Hurricane Katrina Blame Game Begins
Tuesday, September 06, 2005PAUL KANGAS: President Bush is expected to ask Congress for $40 billion for its next installment of hurricane Katrina relief aid. Last week, lawmakers approved a $10.5 billion aid package. And as Stephanie Dhue reports, that relief effort is just getting started.
STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: President Bush met with members of his cabinet and separately with congressional leaders to coordinate Katrina disaster recovery efforts. The president promised not to let bureaucracy get in the way of helping victims. He pledged to ensure government benefits like Social Security checks continue to get to the people who need them.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a strategy to make sure that benefits are due are going to get to them. We understand people are scattered out across the country, but we have an obligation to make sure that whether veterans benefit or an unemployment benefit or a Social Security benefit gets to these people.
DHUE: The key now is restoring basic services to the region, draining water from New Orleans, removing debris, assessing public health and safety threats and finding housing for the people displaced by the storm.
SEN. BILL FRIST, MAJORITY LEADER: We set aside all of our Senate business today that we had planned to do to focus on the people who are suffering now, the victims themselves and engage in short, mid- and long- term planning, aggressively all the energies of the United States Senate.
DHUE: Senators didn`t waste time getting on to new business. The energy committee held hearings on the storm`s impact on gasoline prices today. Next week, the homeland security committee will begin to investigate government response to Katrina, especially the thousands of people left in the city of New Orleans.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, CHAIRMAN, HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE: How is it possible that almost four years to the day after the attacks on our country, with billions of dollars spent to improve our preparedness, that a major area of this nation was so ill prepared to respond to a catastrophe.
DHUE: Some answers already are emerging. Experts say the focus on terrorism squeezed out natural disaster planning. There was a lack of coordination among the Federal, state and local governments. A total communications breakdown with incompatible emergency equipment compounded the problems. Experts say the U.S. hasn`t dealt with mass casualties from natural disasters before.
GREG SHAW, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR CRISIS, DISASTER & RISK MANAGEMENT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: You kind of get into this false complacency there where say, well if something happens, a lot of people, a few people are going to get killed but not a whole lot and we`re just going to be able to fix the broken stuff. Well people are broken this time and you just don`t fix broken people like that.
DHUE: The Senate`s top Democrat Harry Reid predicts there will be an independent commission comparable to the 9/11 commission to study what went wrong. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
