after the storm, and poor federal financial controls.

Also yesterday, a federal judge ruled that FEMA can stop paying directly for hotel rooms for 12,000 families left homeless by hurricanes.

White House aides rushed to defend Bush's actions after the Gulf Coast storm, add specifics to previous broad pledges to restructure preparedness and recovery efforts, and personalize attacks on critics.

Responding to a draft House report that said the administration disregarded warnings of Katrina's threat to New Orleans and that Bush was slow to become engaged, Townsend said, "I reject outright any suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved."

In his own speech to the National Emergency Management Association's mid-year meeting of state officials, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff responded to concerns from the group and other critics, repeating the administration's commitment to defend against natural and man-made hazards. "I unequivocally and strongly reject this attempt to drive a wedge between our concerns about terrorism and our concerns about natural disasters," he said.

But he largely accepted 90 findings of flaws at every level of government by a draft House report to be released tomorrow, including many directed at him.

Chertoff acknowledged that the government waited too long, until after Katrina made landfall, to mobilize troops, vehicles and aid needed to rescue and remove victims from New Orleans, adding to deaths and suffering. He said that under his watch, federal emergency plans and command of the crisis that killed more than 1,300 people broke down.

"I am accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department, good and bad," Chertoff said.

Modifying past comments by his office, Chertoff said the government must "be prepared to get help and supplies into the pipeline as quickly as possible, even before our partners anticipate their needs." He pledged to collapse "stovepiped" command centers toward "a fully integrated and unified" department by the June 1 start of hurricane season.

Townsend and Chertoff condemned former FEMA director Michael D. Brown, who testified to the Senate on Friday that the administration mishandled domestic preparedness by overemphasizing terrorism. The result, he and state emergency managers have said, has taken money and focus away from natural disasters, FEMA and state responders.

Taking aim at Brown, Townsend said one can learn from experience or "become bitter and lash out, trying to find someone, anybody, to blame, and unfortunately we have seen that already." She added: "We cannot attempt to rewrite history by pointing fingers or laying blame."

Chertoff also attacked Brown, with whom he had feuded since becoming secretary six months before Katrina hit.

Three days after Brown told senators that he went straight to the White House and did not call Chertoff the day of Katrina's landfall because it would "have wasted my time," Chertoff said: "There is no place for a lone ranger in emergency response." He added that the cost "is visited on too many innocent people."

In e-mail statement, Brown called Chertoff's criticism "disingenuous" and said he saw vindication in vows to boost money and staff for FEMA. "Personal attacks on me by Secretary Chertoff are simply an attempt to ignore the information I gave to department leadership throughout my tenure regarding FEMA's marginalization," Brown said.

Adding details to past pledges, Chertoff proposed to create a full-time FEMA response force of 1,500 employees, instead of relying largely on volunteers, push "wrenching change" to integrate FEMA within Homeland Security, increase capacity of its disaster registration systems to handle 200,000 people a day, and push claims personnel into the field to serve victims instead of requiring them to use the Internet or telephones.

Logistics contracts this year will require vendors to give FEMA "real-time" monitoring and control of shipment of supplies. Chertoff said he will also ask coastal states to hold evacuation exercises before June 1.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

--------------------
White House Strongly Defends Katrina Role
--------------------

By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

February 13 2006, 8:08 PM PST

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Monday pushed back hard against Katrina-response criticism leveled by ex-disaster agency chief Michael Brown and congressional investigators.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...=sns-ap-topnews

February 15, 2006
Chertoff Chastised by Senators of Both Parties on Hurricane
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:39 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A chastised Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff sparred with senators of both parties on Wednesday as he acknowledged ''many lapses'' in his agency's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Chertoff told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that he would do things differently if he had the chance. One thing he would not do: give overall responsibility for the relief effort to Michael Brown, who was director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time.

Brown, who resigned under pressure shortly after the Aug. 29 storm devastated New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast, has accused Chertoff and White House officials of ignoring his warnings on the day of the storm.

