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Hours Passed Before FEMA Chief Asked For Volunteers
Bush, Congress Promise Probes Of Katrina Response

UPDATED: 10:00 pm PDT September 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Internal documents show the government's disaster chief waited roughly five hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before asking Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to dispatch 1,000 agency employees to the region.

The documents show the volunteers were given two days to arrive.

In a memo to Chertoff, Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that among duties of these employees was to "convey a positive image" about the government's response for victims.

A Homeland Security Department spokesman said Brown had positioned front-line rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters before the storm.

The memo aimed to assemble a federal work force to coordinate various operations, the spokesman said.

White House, Congress Pledge Investigations

Both the White House and Congress are pledging to investigate the government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Some Democratic leaders are also calling on President George W. Bush to fire Brown.

U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said FEMA needs new leadership.

"I don't expect that the agency can go forward with its current leadership," Clinton said. "If you're incompetent, you'll have a job in this administration." See separate story on Clinton, Mikulski, Pelosi concerns.

A Senate committee will soon hold hearings on what went wrong with the emergency response.

The chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the panel needs answers to a number of fundamental questions. She said they include whether the federal government is organized well enough to provide emergency services in "response to catastrophes such as Katrina or terrorist attacks."

The committee will get a private briefing from Department of Homeland Security officials Wednesday, and the actual hearings could be scheduled as early as next week.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he wonders why TV reporters could get in and out of New Orleans with satellite equipment, but the federal government couldn't get in with water, medicine and doctors.

For his part, the president said he'll lead his own investigation into what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Bush said Vice President Dick Cheney will go to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is doing all it can.

"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," Bush said.

Bush said there will be "ample time" to figure out what went right and what went wrong as the federal government responded. For now, he said, he wants to focus on saving lives and getting people the help they need.

The president is trying to pump up what he calls a "tidal wave of compassion," but critics are questioning his focus. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Bush is firing a barrage of photo opportunities and misinformation, while shifting blame for what went wrong.

Dean is not alone. At least one evacuee who saw Bush Monday in Baton Rouge said she's "not interested in hand-shaking" and "photo ops." Mildred Brown said, "I need answers."

Bush said people want the White House to "play the blame game," but he said it's not the time to point fingers.

Bush said the investigation will be partly aimed at making sure the country could withstand more storms, or an attack.

"We still live in an unsettled world," he said.

Bush said he will seek as much as $40 billion for the next phase of recovery efforts.

Officials Work To Stem Spread Of Disease

Health officials are working to stem the spread of disease among those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Officials said four people may have died of a waterborne bacterial infection circulating in dirty floodwaters. The germ, common in warm Gulf Coast waters, is usually spread by eating contaminated food, but it can penetrate open wounds, too. Rescue workers and others are being warned.

A federal health official said the deaths -- one a hurricane refugee evacuated to Texas, the other three in Mississippi -- are being attributed to wound infections.

Also, officials are trying to control a diarrhea-causing virus found among some refugees in Houston's Astrodome. Officials there are handing out alcohol-based hand sanitizers to help prevent its spread.

So far, there are no large disease outbreaks attributed to the hurricane.

New Orleans Mayor Sees 'Significant' Progress

The mayor of New Orleans said he's seeing "significant" progress in his city, now about 60 percent under water, which is down from 80 percent during the darkest days of last week.

Mayor Ray Nagin made the estimate fresh from an aerial tour of the flooded city.

With a major levee break finally plugged, engineers were struggling Tuesday to pump out the water, still as high as 7 feet in some places.

The breach was in the 17th Street canal levee. It was repaired with helicopters used to repeatedly drop giant sandbags into the gaping break.

Water in some low-lying areas has dropped by more than a foot.

Nagin said two pumps are working to get the water out of the city, but said many problems still exist. He said that a lot of gas is still leaking.

Nagin described the latest progress as "rays of light," but he and other authorities said they're bracing for the horrors the receding waters and toxic muck are certain to reveal.

