From the first anniverary of Katrina: A bit of manufactured British humor, and displayed here with permission, from the blog, Beau Bo D'Or, a name inspired by the Jerry Jeff Walker song, Mister Bojangles.

by Mark Silva, and updated

President Bush landed in New Orleans last night with a slap on the back for Mayor Ray Nagin and a hug and kiss for Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a reunion which belied the discord that dominated the dialog among federal, state and local authorities for months after Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans and the Gulf Coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

Today, on the second anniversary of the nation’s most costly natural disaster, Bush will make brief stops around New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Miss., pausing for moments of silence, but also to praise the progress made in two years – on this, his 15th visit to the hurricane-ravaged coast, praising the “quiet heroes who have helped bring optimism and hope.’’

The federal government has committed over $100 billion to the recovery, though critics say the majority of this money remains to be spent. And, even as the Crescent City has been refortified with the strongest levees ever, the federal hurricane coordinator says, much work remains to be done on the internal drainage systems of a city still rebounding two years after the storm.

"Hurricane Katrina broke through the levees, it broke a lot of hearts... but it didn't affect the spirit of a lot of citizens in this community,'' the president said today, visiting a charter school for young children, the first public school to reopen in the city's still stumbling Lower Ninth Ward. "My attitude is this: New Orleans, better days are ahead.

"This town is coming back,'' Bush said. "This town is better today than it was yesterday, and it's going to be better tomorrow than it was today.''

On his way to the school, once inundated by more than 12 feet of water, the president's motorcade crossed the Industrial Canal, where a new white cement flood wall on the levee on the east was painted with large red letters: "Hindsight"

Last night, the president and his hosts flew by helicopter and then proceeded by motorcade to Dooky Chase, a famous eatery that had been shuttered since Katrina and is scheduled to reopen in a couple of weeks. The president sat at a large table with his arm around owner Leah Chase.

“Ms. Chase, thank you for having us here,’’ Bush said last night. “Laura and I are thrilled to be here with the governor, and the mayor, and the senator, the congressmen, members of my Cabinet, distinguished leaders in this community, and quiet heroes who have helped bring optimism and hope to New Orleans.

Continue reading "Bush in New Orleans: 'Better Days are ahead'" »

Posted by Mark Silva at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (39)

New Orleans, after the storm. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration photo.

by Mark Silva

President Bush plans to return to New Orleans next week, for the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. He will return to a city still rebuilding from a hurricane and flooding.

The president, who took four days to reach New Orleans after the storm that overwhelmed the Crescent City and the Gulf Coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, will waste no time making his anniversary appointment. Bush plans to land there Tuesday, on the eve of the Katrina anniversary, spend the night, tour New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region on Wednesday, and then return to Washington from there.

This will mark the president's 15th visit to the region since Katrina.

"The president continues to follow through on his commitment to help local citizens rebuild their lives and communities on the Gulf Coast,'' spokesman Gordon Johndroe said today. "The federal government has provided more than $114 billion for relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts, over $96 billion of which has been disbursed or is available for states to draw from.''

The Democrats also will be marking the anniversary of an event which they maintain revealed the ineptitude and lack of compassion of the Bush administration. A series of town hall-styled events are planned, featuring Democratic congressmen from the region.

On Tuesday, the president will be competing with a town hall meeting in New Orleans with participants from all three Gulf Coast states hit by Katrina. It's the first in a region-wide commemoration that includes residents of the three most affected states, according to the Gulf Coast Collaborative for Recovery and Renewal.

The Tuesday session at Dillard University’s Lawless Memorial Chapel will be moderated by Derrick Johnson, head of the Mississippi NAACP.

The first panel from will focus on housing and economic development issues and will feature Reps. William Jefferson and Maxine Waters. Community leaders participating: Sam Arnold, STEPS Coalition (Mississippi Gulf Coast organization); Rhonda Feeley, New Orleans small business owner; Carlton Brown, housing developer in New Orleans and Mississippi; Dominique Diop, Policy Link (Louisiana organization); and Zack Carter, Alabama Arise.

