Documents Show Katrina’s Political Storm

WASHINGTON (AP) Dec. 3 — Gov. Kathleen Blanco released 100,000 pages of memos, handwritten notes, e-mails, phone logs and other documents requested by congressional committees that are now investigating what happened behind the scenes in the frantic days surrounding the deadly Aug. 29 storm.

Among those documents are the back-and-forth communications between Blanco’s office and the White House, starting with a letter Blanco sent President Bush a day before the hurricane hit.

“I have determined that this incident will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the state and the affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary,” Blanco wrote.

Three days after the storm, Blanco wrote Bush asking that the 256th Louisiana National Guard Brigade be sent home from Iraq to help. The governor also asked for more generators, medicine, health care workers and mortuaries.

Five days later, Bush assistant Maggie Grant e-mailed Blanco aide Paine Gowen to say that the White House did not receive the letter.

“We found it on the governor’s Web site but we need ‘an original,’ for our staff secretary to formally process the requests she is making,” Grant wrote. “We are on the job but appreciate your help with a technical request. Tnx!”

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The stack of documents also includes a timeline put together by Blanco’s staff detailing the state response; notes expressing frustration about missing items such as a communications center for police and rescuers promised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and police reports, including logs of calls from people trapped amid the floodwater. Other documents show how Blanco’s aids were inundated with requests from celebrities and dignitaries wanting to visit the city.

‘How can we be having Mardi Gras and we aren’t even there?’

ATLANTA — Yearning for information on the availability of housing and utilities three months after Hurricane Katrina submerged New Orleans, more than 1,000 homesick residents crowded an Atlanta auditorium to share their frustrations and fatigue with Mayor Ray Nagin.

Morehouse College was the latest stop on Nagin’s town hall meeting tour, a session that was part pep rally, part call to action and part group therapy. Atlanta officials said about 45,000 families sought refuge in their city.

“What we do together as we become one voice today, Washington will have to listen; those who are in authority will have to listen, because these are too many folk to mess with,” Bishop Paul Morton of Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church said as the crowd erupted into cheers.


Homes with blue tarps, debris and repair work in progress
in a controversial Lakeside Mall Christmas display.
 

Nagin sought to allay fears by giving a status report on the condition of the city. He told residents that Entergy New Orleans has committed to restoring power to all of eastern New Orleans by January, and that 1,100 businesses have reopened, along with access to hospitals, public buses and Louis Armstrong International Airport.

He acknowledged that housing remains a problem, with 12,000 people on a waiting list for trailers from the FEMA and the location of trailers in public parks sparking protests by residents and some City Council members. There’s also the issue of skyrocketing rent for the limited properties in the city.

Trailer confusion abounds in city

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