Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.

An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."

"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.

"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.

"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."

Dear America
As a friend of the family I can't sit back and watch you do this to yourself without saying something. Consider this a long distance intervention.

Your man is no good. He treats you like crap, lies to you, abuses you, bullies you, exploits you, takes your money. As a friend I want to tell you that you deserve better. You deserve a person that treats you with respect, cares about your welfare, and your children's welfare, but that's not George and it never will be.

Do you tell yourself that he'll stop, or that it won't get worse? He won't ever stop, every insult, injury and death he has caused are a line that once crossed will never be uncrossed. Forget the dream. You will never have the American dream with George. You have to forget about what might have been, what George might have been, and realise that at the end of the day you are what you do, and look at George's
track record.

Notice how he's alienated all your friends? Who can blame them, they can't understand why you stay with him when he treats you like shit and embarrasses you in front of everybody. The more his public behaviour overshadows yours, The more doubt creeps over them, they wonder if they knew you as well as they thought they did. You seem to have changed - if you condone his behaviour- and your silence can create the impression that you do. People are more inclined to take things at face value when they feel alienated. Your friends remember the good times you had together, the heroic battles you fought together, all of the intricate interweavings between their families and yours through time and space. Do you even recognise yourself anymore America? He is a drunken, coke-addled loser and he always will be, you should kick him out of your house today before he can destroy any more members of your family, your history, your culture, before he decimates your bank account so irretrievably that China and Saudi Arabia repossess all your stuff.

YOU CAN DO BETTER! You are an amazing country, beautiful, interesting, funny, positively glamorous, you wouldn't stay single for five minutes, you know that suitors would be competing for your affections and any one of them would be ten times better than George. And how can you stand his god-awful Stepford's answer to Marie-Antoinette mother, piping up with another casual atrocity every time she opens her mouth.

Because of George and his friends global warming is now upon us - I know what it has cost your family already, combined with George's complete uselessness and indifference in a crisis. It would probably now be possible for a mathematician to calculate exactly how much of all of our futures we are losing for every minute you stay with that sick,twisted, idiot.

I see you doing what everyone in your position does - you end up looking to the perpetrator for comfort because theres no one else left, and look at how he reacts for Christ's sake, look at what he did to New Orleans, and you should know that yet again he did it in front of all of your friends, all of us saw nothing happening whilst thousands died, all of us heard Ray Negen and the president of Jefferson Parish (I must heard him 30+ times now and I still cry every time) and all of us heard George's bloody mother. We have been trying to help and he won't let us. We are all appalled and aghast, it breaks our hearts to see him hurting you like this, and you not fighting back, you just take it and take it as it slowly spirals down into the pits of hell. What will it take America, will you let him kill you before you'll kick him out? This is not rhetoric America, he is killing you every day you stay with him. If I had described your relationship with George to you back when you were still with Bill you never would have believed me. He degrades you in little increments, every day he erodes your assets as well as your dignity, your reputation, your legacy and your life America.

All of our TV crews were rescuing survivors as they filmed the devastation because there was nobody else there to help them, all of us saw the victims being treated like some sudden new insurgency. with suspicion and hostility. Those poor people, the heart & soul of New Orleans, the very people whose culture and history made New Orleans beloved around the world, He just left your brothers and sisters to die. Can you really continue in your relationship with George after this? There is a degree at which cognitive dissonance becomes outright delusion. He is a maniac, he is destroying your life, please, please leave him, just leave him, only you have the power to make it stop.

He is selling out your family business, if you let him continue like this how are you going to live? How are you going to feed your children, what happens if you get ill? Everything he has ever touched has turned to shit, he puts any idiot that'll kiss his ass into positions of power and New Orleans is the result. Kick him out America! Do it today! I know it feels like you would be leaping into a void, but I promise you, you will be leaping out of one. Your friends will come back as soon as they see you are back to your old self, they really miss you. I know that less than 36% of your heart is still in it. Go with the 64% of you, that 36% is just that vestigial, primitive part of the brain that clings to the familiar no matter how badly the familiar sucks.

It all comes down to you, America. I know no-one likes other people passing comment on their relationships but this is an extreme situation. You are in very real danger, he is hurting you everyday and he is hurting us, your friends as well. But only you can make it stop. We are all rooting for you, although we don't get to talk to you very often anymore, because he cuts us off from you. We are on your side, we will all be over the moon the day you finally kick him out. You know he really should be thrown in jail for the things he has done to you. Him and all of his gangster friends.