The second panel will focus on health, safety and environmental issues and will include Reps. Bennie Thompson and Sheila Jackson-Lee. Community leaders: Monique Harden, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights; Paul Nelson, South Bay Community Alliance; Thao Vu, Boat People SOS; Mary Troup, Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities of Mississippi; and Rev. Tyronne Edwards, Placquemines Parish community leader and organizer.

Continue reading "Bush returning to New Orleans, Democrats too" »

Posted by Mark Silva at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

New Orleans photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

by Mark Silva

President Bush likes to talk about the big check that the federal government has written for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina.

But, as the second anniversary of the hurricane that battered and flooded New Orleans and the Gulf Coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi nears next week, a new study suggests that much of the check is still in the mail.

The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and the Institute for Southern Studies contend that the Bush administration is misleading the public on Gulf rebuilding.

Despite a purported $116 billion in federal funding available for Gulf Coast rebuilding, the RFK Center and Institute for Southern Studies report, less then 42 percent of this has been spent to date "despite overwhelming continuing needs.''

“Gulf Coast residents have been left wondering whether the White House’s check bounced”, says study co-author Jeffrey Buchanan, of RFK Center. “Housing and community infrastructure have not recovered due to slow, insufficient, and misguided federal rebuilding efforts, leaving tens of thousands of American families displaced and unable to realize their human right to return and participate in rebuilding their communities.”

In one instance, the report says, tax breaks for rebuilding have generated $1 million in breaks to build 10 luxury condos next to the University of Alabama football stadium — four hours from the Gulf Coast.

The report released this morning contends that:

Continue reading "Katrina two years later: Checks still in the mail" »

Posted by Mark Silva at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

by Mike Dorning

There's a lot of interest in Sen. Barack Obama's speech yesterday about a "quite riot" of despair among poor blacks. Here's my story about it in today's Chicago Tribune.

WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama declared the nation has failed to address a "quiet riot" of despair simmering in impoverished black neighborhoods across the country as he spoke Tuesday before one of the oldest and largest annual gatherings of African-American ministers.

Obama offered an ominous portrait of hopelessness pervading many inner-city neighborhoods and its potential to erupt into uncontrolled violence, along with a call to the rest of society for a more determined effort to reduce pockets of endemic poverty.

Continue reading "Obama on 'quiet riot' among black poor" »

Posted by Mike Dorning at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (78)

Posted by Mike Dorning at 6:30 am, updated at 12:42 pm CST

NEW ORLEANS -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is in New Orleans this morning, with plans to criticize President Bush's performance in leading the federal effort to rebuild the city.

According to prepared remarks that Obama's office released in advance, the Democratic senator cites Bush's failure to mention New Orleans in his State of the Union Address as he questions the president's continuing commitment to the city's recovery. The Bush Administration was roundly criticized for its initial handling of the distaster.

"In the weeks after Katrina, an ashamed nation looked at what had been allowed to happen here and said 'Never again. Never will we turn our backs on these people. Never will we forget what happened here,'" Obama plans to say. "The President came down and said, 'We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.'"

"Just eighteen months later, we heard not one word – not one word – in the President’s State of the Union address about New Orleans. And so I have one more set of questions to ask today: 'Are we willing to do whatever it takes? To stay as long as it takes? Are we in danger of forgetting about New Orleans?'" Obama adds in his prepared remarks.

Obama: Shameful to forget New Orleans.

Continue reading "Obama in New Orleans" »

Posted by at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (91)

Posted by Frank James at 11:47 am CST

It remains a mystery why President Bush gave a State of the Union speech of more than 5,600 words and didn’t say anything about the nation’s continuing efforts to contend with the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in its history, that is Hurricane Katrina.

The White House telegraphed before the speech that the president wouldn’t discuss Katrina because he and his advisors wanted to avoid the usual “laundry list” of domestic issues that presidents often rattle off in a SOTU speech.

