Jackson Free Press

But he's coming ... Clarion-Ledger is reporting:

Facing sharp criticism, President Bush opened a tour of the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast on Friday by vowing the government will restore order in lawless New Orleans and saying the $10.5 billion being approved by Congress is just a small downpayment for disaster relief.

"I'm not looking forward to this trip," Bush said as he set out for a firsthand look at the destruction in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

"It's as if the entire Gulf Coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine," the president said.

Bush opened the day at the White House where he expressed unhappiness with the efforts so far to provide food and water to hurricane victims and to stop looting and lawlessness in New Orleans. "The results are not acceptable," said Bush, who rarely admits failure.

The president's comments came after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin lashed out at federal officials, telling a local radio station "they don't have a clue what's going on down here."

Even Republicans were criticizing Bush and his administration for the sluggish relief effort. "I think it puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years, because if we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Previous Comments

ID

134173

Comment

From the Sun-Herald today: Four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons, churning through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy with orders to retake the streets and bring relief to the suffering. "The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said one general. The trucks began arriving at the New Orleans Convention Center, where 15,000 to 20,000 hungry and desperate refugees had taken shelter - many of them seething with anger so intense that the place appeared ready to erupt in violence at any moment. For a day or more, corpses lay abandoned outside the building, and many storm refugees complained bitterly that they had been forsaken by the government. The open-topped trucks carried huge boxes of relief supplies. Soldiers sat in the backs of some of the trucks, their rifles pointing skyward. The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine. "The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows." In Washington, President Bush admitted "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster the relief efforts. He visited the stricken Gulf Coast, and pledged in Mobile, Ala.: "What is not working right, we're going to make it right."

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-02T11:25:14-06:00

ID

134174

Comment

An analysis by Ron Fournier of AP of the bumbling relief effort and emergency preparedness: At every turn, political leaders failed Katrina's victims. They didn't strengthen the levees. They ceded the streets to marauding looters. They left dead bodies to rot or bloat. Thousands suffered or died for lack of water, food and hope. Who's at fault? There's plenty of blame to go around ó the White House, Congress, federal agencies, local governments, police and even residents of the Gulf Coast who refused orders to evacuate. But all the finger-pointing misses the point: Politicians and the people they lead too often ignore danger signs until a crisis hits. It wasn't a secret that levees built to keep New Orleans from flooding could not withstand a major hurricane, but government leaders never found the money to fully shore up the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers. Both the Bush and Clinton administrations proposed budgets that low-balled the needs. Local politicians grabbed whatever money they could and declared victory. And the public didn't exactly demand tax increases to pay for flood-control and hurricane-protection projects.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-02T11:29:27-06:00

ID

134175

Comment

CNN reports that Mayor Nagin of New Orleans told the federal government to "get off their asses," and that federal relief is finally arriving, as well as Bush: Thousands of people have been stranded at the Ernest Morial Convention Center with little help and surrounded by corpses, trash and human waste. "We got here, there's no food. There's no water. There's shooting. They're killing people," evacuee Tishia Walters told CNN from inside the center. "They're robbing men in the restrooms, they're raping women trying to go to the restroom. So people have resorted to defecating on the floors. You can't walk. There's babies without Pampers, mammas without milk. It's chaos total chaos." Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help. Earlier, Nagin lashed out at state and federal authorities saying they were "thinking small" in the face of the massive crisis. (See the mayor's demand for national leaders to 'get off their asses' -- 12:09)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-02T12:17:14-06:00

ID

134176

Comment

I heard Nagin's comments on TV this morning, and I started my own cheering section at home. Tell it like it T-I-is! Ted Koppel also gave the head of FEMA a good tongue-lashing on Nightline last night. I was yelling at the TV going, "Get him, Ted!" Hey, Koppel for President! Hee hee...

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2005-09-02T18:03:09-06:00

ID

134177

Comment

I know. "Get off their asses" is the most amazing thing I've heard in a long time. Screw the niceties when people are dying. Tell it like it is.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-09-02T18:30:26-06:00