Please, please, do it America, you know I am right. If not for yourself then do it for your brothers and sisters and children. Do it before he kills any more of your family or anyone else's. We are all really worried for your welfare.
Your friend,
Gail

Right now, numbness is being replaced by magical thinking. "People want me here--here is better. I think I'll stay here." What is going to happen when reality sets in? The bulk of people who are planning to stay don't understand the system here. Even though we abut borders, we are a vastly different nation. At least we are southerners. What is going to happen to the thousands being sent to Connecticut or Illinois or New Jersey? They are being offered free apartments, furniture etc, by generous and well meaning people who haven't thought the long term consequences through very well. A lot of the apartments are in areas where they won't have transportation or jobs. What is going to happen six months down the road when the magic wears off and the help slowly fades? How about the holidays for a people who thrive on ritual, tradition, and celebration?

The trauma they are experiencing is so profound that we have no cultural term or machinery set up for it. The dead and nameless bodies by the thousands rotting in the water, arriving dead on the buses with them, or dying next to them in the shelters are a huge festering wound that no one dares mention. This is a true Diaspora the likes of which we haven't seen since Reconstruction. The immediate needs that are being addressed ignore the greater traumas yet to be spoken. No governmental system can survive the number of wounded and disillusioned people that we are going to see sprouting up all over America. Something far greater and more organized has to be done.

[snip]

The mothers who have lost their children, and there are many, and the children who have lost their parents, have had it with the "be patient" response. The shelters are surprisingly silent. It is hard to find the traumatized mothers because they cry silently. One mother asked how patient I would be if my five-month-old was somewhere unknown for over a week. Over and over, others would ask," Do you think my baby has milk and diapers?" "Do you think they are being kind to my baby?" And then, so softly that I would have to ask them to repeat, "Do you think my baby is okay?" My response--the convenient lie. Every time I said, "of course"; I prayed to God that it was true.

I am sure that there is a special ring of hell for the media: The survivor stories end-on-end for the titillation of the public. I heard Soledad O'Brien say something about the still unrecognized need to address the psychological trauma. I sent a response to the CNN tip-line that there were hordes of every manner of mental health professional working 24/7. CNN's response? Dr. Phil and the stories of the survivors" on Larry King. They went to the guy who lost his clinical license for serious professional infractions to tell the stories? I could see the "entertainer" down there gathering tales of the already exploited so that he and Larry could both pimp their ratings. The real unsung mental health heroes, the counselors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists dealing with un-medicated psychosis and severe traumatic responses were represented by Dr. "Keep-It-Real"? We don't need tabloid help from the media.

Scream about accountability and point fingers for those who can't. Where is the real help from the media? Help us find those babies and parents and missing family. We have a man in one of the shelters who is caring for four kids. They call him uncle. He is actually the cousin of the fiancé of the mother who is probably dead. The children are silent. They sit and play and weep with open mouths that can't scream. Where are the media to scream for them?

Finally, to hell with this "no blame game." The stories that I know to be true are enough to make me boil. The compassionate foreign doctors who can't find anyone to validate their credentials, the expensive mobile hospital still sitting parked waiting for federal paperwork to move into Louisiana, the five C130s sitting on the Tarmac in San Diego since the night of Katrina, still waiting for orders to move. Where the hell are the beds? We have some old people sleeping on hot plastic pool floats with no sheets. They are still no showers for people who have walked for hours through fetid waters. Their skin is breaking out in rashes. Still no showers. Where the hell are the DeCon showers bought with Homeland Security money that can shower 30 people at a time?

The convention centers have no bathing facilities so the filth and skin reactions are getting worse. What of lice? There are no clothes for the really heavy and large. I was reduced to writing the women I knew who went to Weight Watchers to comb their attics for "before" outfits. When I arrived with the sack of my gatherings, I had to engage in a full-scale battle and puff myself up to all my red-headed doctor fury to get them distributed to the women still sitting there in their stinking clothes.