But Katrina isn’t the typical domestic agenda item. According to a September 2006 Governmental Accountability Office report, Katrina and Rita, the storm that followed it during the 2005 hurricane season:

…Left more than 1,500 dead, affected over 90,000 square miles, caused more than $80 billion in damage, and forced mass evacuations from five states along the Gulf Coast, according to DHS. An estimated 600,000 households were displaced from affected areas and 50,000 to 100,000 households remained in temporary housing 6 months later. As a result, 44 states and the District of Columbia received hundreds of thousands of evacuees, providing them with care and shelter over an extended period. These events tested the nation’s ability to respond to catastrophic events.

Continue reading "Why no Katrina mention in Bush SOTU?" »

Posted by at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (68)

Posted by Mark Silva at 5:01 pm CDT

NEW ORLEANS -- It was comfortable inside the old high school auditorium where President Bush delivered his address today on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It should have been – massive temporary ductwork had been installed to pump the product of massive portable air conditioners into the auditorium of a school that is set to reopen after the flooding next week but still lacks central air conditioning.

The setting that the president chose today – much like the setting of Jackson Square where he had delivered a nationally televised address after the hurricane last September – was artificially enhanced to make a point. That point, of course, is that New Orleans will come back. But, like those White House-imported floodlights that illuminated St. Louis Cathedral in the heart of the darkened city last year, the labyrinthine hoses that chilled the auditorium of Warren Easton Senior High today serve as tangible reminders that sometimes it takes a pretty big prop to prop up a promise when the president comes calling.

Outside Warren Easton Senior High School, massive air conditioners were positioned to pipe cool air into the auditorium for the president's appearance here today. Photo by Mark Silva.

Continue reading "Staging messages in New Orleans" »

Posted by at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

Posted by Mark Silva at 12:21 pm CDT

NEW ORLEANS – President Bush, declaring that "New Orleans is calling her children home,'' returned today one year after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of this city and vast reaches of the Gulf Coast with a pledge that the federal government will stand by the city and the region until it is rebuilt.

"I have returned to make it clear to people that I understand we're marking the first anniversary of a storm, but this anniversary is not the end,'' Bush said on the stage of the oldest public school in New Orleans, which is set only now to reopen, next week. "We will stand with the people of southern Louisiana and southern Mississippi until the job is done.''

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush appeared on the stage of Warren Easton Senior High School, the oldest in New Orleans, flood-damaged and set to reopen next week. Photo by Mark Silva.

Continue reading "Bush: Come home, New Orleans" »

Posted by at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

Posted by Mark Silva at 7:20 am CDT

NEW ORLEANS -- People assembled in public at 6:10 am CDT this morning in Plaquemines Parish south of New Orleans for a remembrance at the moment of day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall one year ago.

Bells will ring at City Hall this morning, a traditional New Orleans jazz funeral will make its way to the Superdome this afternoon, and tonight they will unleash a show of fireworks on the river in the Gulf Coast city that was inundated by Katrina's flooding. And this, after all, is New Orleans, where Harrah's, the downtown casino, will host a masquerade ball tonight to cap the day's remembrances.

Continue reading "Rob Lowe: No comment on Bush" »

Posted by at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)

Posted by Mark Silva at 10:01 am CDT

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE - This time, the presidential aircraft will not fly over New Orleans on its way to another destination. This time, the destination is the hurricane-wracked coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, on the eve of the first anniversary of the nation's worst natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina.

Air Force One passed over New Orleans nearly a year ago, dipping low and circling to afford President Bush an eagle's eye view of the devastation of the storm the day after it made landfall and deluged New Orleans. Bush was heading east to Washington from a West Coast appearance.

Continue reading "Bush and Katrina, one year later" »

Posted by at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (30)

Posted by Frank James at 10:36 am CDT

Many survivors of Hurricane Katrina are still very angry at President Bush and the federal government for their missteps in responding to the vast human needs that followed the storm.

Rockey Vaccarella of St. Bernard’s Parish in Louisiana isn’t one of them.

(President Bush listens to Hurricane Katrina survivor Rockey Vaccarella (L) outside the Oval Office as they speak to the press. Photo by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images.)

Continue reading "Katrina victim: Four more years for Bush" »

Posted by at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (18)