Katrina Coverage

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 […]

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 […]

The AP offers "New Orleans Mayor Asks Residents to Return", which reports on Nagin visiting Atlanta to plead with residents to return. It includes this quote from a former resident:
"There is nowhere to buy food or get gas. It's chaotic… Bringing us back to living in poverty is not a new beginning. How can a […]

this:
The New Orleans mayor urged Congress on Thursday to provide aid to homeowners hurt by Hurricane Katrina, cautioning that thousands of poor Louisiana residents might not return otherwise.
"We're running out of time on individuals deciding whether to move back, when to move back … and whether they're comfortable they have the resources to move back," […]

From this:
Huge stretches of the city are fallow: no power, no water, no sewer system, no life. Half the city workforce has been laid off, not a single public school is open, and the police department is being run by an acting chief after its former head quit. Mayor C. Ray Nagin is forced to […]

Amelia Davis, principal of Tri-Cities High School in East Point, GA, was suspended for 10 days for using what the Fulton County school board determined to be "inappropriate and inflammatory" language when speaking about Mayor Ray Nagin. She made the remarks on 9/9 before evacuee students, and she returned to work last week.
So, what did […]

From this:
Mayor Ray Nagin was back in the nation’s capital Thursday. This time he met with President George W. Bush about the lack of temporary housing in the Crescent City.
Nagin also discussed concerns over the levee protection system, who will pay for its reconstruction and how to create incentives to bring residents and businesses back […]

Nagin implores residents to return, rebuild
Gov. Kathleen Blanco's top adviser on rebuilding Louisiana after this year's hurricanes said Monday that Blanco and the commission she appointed to oversee recovery planning "will continue to make sure the state's most important city is front and center in the recovery process."
Andy Kopplin, formerly Blanco's chief of staff and […]

From 6 months for power, Nagin says:
Saying it might be six months before power is restored to all of eastern New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin urged a spillover audience of mostly displaced eastern New Orleans residents in Baton Rouge to join Entergy Corp.'s fight to get federal money to rebuild the severely damaged utilities system.
Entergy […]

From Her Waning Fortunes:
…The good news for Blanco is that her Louisiana Recovery Authority (LRA) is getting some legs after just three weeks of existence. This week several hundred leading design and planning professionals will meet with local leaders (by invitation only) for a three-day Louisiana Recovery and Rebuilding Conference at the Marriott Hotel. The […]