Nagin has said the city's death toll could reach 10,000.

"It's going to be awful and it's going to wake the nation up again," he said.

Meanwhile, Louisiana's governor is trying to play down talk of a rift with Washington over the hurricane relief efforts.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said "there is no divide" and that "every leader in this nation wants to see this problem solved."

On Monday, Blanco and Bush kept their distance during a tour of a Baton Rouge relief center. But at their next stop, the Republican president kissed the Democratic governor on the cheek.

Behind the scenes, state and federal officials have each suggested the others are to blame for a slow response to the crisis.

As for the federal response, Nagin said he's "gone from anger to despair to seeing us turn the corner."

Evacuees In Houston Astrodome Face Curfew

Many of the Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston's Astrodome have turned down offers to go to cruise ships -- preferring to stay where they are and try to track down loved ones.

However, those people staying in the Astrodome and in Houston's other major shelters will be facing a curfew. Officials with the Houston Police Department said they want to stop the continual entering and exiting of evacuees at the Astrodome, which is why an 11 p.m. curfew was implemented beginning Tuesday.

"We are finding that these people are wandering the parking lots of the Astrodome complex. We are trying to make some order out of it. They are coming in at 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. disturbing people, disrupting children trying to sleep. We are going to have school starting. We are just trying to get more order into the complex," an HPD official said.

Evacuees not inside the Astrodome, Reliant Center or the George R. Brown Convention Center by 11 p.m. will be locked out until 6 a.m.

"We are maintaining a strong presence out here to give the survivors the absolute sense of security," HPD Sgt. David Craine said.

One evacuee told Houston television station KPRC that 11 p.m. seemed like a good hour; however, another said he felt like he was being locked up.

HPD officials said they have made 37 arrests in six days inside and around the Astrodome. They said most of those arrests were due to public intoxication or disorderly conduct.

KPRC reported that HPD is also investigating at least one allegation of sexual assault inside the Astrodome.

Officials said that the Astrodome has 17,500 evacuees, Reliant Center has 3,800, Reliant Arena houses 2,300 residents and the George R. Brown Convention Center holds 1,300 people.

New Orleans Police Chief Defends His Force

New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass is defending the work of his officers following reports some have abandoned their jobs.

Compass denied that officers have left in droves and said that many held their ground without food, water and even ammunition in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Two police officers killed themselves. Another was shot in the head.

Compass said 150 had to be rescued. He said others had gunbattles in dark, flooded streets.

At a news conference, a police official said between 400 and 500 officers on the 1,600-member police force are unaccounted for. But Compass said there are no firm numbers yet.

Officers still on the beat are being cycled off duty and given five-day vacations in Las Vegas and Atlanta, where they will be offered counseling.
Doctor, EMTs Complain About Federal Response

Medical professionals in New Orleans said they were swamped after Katrina struck and they're highly critical of the way the federal government responded to the hurricane.

A doctor who spent the past week at squatters' camps on Interstate 10 said more than 40 people died waiting for help.

An emergency medical technician who also spent the week treating people said some who were healthy got sick after being stranded for days in camps on the Interstate.

They said federal officials should have been more aggressive in bringing medical supplies.

But another EMT who arrived over the weekend from Ohio said he can't fault the federal effort. He said the situation is so overwhelming it would have been impossible to train for it.

Meanwhile, doctors prevented from using a state-of-the-art mobile hospital in Louisiana because of red tape have set up shop in Bay St. Louis, Miss.

The delay in getting deployed in Louisiana was over what doctors would be allowed to do.

But Mississippi authorities had fewer reservations about treatments being offered to storm victims. In the hospital's first 16 hours of operations, doctors treated about 100 people. The patients had cuts and wounds and some were dehydrated.

The 113-bed hospital is based at Carolinas Medical Center, in Charlotte, N.C. It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers. Equipment includes ultrasound, digital radiology, satellite Internet, and a full pharmacy, enabling doctors to do most types of surgery.

It's set up in a Kmart parking lot.