Katrina Coverage

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 […]

Enter your best caption of this Reuters pic of the Louisiana governor below.

Kathleen Blanco is taking some heat for allegedly using various politicians as a backdrop for the start of her special session. Be that as it may:
…Blanco has included two housing issues on the agenda, as well as consolidation of governmental and court agencies in Orleans Parish; consolidating levee boards in South Louisiana; and setting in […]

Late last year came the news that Kathleen Blanco had ordered precisely $564,838 worth of remodeling done on her offices… after Katrina.
The article said the single costliest portion of the final bill was $44,000 for walnut trim and granite countertops.
Jerry Jones, director of the state Office of Facility Planning and Control, said the sixth floor […]

As of mid-November, the number of recoveries had dwindled to a one or two a week, and Kenyon International Emergency Services' contract to do collections ended around that time.
The backstory is in this story from 11/16:
Kenyon… first arrived in the storm-ravaged region Sept. 7 as a short-term contractor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Six […]

I believe an unaired Kathleen Blanco interview is available at this link. If that link doesn't work, go here and search for "Trailer Crunch". Presumably it's about the housing situation, but since it didn't make it on to ABC's news that probably means either that there's nothing in there, or there is something but they're […]

A set of emails released by Congress show Blanco's aides offering wardrobe and image advice:
…In a Sept. 4 e-mail exchange, top Blanco aides bristled at Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's remark that the federal government "is in control of New Orleans."
"Our answer is the National Guard is in charge of security under her direction," Blanco […]

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 […]

On September 4, Kim Fuller, press consultant from Witt Associates, sent an email to various Kathleen Blanco aides. It included the following:
"Gov. Blanco might dress down a bit and look like she has rolled up her sleeves… I have some great Liz Claiborne sports clothes that look kind of Eddie Bauer, but with class, but […]

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, […]