''It is completely correct to say that our logistics capability in Katrina was woefully inadequate. I was astonished to see we didn't have the capability most 21st century corporations have to track the flow of goods and services,'' Chertoff said, promising remedies by the start of the 2006 hurricane season in June.

Chertoff testified as a separate House investigation concluded that thousands of Katrina's victims could have been spared through better planning and faster action.

The House inquiry titled ''A Failure of Initiative'' concluded that much death and suffering could have been avoided if the government had heeded lessons from the 2001 terror attacks and taken a more hands-on stance toward disaster preparedness.

Chertoff, one year on the job, acknowledged missteps. He called the storm ''one of the most difficult and traumatic experiences of my life.''

He drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

Committee Chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said his agency's performance ''must be judged a failure.'' She called it ''late, uncertain and ineffective.''

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel's top Democrat, criticized Chertoff for going to Atlanta for a bird flu conference on Aug. 30, the day after the storm roared ashore, instead of rushing to the disaster scene.

''How could you go to bed that night (Aug. 29) not knowing what was going on in New Orleans?'' Lieberman asked.

Under Chertoff's oversight, disaster workers ''ran around like Keystone cops, uncertain about what they were supposed to do or uncertain how to do it,'' Lieberman said.

Chertoff disputed Brown's testimony earlier this month that he had notified White House and Homeland Security officials on the day of the storm that levees had failed and New Orleans was flooding.

Instead, Chertoff reiterated earlier statements that he did not realize that levees had been breached until the next day.

''When I went to bed, it was my belief ... that actually the storm had not done the worst that could be imagined,'' Chertoff said.

Collins told Chertoff ''I remain perplexed'' about his decision to designate Brown, who as FEMA director had expressed skepticism about being put under the DHS wing, as point man on coordinating the Katrina response.

Chertoff said there was ''no reason to doubt his commitment'' at the time.

''If I knew then what I know now about Mr. Brown's agenda, I would have done something different,'' Chertoff added.

The hearing was disrupted briefly by a member of the audience who loudly heckled Chertoff, apparently about this week's end of a FEMA program that paid for hotel rooms for hundreds of homeless evacuees.

''This is un-American,'' said the man, as Chertoff sat stoically. ''They're being evicted.''

Chertoff was subdued throughout the hearing, unlike the combative stance taken by Brown.

''There are many lapses that occurred, and I've certainly spent a lot of time personally, probably since last fall, thinking about things that might have been done differently,'' Chertoff testified.

Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., called FEMA's problems ''just so dysfunctional, or nonfunctional, it's frightening.''

The House investigative report said that, from President Bush down to local officials, government agencies did little other than react to the catastrophic storm after the fact -- even when faced with early warnings about its deadly potential.

''The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina should disturb all Americans,'' said the 520-page report, written by a Republican-dominated special committee chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., and obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press.

''Passivity did the most damage,'' it said.

The report assigned blame to state and local authorities and concluded that the federal government's biggest failure was in not recognizing Katrina's likely consequences as it approached.

Recognizing the dangers earlier could have prompted a mobilization for a post-storm evacuation, and aid would have arrived several days earlier, the report said.

It also found that Bush could have speeded the response by becoming involved in the crisis sooner.

Earlier this week, White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend insisted Bush was ''fully involved'' in Washington's preparations and response to Katrina.

Katrina left more than 1,300 people dead in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, hundreds of thousands homeless and tens of billions of dollars worth of damage. Bush has accepted responsibility for the federal government's shortfalls, but the storm response continues to generate finger-pointing.

------

Associated Press writers Douglass K. Daniel and Hope Yen contributed to this report.



Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/1...new_orleans.php
Blocking Progress In New Orleans
Robert Reich
February 16, 2006


Robert Reich is professor of public policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was secertary of labor in the Clinton administration.

