Katrina Coverage

From Wired News:
Uncle Sam has tried to feed millions of hurricane victims this year with Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, only to fear that some of them have become Meals-Ready-for-eBay.
The government is looking into whether eBay sellers in Gulf Coast states are trying to profit from military foodstuffs handed out for free following hurricanes Katrina, Rita and […]

Louisiana's budget deficit got an official number today — nearly 971 million dollars lost in state tax income that the governor and lawmakers will have to slash from state spending in the remaining eight months of the budget year.
Economists warn the budget problems could worsen as they get more concrete details of the lost sales, […]

Foti: Levee Board president broke law
A unilateral decision in July by the Orleans Levee Board's then-president, Jim Huey, to pay himself nearly $100,000 in back salary was a clear violation of state law, Attorney General Charles Foti said Thursday in an opinion issued by his staff.
Furthermore, Foti wrote, the $1,000-a-month salary that Huey collected from […]

From this:
The LSU official in charge of the state's charity hospital system says it would cost $258 million to repair Charity Hospital and $395 million to replace it.
Don Smithburg, chief executive officer of the Louisiana State University Health Care Systems Division, told the LSU Board of Supervisors on Friday that federal guidelines call for replacing […]

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Gov. Kathleen Blanco charged her Louisiana Recovery Authority on Wednesday with what she termed "an awesome responsibility," namely "make real my vision of rebuilding a very strong and wonderful Louisiana."
Members of the authority gathered to be briefed on post-hurricane conditions and to tour the southeastern and southwestern sections of the state that hurricanes Katrina and […]

La. Gov. Blamed for Slow Removal of Bodies
Bodies of people killed by Hurricane Katrina went uncollected for more than a week in the New Orleans area as the federal government waited for Louisiana's governor to decide what to do with them, according to memos released Thursday by a Republican-led House committee.
The 38 pages of e-mail […]

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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin believes that the city will be larger and much safer in as little as five years.
Nagin made the proclamation in front of the City Council Thursday as he projected his budget for the upcoming year.
While anticipating a much smaller city initially, Nagin believes the opportunity to rebuild New Orleans will […]

Mayor's meeting a forum for questions and anger
Whether in search of information or group therapy, hundreds of people crowded into a Canal Street hotel ballroom Wednesday for the first of what are billed as weekly town hall meetings Mayor Ray Nagin will hold to update the public and hear their concerns.
The session was supposed to […]

From this:
As controversy continues to churn about Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's decision to evacuate more than 200 pump station workers the day before Hurricane Katrina, officials in New Orleans are vowing to take a hard look at their decision to require pump station workers to staff their posts, an order that endangered the lives […]

From this:
Two months after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's public hospital system is on the verge of financial collapse unless federal aid is forthcoming quickly, the head of the system said Thursday.
"We're out of money, roughly after Thanksgiving," said Donald Smithburg, chief executive of the LSU Health Care Services Division told reporters. "We are running out of […]