Documents Show Katrina's Political Storm

Blanco Releases Katrina Records
La. Governor Seeks to 'Set the Record Straight'

By Joby Warrick, Spencer S. Hsu and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page A01

Thousands of documents released by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Friday night shed new light on clashes between state officials, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the Bush administration as they struggled to respond to Hurricane Katrina.

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We need everything you've got," Blanco is quoted in a memo as telling President Bush on Aug. 29, the day Katrina made landfall. But despite assurances from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that 500 buses were "standing by," Blanco's aides were compelled to take action when the FEMA buses failed to materialize, documents show. "We need buses," Andy Kopplin, chief of staff to Blanco, said in an e-mail to Blanco staffers late on Aug. 30, the day after the storm hit. "Find buses that can go to NO ASAP."

Two days later, on Sept. 2, Blanco complained to the White House that FEMA had still failed to fulfill its promises of aid. While cloaked in customary political courtesies, Blanco noted that she had already requested 40,000 more troops; ice, water and food; buses, base camps, staging areas, amphibious vehicles, mobile morgues, rescue teams, housing, airlift and communications systems, according to a press office e-mail of the text of her letter to Bush.

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Blanco has been struggling to repair her image after being widely criticized for the state's initial response to Katrina. In contrast to reports that she was indecisive and overwhelmed, the new documents portray her as assertive, if somewhat beleaguered. "I believe my biggest mistake was believing FEMA officials who told me that the necessary federal resources would be available in a timely fashion," Blanco wrote in one memo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301480.html

In Newly Released Documents, a View of the Storm After Katrina

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - It was Thursday, Sept. 1, three days after Hurricane Katrina had ripped across the Gulf Coast. As New Orleans descended into horror, the top aides to Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana were certain the White House was trying to blame their boss, and they were becoming increasingly furious.

"Bush's numbers are low, and they are getting pummeled by the media for their inept response to Katrina and are actively working to make us the scapegoats," Bob Mann, Ms. Blanco's communications director, wrote in an e-mail message that afternoon, outlining plans by Washington Democrats to help turn the blame back onto President Bush.

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In the documents, Ms. Blanco and her advisers, as well as some outside allies, defended her decision to reject a request by the Bush administration to take control of the National Guard forces.

"If Bush and FEMA couldn't deliver meals after 5 days how could LA expect them to take over our Natl Guard and do better job????" John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who is now a Washington lawyer, wrote in an e-mail message to Mr. Mann.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/national/nationalspecial/04blanco.html?hp&ex=1133672400&en=051f8193d8c7dcef&ei=5094&partner=homepage

From the transcript of FRONTLINE: The Storm

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NARRATOR: Andrew was compact, just 60 miles across, with ferocious 175-mile-an-hour winds. But it missed Miami.

BILLY WAGNER: The news media, the first thing they did was go to Miami Beach and around Miami, and they said, "Oh, yeah," you know, "it doesn't look too bad." And nobody even paid any attention to poor Florida City or even Homestead. I could tell when I got up there that nobody in the state of Florida could handle the situation.

NARRATOR: The storm had damaged or destroyed 125,000 homes. Thousands were stranded without food or water. Overwhelmed, local emergency managers waited for FEMA.

KATE HALE, Dade Emergency Mgr., 1988-'96: And we waited and we waited. And it became apparent that the outside world really didn't get what was going on, really didn't understand how desperate the situation was, and you're looking at people in your community dying as a result of it. We had people from FEMA telling us that they couldn't give us the resources cause we hadn't asked the right way.

JANE BULLOCK: We simply didn't get the resources down there in time. We had no relationship with the State of Florida, so we weren't sitting with the governor finding out what was going wrong, and we were dysfunctional, just as we— as FEMA was dysfunctional during Hurricane Katrina.

KATE HALE: At that point in time, it became apparent that we needed to do something extraordinary. We had nowhere else to go.

((1992)press conference) If we do not get more food and water into the South End in a very short period of time, we are going to have more casualties because we're going to have people who are dehydrated, who are without food, babies that need formula. All I know are a lot of people are saying why aren't we doing more. We're doing everything we can. Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one?

Within three hours, apparently, the switchboard of the White House was just absolutely inundated with calls from all over the United States. The Pentagon was activated in three hours.

REPORTER: Mr. President, do you, as president, bear some responsibility for the delay in federal help?

Pres. GEORGE H. W. BUSH: We're not talking about delays. The military was ready to move instantly— hot planning right from the very beginning.

NARRATOR: President Bush nudged his FEMA director to the sidelines and inserted his secretary of transportation, Andrew Card, as fix-it man.

ANDREW CARD: This is not a time to stand around and talk, it's a time to get busy, and that's what I'm down here doing.

NARRATOR: Card was immediately besieged with questions over why it had taken five days to send in the troops.

ANDREW CARD: As soon as Governor Chiles made the request for federal troops to come in and assist, we acted on that request.

Pres. GEORGE H.W. BUSH: I don't want to participate in the blame game, and nor is Governor Chiles....

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/storm/etc/script.html>

(more at link above)