More than five months after Hurricane Katrina—and almost five months of political verbiage and posturing and name-calling and blame-mongering—New Orleans is still a wreck.

Two thirds of the Big Easy’s pre-Katrina residents continue to live in exile; only a handful of schools have reopened; only a third of the city’s former hospital beds are available; two-thirds of its buildings are still without electricity. Two hundred thousand homes and business properties are in ruins.

The next few months will be a turning point. Either there will be a raft of personal bankruptcies, foreclosures and bank failures, followed by the permanent closing of much the city, or—what? Free-market fundamentalists say New Orleans just has to wait until capital and people return. But it’s been five months and they haven’t returned. Why should they be expected to?

Yes, residents and businesses moved back to Chicago after the Great Chicago fire, and they moved back to San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. But the citizens and merchants who had occupied these cities before the disasters had few alternatives afterwards. And most of the capital needed to rebuild these cities came from local investors who also had few alternatives but to put their savings back into the cities their savings had been in before.

Today it’s different. People can move far more easily. Former residents of New Orleans are now scattered across much of the United States. Former businesses are gone. Capital is now global.

New Orleans faces two chicken-and-egg problems that Chicago and San Francisco didn’t have to face, and private markets don’t know how to remedy. The first is how to get people to live in places where there are no jobs because there are no people living there. The second is how to get capital to rebuild damaged buildings in neighborhoods that are worthless because so many buildings are so badly damaged.

There’s no private market renewing New Orleans because nobody has an incentive to move back or reopen a business or invest, because no one can be sure there will be enough other people moving back, reopening and investing to make it worthwhile.

This is why an idea now being pushed by Republican Rep. Richard Baker, who represents Baton Rouge to the north of New Orleans, is so sensible. Baker wants to create something called the Louisiana Recovery Corporation. Essentially, it would buy property and mortgages at 60 percent of their pre-Katrina values, package them together in parcels that might be attractive to private developers, and then auction off the packages. The resulting revenues from developers would then replenish the fund.

The developers would have reason to rebuild their parcels and generate jobs because they’d own enough property to recreate small neighborhoods and shopping areas. In other words, they could overcome the chicken-and-egg problems.

The Bush administration opposes the Baker plan, maybe because it sounds too much like government meddling in the free market. Someone should tell the White House there’s no free market in much of New Orleans to meddle in.

This isn’t some left-wing wacko idea. Baker himself has 91 percent lifetime approval rating from the American Conservative Union. Yet even he knows where there’s no market, the only way you get one is if some government body creates it.

If America could rebuild Europe after the Second World War with the Marshall Plan, we can certainly rebuild New Orleans with a revolving loan fund that will probably end up paying for itself.

This commentary originally appeared on Marketplace, public radio's only daily business news program, and is reprinted via a special arrangement between TomPaine.com and Robert Reich. Marketplace is produced by Minnesota Public Radio and is heard on 322 public radio stations nationwide. More online at www.marketplace.org

US government admits Hurricane Katrina lapses Forbes
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has acknowledged widespread lapses in the government response to Hurricane Katrina as a Congress report blasted the official failures. Chertoff told incredulous senators that when he went to bed on the night of the storm, which killed about 1,300 people, he did not believe that Katrina had been as bad as many people had predicted, Agence France-Presse reported. Chertoff took the blame for much of the criticism of government since the August 29 hurricane that devastated much of New Orleans and the US Gulf Coast. 'I'm accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department, the bad and the good,' he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. 'There are many lapses that occurred,' he admitted. 'It is completely correct to say that our logistics capability in Katrina was woefully inadequate,' Chertoff added, while promising changes by the time the next hurricane season starts in June. Separately, a report by a select committee of House of Representatives Republicans was released yesterday which concluded that planners had failed to act on warnings before Katrina laid waste to New Orleans and the surrounding region. 'Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare,' lawmakers said in the report.
US Homeland Security Chief Admits Mistakes in Hurricane Response Voice of America
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February 20, 2006
Panel Urges Corps to Study Oversight of Levees
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
The Army Corps of Engineers investigation into the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is overlooking one of the most important causes: organizational failures, according to an outside engineering group working officially with the corps.

