Katrina Coverage

The WaPo reports on the many sub and sub-sub contractors required to perform contracts in "Multiple Layers Of Contractors Drive Up Cost of Katrina Cleanup". One example they present is that of the FEMA buses.
Now, here's what the WaPo isn't telling you. In the article, they refer to "Spanish-speaking crews" doing roofing work. That's the […]

Instead of going to the beach or the mountains, some college students on spring break went to New Orleans to help in the clean-up: "In New Orleans, an industrious kind of spring break":
The next night at Light City, off St. Claude here in New Orleans, the group from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, […]

The post Trabajo — and I DO mean "HO" describes an encounter at a gas station where a presumed illegal alien prostitute propositioned another man. All funny-weird and all, but for those who want to the real screwing New Orleans is about to get, consider this comment:
Some people I know in the law enforcement community […]

There are some pictures inside a lot in Hope Arkansas where unused FEMA trailers are stored here. Row upon row upon row. Now, of course, I have no way to verify the report, and it comes second-hand. However, a trucker who delivered some of them claims that they're deluxe units, complete with microwave ovens, new […]

Retired Newsday reporter Lou Dolinar offers this look-on-the-bright-side look at the response to Katrina.
Admittedly strongly influenced by the fact that it was linked to by Insty, I'm putting this article in the "explain away" rather than "explain" column.
For instance, he says that "fewer than 1,000 bodies have been found in all of Louisiana".
The passive construction […]

From this March 3 CNN transcript come these claims from former FEMA head Michael Brown:
- FEMA had been marginalized.
- He thinks Michael Chertoff should quit or be fired.
- He thinks Chertoff was misleading the American public about Brown appearing on TV and characterizing it as show-boating.
And, this:
MESERVE: In the transcripts of the 29th briefing, you […]

The Associated Press has issued the following voluntary confession:
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among […]

Around noon on the day when Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco told the Bush administration that the levees were safe:
"We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees… We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not […]

Four days after Katrina, George W Bush said:
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
However, videos obtained by the AP shows internal Bush administration briefings, including one in which Bush and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff were told that the levees might breach:
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush […]

(Via this)