Katrina Coverage

NBC's Brian Williams conducted a long interview with president Bush, and the section about Katrina has Bush:
- repeating his blame-taking for the weak federal response ("to the extent that the federal government was ineffective, I'm responsible")
- given the opportunity to blame Blanco, Nagin, or others, he said "we're beyond that"
- he was watching the TV […]

People who sought refuge outside the 10 states that absorbed most of the evacuees from hurricanes Rita and Katrina may remain in hotels at the government's expense while their applications for rental assistance are processed, officials announced Saturday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency continues to pay for an estimated 42,000 hotel rooms in 47 states and […]

From this:
Evacuees hoping to preserve a government program providing hotel rooms to those displaced by Hurricane Katrina have their day in court on Friday, when a federal judge hears an array of complaints against the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In addition to hearing claims that Katrina victims face unfair and premature eviction from hotels, Judge Stanwood […]

On Wednesday morning, Aug 31, Blanco's staff stopped trying to arrange schoolbuses for the evacuation. They believed that Fema was sending them buses. Not only that, they thought the military would use Chinook helicopters to airlift people out of the Superdome.
Then, when that didn't happen by the afternoon, Blanco started the search for buses again, […]

Monday 8/29, early morning: hurricane strikes
Monday 8/29, later that morning: Fox might have broadcast news of the break(s)
Monday 8/29, early afternoon: breaches reported to NO authorities [1]
Monday 8/29, 6pm : confirmed in a summary distributed by the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness [1]
Monday 8/29, "later in the day" : Blanco finds out […]

Perhaps it's both. Secretary of State Al Ater says that Feb. 4's New Orleans election cannot be held because of destroyed voting machines, scattered commisioners, and the like. However, delaying the elections to Sep. 2006 will also give LA time to get back all those constituents, most of whom are - quite coincidentally I'm sure […]

You can download several PDFs here listing various rebuilding contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and dear old DoD. They also have tips on how to pay for all that reconstruction.

FEMA has spent at least $250 million on hotel rooms for evacuees, and 53,000 families are still staying in rooms. They intend to stop paying for that on December 1.

Rep. Gary Smith's family owns a motorcycle shop near New Orleans, and they've received a contract for 6,400 housing trailers. The three contracts were no-bid and they're worth $108 million. And, the shop didn't get the license required to sell new trailers until after the first contract had been inked:
…Smith's uncle, Glen Smith, said he […]

Apparently the feds could learn from America's favorite retailer:
…Wal-Mart, for example, was able to move food, water, generators and other goods to areas hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita following each storm because it has an emergency operations center that is staffed every day around the clock by decision-makers who have access to all of […]