The corps is spending about $20 million to understand the physical causes of the levee breaches that left more than 75 percent of New Orleans flooded. But the engineering group said the corps should also be looking into "discontinuity and chaos" in the creation and maintenance of the levees, according to a letter from the group to Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, the chief of the corps.

"No one person or organization is in charge of the New Orleans hurricane protection system," the group wrote. Local levee boards, parish governments, state agencies and bureaucracies within the corps operate independently and sometimes in conflict with one another, and they are all but destined to miss danger signs and perpetuate mistakes, said the group, known as the External Review Panel, or the E.R.P.

"It is obvious that the hurricane protection system for New Orleans failed miserably during Katrina," the group wrote. "That the system was so clearly overwhelmed and failed so catastrophically demonstrates to the E.R.P. that fundamental flaws were part of how the system was conceived and developed."

The review group was formed in October by the American Society of Civil Engineers at the request of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to review the corps' own investigation, which is known as the Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce. That force is composed of hundreds of experts from dozens of government agencies and private organizations.

The review group's work will, in turn, be assessed by another panel created by the National Research Council.

The inquiry by the corps involves the collection of physical evidence and data from the levee breaches, weather analysis, and intensive computational work to fully understand the forces of the storm. The corps is also creating an enormous physical model of part of the city to test the action of floodwaters within the drainage canals.

Corps officials have repeatedly said that questions about the many different organizations with roles in building and maintaining the levees were not part of their assignment.

"How decisions are made, who's responsible for what, when, where, how — those are all things I think everybody's acknowledged a need for," said Eugene Pawlik, a spokesman for the corps. They are not, however, part of what the interagency task force is trying to accomplish in the near term, he said; instead, "they are doing technical issues."

The members of the engineering review group, however, disagreed strongly with that approach.

"It is impossible for the E.R.P. to conceive a mechanism through which the levee system can be rebuilt and operated effectively and efficiently with such organizational discontinuity and chaos," the letter stated. "The E.R.P. recommends that organizational issues be assessed critically and thoroughly as soon as possible."

The letter concluded: "There are important lessons to be learned concerning the planning and design processes. As a nation, we must understand these lessons if we are to do better in protecting New Orleans and other American cities from the next major hurricane that strikes."

The group provided the letter, which accompanied its technical review of the corps' work so far, to The New York Times. Both are scheduled to be released to the public today.

Mr. Pawlik of the corps said organizational issues largely had to do with local political structures, and "that's got to be left to Louisiana" to correct. "It's not the corps' role to determine their composition."

Last week, the Louisiana Legislature approved a constitutional amendment to consolidate the patchwork of local levee boards in the New Orleans area.

As for any issues within the corps itself, Mr. Pawlik said he could address only the present. "What the organization was and how the decisions were made in the 60's or 70's isn't something I can comment on," he said, adding that the corps had been run efficiently in recent years.

"Currently," Mr. Pawlik said, "we have a pretty solid chain of command laid out as to who is responsible — not only in the New Orleans area, but where decisions are made and how decisions are made for civil engineering projects across the nation."

The review group was asked to study only the research by the task force, an assignment that critics said would ensure that larger questions of responsibility and organizational failures would go unexamined.

Dr. David E. Daniel, the head of the review panel, said his group insisted on addressing those points. "We felt a responsibility to weigh in, if you will, on these larger matters," he said.

Dr. Daniel is a civil engineer and president of the University of Texas at Dallas. The language in the documents, he acknowledged, is stronger than what is typically found in engineering reports.

"We intentionally selected forceful language," he said, "to reflect the seriousness and urgency of the issues we raised."



