Katrina Coverage

The Sun Herald | 10/16/2005 | Surveyors: Storm water topped at least 28 feet
…On Scenic Drive in Pass Christian, there's a water mark inside a house that's been measured at roughly 28 feet. Two others in the neighborhood confirm it.
At Interstate 10's Jourdan River bridge in Hancock County, there's a debris line on the east […]

From this:
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour says that of the 900 people reported missing immediately after Hurricane Katrina first hit the state, only about 100 are still missing. The state death toll remains at 221, but as many as 80 of those bodies have not been identified.
Barbour says it's difficult to know whether those 80 people […]

In this interview, Mississippi governor Haley Barbour says, among many other things:
- FEMA did more right than wrong
- "Within hours and only a couple of days you already had the vast majority of people who not only were helping themselves, but were helping their neighbors."
- he wants the feds to pay at least 75% of […]

From this:
It looks like Mississippi is getting left out when it comes to hurricane rebuilding contracts…
Adams Home Center in Yazoo City thought it had two sub-contracts to supply 450 portable classrooms to the Gulf Coast but an Alaskan Management Company pulled the rug out from under them.
"We were ready and capable of doing this project […]

All the Red Cross Financial Assistance centers in south Mississippi closed over the weekend. The only one open was in Picayune. The Red Cross says they needed to catch up on paperwork: 70,000 claims filed in the last week.
This results in the article "Red Cross closes early, vexes many" containing the complaints of those who […]

Mississippi doesn't have a statewide building code, so some houses in that state might have been destroyed or made inhabitable, while other nearby houses might be OK. And, small things like "nails and extra bolts" might have made all the difference:
…The review was completed by a five-person team organized by the University of Alabama. University […]

OK, prepare yourself. I'm linking to a complete DU thread, but it has lots of interesting links and it raises some interesting questions. Here it is.
Note that it links to this controversial 8/31/05 FR thread: "Astonishing Exclusive From Mississippi [hundreds if not thousands dead]".
In any case, there's the possibility that we aren't being told the […]

Bush visited the Gulf Coast yesterday and made it clear that he and other officials are keeping a close eye on Hurricane Rita:
"We're watching very closely, of course, its track," Bush said later at a Folgers coffee plant in Louisiana that recently restarted operations. "All up and down the coastline people are now preparing for […]

The state of Mississippi is suing various insurance companies that are trying to avoid paying out billions of dollars. Apparently the policies have provisions restricting damage to wind and rain, rather than flooding. Only about 30% of houses in the affected areas of MS and Alabama had flood insurance.
UPDATE: There's a later roundup in "Lawsuits […]

From "Ex-FEMA Chief Tells of Frustration and Chaos":
Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29, as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael D. Brown recalls, he placed frantic calls to his boss, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and to the office of the White House chief of staff, Andrew […]