Bush: Initial Hurricane Response ‘Not Acceptable’
he initial response to Hurricane Katrina’s widespread damage on the Gulf Coast was “not acceptable,” President Bush said Friday.
The president made his comments while touring storm-stricken areas, but said federal agencies were making every effort to save lives and speed aid to the area, even as local officials criticized the slow federal response, news services reported.
In Mobile, Ala., the president said that the $10.5 billion in emergency assistance appropriated by the Congress late Thursday and Friday was just a “down payment” on the total aid that will be needed to rebuild the area, the Washington Post reported.
Storm-related deaths in Mississippi topped 125, state officials said, and the death toll in Louisiana could top 10,000, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) said Friday, Agence France-Presse reported.
The situation in flood-ravaged New Orleans remained chaotic Friday, with National Guard troops joining law enforcement to try to restore order to the city, which descended into what some news reports dubbed “anarchy,” as thousands of stranded citizens waited to be evacuated amid floods, fires and lack of water and electricity.
People were being sent to several cities, including Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. Houston’s Astrodome, which took refugees that had been sheltered earlier in the week at New Orleans’ Superdome, was declared full by officials, the Associated Press reported.
Terry Ebbert, the head of New Orleans' homeland security operations, critized the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies as inadequate and called the situation in New Orleans "a national disgrace," AP reported.
Army Corps of Engineers officers said it could take at least weeks to drain New Orleans of its extensive flooding, AP said.