Copyright 2006The New York Times

White House to Issue Own Katrina Report
By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

The White House will make 125 recommendations for how the government could have reacted better to Hurricane Katrina in a report to be released Thursday on the catastrophe and the Bush administration's response to it.

The findings are expected to be critical of the government's response, but not as harsh as a separate House report issued last week, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The House study faulted the White House for not getting involved earlier in the planning for and aftermath of the Aug. 29 storm.

President Bush will host a Cabinet meeting Thursday morning to assess the report. The review was led by White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.

Days after Katrina struck, Bush said he accepted responsibility for the government's widely criticized response to the storm, which killed more than 1,300 people and forced hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents to abandon their damaged or destroyed homes.

"It is a very comprehensive review — every Cabinet department and agency was involved in this review," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

"What we want to do is take a close look at what worked and what didn't work and apply those lessons to the future," he said.

In all, the 125 recommendations will focus on improving the government's ability to respond to catastrophic natural disasters or terrorist attacks, McClellan said.

He said great work was done in the aftermath of the hurricane, including Coast Guard rescue efforts that saved an estimated 33,000 people.

"But there are other areas where all levels of government fell short — the federal, the state and the local," McClellan said.

Last week, the House issued 90 of its own findings about failures at all levels of government responding to Katrina. The Republican-led House report also found that earlier involvement by President Bush could have spurred a faster response.

The Senate is finishing its own investigation of the failed response, due next month.

"We'll take a look at the Congress' review as well, and their recommendations," McClellan said. "But it's important that we move forward and apply these lessons learned."




Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Katrina report recommends clearer Pentagon role 35 minutes ago

The Pentagon should have a clearer role in responding to future disasters like hurricane Katrina, the White House said on Thursday in a review offering 125 recommendations for improving emergency management.

The recommendation was among 125 the review made for President George W. Bush, who has been widely criticized for his administration's response. The review identified 11 changes it said should be implemented before June 1, the start of the next hurricane season.

Recommendations included making sure federal, state and local officials were working together and in close proximity in the event of another disaster.

In cases where there are advance warnings, ensuring that an interagency Federal Joint Field Office is in place to coordinate and direct federal support.

The review also called for embedding a Defense Department contact at the Joint Field Office and Federal Emergency Management Agency regional offices to improve coordination of military resources.

"The 2006 hurricane season is just over three months away. Even while the process to implement the lessons learned from Katrina is underway, there are specific steps the federal government can and should take now to be better prepared for future emergencies," the White House said.

The White House review, led by Frances Townsend, homeland security adviser to Bush, comes after a congressional report harshly criticized the federal response to the disaster that left New Orleans and other areas along the Gulf Coast flooded and thousands of residents homeless.

A report by congressional Republicans last week said federal emergency agencies were unprepared for last year's hurricane and quicker White House involvement might have improved their response.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has acknowledged that his department was overwhelmed by the August 29 storm but has rejected the suggestion he and Bush were unresponsive.




Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.


Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Delay possible on ports, Dems want probe San Jose Mercury News
Bush administration officials opened the door Thursday to a delay in allowing a state-owned United Arab Emirates company to assume significant operations at six US ports as lawmakers pushed for a new 45-day investigation of the deal. The company, Dubai Ports World, signaled to Congress that it, too, would be willing to accept a short delay while lawmakers review the deal. "People don't need to worry about security," President Bush said shortly before administration officials who approved the transaction told a Senate committee their 90-day review did not turn up a single national security concern to justify blocking it. Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, said Bush was willing to accept a slight delay in Dubai Ports World's purchase of terminal leases and other operations at six U.S. ports from a British company. "There's no requirement that it close, you know, immediately after" a British government review of the $6.8 billion purchase is completed next week, Rove said on Fox Radio's "Tony Snow Show." "What is important is that members of Congress have the time to get fully briefed on this." Lobbyists for Dubai Ports World indicated that while the company is eager to close the deal, it is willing to agree to a delay to satisfy demands by members of Congress, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Nonetheless, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada sought quick action on legislation relating to the deal when Congress returns to Washington next week. In a letter to Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Reid said the administration's handling of the deal "could not be more flawed." Reid said he was alarmed at the failure of the administration to "exercise the full statutory authority to conduct a complete investigation into the potential national security implications of this deal." Also Thursday, administration officials said that weeks before Dubai Ports World sought U.S. approval for the deal, the UAE contributed $100 million to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
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March 1, 2006
Storm's Missing: Lives Not Lost but Disconnected
By SHAILA DEWAN
BATON ROUGE, La. — As far as Curtis Broussard Jr. is concerned, he is not missing. He is in Missouri City, Tex., where he plans to stay. But according to the State of Louisiana, Mr. Broussard, formerly of Cherry Street, New Orleans, has not been found.

