Katrina Coverage

From this:
The Republican chairman of a House panel investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina threatened Wednesday to issue subpoenas for documents if the White House and other agencies don't provide them by Nov. 18.
Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia made the commitment after a Louisiana Democrat, Charlie Melancon, pointed out the panel still hadn't seen some […]

From Panel Still Waiting for Hurricane Katrina Papers:
The Republican who heads a Congressional panel investigating the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina complained Wednesday that the Bush administration had failed to turn over documents the panel requested weeks ago.
The official, Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, […]

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Donald Powell - a "longtime friend and political supporter of President Bush" - has been appointed to lead the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort, aka the Rebuilding Czar:
According to the Department of Homeland Security, as coordinator, Powell will serve as the administration's primary contact with Congress, state and local governments, the […]

As previously discussed, former FEMA head Michael Brown is still on their payroll. Now, DHS head Michael Chertoff says:
"It's important to allow the new people who have the responsibility … to have access to the information we need to do better… We don't want to sacrifice the real ability to get a full picture of […]

What fool pays retail? The feds! According to the NYT's "Federal Agencies Often Paid Retail for Hurricane Aid".
While it concentrates on what they bought, it also contains the interesting info that just 20 DHS employees had those infamous charge cards with $250,000 limits:
Mr. Orluskie, of the Homeland Security Department, said that far from giving out […]

Your eyes might feel slimy after reading this report, but this bit needs some research:
On August 30, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff labeled Katrina "an incident of national significance." In doing so, he set into action the National Response Plan (NRP). Secrecy News, published by the Federation of American Scientists, points out that […]

According to Shots at helicopters shrouded in a 'fog', the official word from the Air Force, Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security and Louisiana Air National Guard is that they haven't been able to confirm any incidents of shots being fired at helicopters. The same goes for "members of several rescue crews who were told […]

The article "FEMA troubles no shock to previous chief" reports the thoughts of former head of FEMA Joe Allbaugh:
[He says:] "FEMA has been broken for quite some time…"
The FEMA that he directed did a good job responding to the 9-11 terrorist attacks four years ago, he said. But now it suffers as one of 22 […]

Here's an important story awaiting some in-depth investigation (which it probably won't receive, but what the hey).
There's an internal news bureau at the DHS that rewrites wire and newspaper stories for workers there. There's a previous example of this in “A disturbing view from inside FEMA”: An odd CNN, FEMA, Blanco loop.
The post "DHS internal […]

This completely unconfirmed post says that FEMA and the DHS might have been looking at different weather forecasts: one from the National Weather Service, and the other from Accuweather. Developing:
The Senate Commerce Committee held hearings this afternoon on Katrina. The House Science Committee will be holding hearing Wednesday morning (9/21). Sen. Ben Nelson (Florida) asked […]