His daughter, Antonette Murray, had not heard from him since Hurricane Katrina. In January, she finally reported him to the state, expecting to hear back that he was dead. But though he was added to the missing list, other family members had known of his whereabouts since September, and a reporter recently put Mr. Broussard back in touch with his daughter after a few telephone calls.

Despite intensive efforts to reach the scattered refugees of Hurricane Katrina, nearly 2,000 such names remain on the state's list of people still unaccounted for, out of 12,000 that had once been reported. Even now, new missing persons reports trickle in; there were 99 over the two-week period that ended Feb. 5.

But officials say the number is less a measure of the storm's lethal power, or even of the lives it upended, than of the trauma, disarray and instability that persist half a year later. Only about 300 of those on the list are believed to have died in the flooding; many of the rest are adrift in America, having failed, for a variety of reasons, to remain in touch with their own families. A call center set up by the state to reunite families has struggled to get government financing and research tools.

Many of the recent reports of missing people are from distant relatives or friends looking for news. But others are more urgent: they come from mothers looking for their children's father; from families who have just found a relative's body in New Orleans and need to register that person officially, a requirement before a body can be released by the authorities; or from people who seem only now to be able to assume any task beyond day-to-day survival.

"We get some calls that say, 'I just thought about my fiancé is missing,' " said Lenora Green, shaking her head in a mixture of sympathy and disbelief. "It's like they just click back into reality because of the shock they're going through."

Ms. Green is a shift supervisor at the Find Family National Call Center, a vast array of cubicles, computers and telephones in a former sporting goods store in Baton Rouge, created after the hurricane to help people locate loved ones, living or dead. The call center is a collection place, not just of names and vital statistics, but of the most intimate stories of a poor city broken apart by crisis.

They include every permutation in the grand mosaic of human relationships, an intricate design of unpaid child support, paranoia, grudges, helplessness and anguish, the lonely cul-de-sacs of estrangement and old age.

"Some people are just getting out of jail," Ms. Green said. "Some, it's like baby-mama drama, I call it."

Some evacuees simply do not have access to the one human link most taken for granted: the telephone. Numbers have been changed, disconnected, rinsed away. "That's how I got lost," said Alvin Alphonse Jr., who was put on the missing list by a former girlfriend claiming to be his cousin. "I didn't have anybody written down, no numbers, nothing."

Scott Shepherd, another call center worker, allowed one couple to use the telephone at the center after they told him they did not have one.

After the call, he led the woman to a brass bell the workers ring every time someone is located.

"I was able to let that woman ring the bell for her own sister," Mr. Shepherd said.

Officials at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which helps reunite parents with their children, said they had had to adjust to some stark facts about a population that did not have access to phones, computers or in some cases even television. One reunion involved a child who had been left in the care of a neighbor who could not read or write.

But again, said Ernie Allen, president of the center, the problem is more fractured families than orphaned waifs. The most pressing cases, in which parents let their children have the first seats in rescue helicopters, or pushed them to the front of the line to board buses at the Superdome, have been resolved. The center has 131 children remaining on its list, down from more than 5,000.

"The vast majority of these kids are with a dad or a mother or a brother," Mr. Allen said. "They're not alone, but they're separated from some key person in their families."

Initially, families were told to contact the call center if they thought a loved one might have died in the storm. But some families have put off calling because they see it as an admission that they have lost hope. Still others have made a report but refused to fill out an eight-page "victim identification profile," which lists details like tattoos and jewelry. Without such a form, a body at the morgue might never be identified.

Cheryl Spooner, a call center worker who has used databases, the Internet and hunches to locate the missing, said one of her difficult cases was a mentally disabled man who had been in a group home in New Orleans. She cannot find the man, and she cannot find the home's owner. But the family does not want to fill out the profile or supply DNA for a match. "The brother is saying, 'We're going to keep searching for my brother. We don't want to do that right now,' " Ms. Spooner said.

She and other workers also regularly call back those who have reported someone missing, to see if they have made contact on their own.

Of the 12,000 reports taken by the call center, which is run by the state health department and staffed in part by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster mortuary team, more than 8,000 people have been found alive. But for the center's staff members, who might talk to a single caller a dozen times, it is the saddest stories that linger.

One woman waited months to report her daughter missing because she rarely heard from her anyway, and the place where her daughter stayed in the city had not flooded, said Bonnie Riley, a part-time minister who keeps her Bible close to the phone as she answers calls. But when the mother finally went back to New Orleans, she learned that her daughter had gone to the store after the storm. "And that's when the levees broke," Ms. Riley said, adding that the daughter was presumed to have drowned and been washed away.

Because many bodies may never be recovered, it may take years to learn how many of the 1,880 people on the missing list are dead, but the current estimate is around 300, which is based in part on the number of names about which there are repeated inquiries, said Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state emergency medical director. The total number of deaths so far in Louisiana is 1,080.

The call center has had its share of obstacles. Because of database incongruities, about a dozen people are listed as both missing and dead. It has no access to commercial databases that charge a fee to supply information about people, which is why a reporter with such access was able to put Mr. Broussard in touch with his daughter when the center had not. Because of privacy concerns, it has only recently been given access to FEMA's list of people who have applied for housing assistance, said Henry Yennie, the deputy director of operations at the center.

But for many, the center is the only hope, as other Internet sites for evacuees start to disappear. A spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, Kathleen Salanik, said its Web site, katrinasafe.com, was about to be taken down because it was no longer of use. "We know from previous disasters that the greatest need is in the first two to four weeks," Ms. Salanik said. But, she added, 11 people had posted or updated information on the site in the last 24 hours.

One of the center's tasks is to find the next of kin of the dead. That job falls to Christine Niss, a medical legal investigator who says it is as much art as science. "You have to sit and think about where they might leave a trace of themselves," Ms. Niss said, explaining how one victim's emphysema, revealed in an autopsy, had led her to his family.

She found a hospital in New Orleans where he had been a patient before the storm and had listed a next of kin.

In another case, her trail led her to several family members before she reached the victim's brother. "The whole family ended up getting back together and mending fences," Ms. Niss said. The brother was so grateful, she said, he called her right after the funeral. "There were still people in his house eating the deviled eggs."

Brenda Goodman contributed reporting from Atlanta for this article, and Janet Roberts from New York..



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

High Post-Hurricane Rents Push People Out Of New Orleans
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/High_Pos...ew_Orleans.html

New Orleans LO (AFP) Feb 28, 2006 - With her silver beaded tarot card table, Leah DeLeon has become a familiar face in New Orleans's Jackson Square.But when the faithful walk out of St. Louis Cathedral with ash on their foreheads Wednesday, DeLeon will take it as a sign that it's time to get ready to leave the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina
By MARGARET EBRAHIM and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush's confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

_Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

_Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."

_Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

"We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying — not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?"

Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now."

Chertoff: "Good job."

In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome — which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response — would be safe and have adequate medical care.

"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."

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Associated Press writers Ron Fournier and Lara Jakes Jordan contributed to this story.

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