The survivors are like the Mayor of New Orleans who apologized to George Bush for his anger. "If we tell the way we feel, maybe help will stop." All the apologists on the air distancing George and his co-vacationers and idiot appointees should be impeached. I liked Nagin when he called it all bullshit. He was right. How about Haley Barbour complaining about the lack of support for his state? Did he so soon forget his past life and what he did to set up this government of spin artists? If they had acted like a government the body count would be less. The aid would be better managed. The days of filth, and feces, and death would have been ended sooner. God help all of the poseurs in charge when these folks finally get in touch with their justifiable rage. Did you see the White House's logo for the hurricane? George and some asshole in a ball cap against a background of Katrina waving the flag. They had the energy and time for a nice logo but no time to get the elements of help in gear?

A week or so ago I experienced the single most traumatic week of my life," So on 090805 I put on an old nasty "Mr. T I PITY THE FOOL" tshirt to go salvage what I could from our wrecked home....LOL.... My friend Jay Scully and I were driving to my former house on 2nd Street in Gulport, Ms. that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. I arrived at the railroad tracks when the MP's wouldn't let me cross a barricade that is literally 200 feet or so from my house. They told me "no one" could pass and so I would have to take another route which was about an extra 20 minutes of driving. Now thanks to Dubya Gump and Mr. Cheney gas is really expensive and extremely hard to get anywhere Katrina has destroyed so needless to say I was extremely aggravated that they wouldn't let me pass. Then suddenly a long line of dark cars pulls up and they start honking at me to backup to let the long line of cars through the barricade that supposedly no one can drive through. Well that pissed me off even more so I waved a middle finger at the caravan. I drove the extra 20 minutes and finally made it back to my destroyed house filming video of the destruction along the way. A few minutes later I overheard a neighbor say that Dick Cheney was down the street talking to people. Now I know Dubya Gump and Mr. Dick do NOT control the weather but I am no fan of them for several reasons. Unlike some people I am in the business of saving lives so I am not happy about the fact that so many people have died in the aftermath of Katrina due to the slow action of FEMA not to even mention the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons i.e. Iraq. And for those who don't know Mr. Cheney is infamous for telling Senator Leahy "GO **** YOURSELF" on the senate floor. Now my neighbor was talking to two police officers at the time and so I asked them if me and my friend could go down and see what was going on. They said they were looking forward to talk to the locals...LOL. So we grabbed my Canon digital rebel and my Sony videocamera and started walking down the street. And then right in front of the destroyed tennis court I used to play on Dick Cheney was giving a pep rally talking to the press. The secret service guys patted us down and waved the wands over us and then let us pass. Anyway I was standing about 10 feet away from Mr. Cheney while my friend was filming. I then took a picture of him and then yelled "Mr. Cheney Go Fu* Yourself....Go Fu* YOURSELF....Go Fu* Yourself...you asshole". I had/have no intention of harming anyone but merely wanted to echo Mr. Cheney's infamous words back at him. At that moment I noticed the secret service guys with a panic stricken look on their faces like they were about to tackle me so I calmly began walking back to my house waved to one of them and said "Have a nice day". My friend videotaped a little bit longer and then he came back to the house. We were loading the things we could salvage and about 10 minutes or so later two MP's waving M-16's showed up at my house. They said they were looking for someone who fit my description who had cursed at the VP. I told them I was probably the person they were looking for and so they put me in handcuffs and 'detained' me for about 20 minutes or so. My right thumb went numb because the cuffs were on so tight but they were fairly courteous and eventually released me after getting all my contact info. They said I had NOT broken any laws so I was free to go.

My wife, Lisa Marble, was featured on CNN after having our baby Sofia Grace shortly after the storm but the truth is we are still luckier than many people down here because at least we didn't die in the worst natural disaster in the history of our nation. Nevertheless I thought I could try to raise some awareness to the bad policies of the Dubya Gump administration and also possibly raise some money to replace the many things we lost. So I am going to auction the mini-dvd we personally shot of the event plus a bunch my personal footage of the disaster....(

It was Sunday night, Aug. 28, and the storm was due to hit on Monday morning. We were at the Superdome in this absolutely pouring down, squalling rain. The winds had already started to pick up. Most of the thousands of people who were trying to get into the Superdome had already managed to get in. They were just about to close the doors and lock down for the night.

That’s when I saw a man walking down and talking to cop cars and National Guard people all along the way in the pouring rain. He had a puppy in his arms. They said to him, "you can go in, but you can’t take your dog with you."

He kept saying, "Look man, it’s a puppy. If I left him at home, he would just die."

So I looked at Tom Baer, our satellite truck operator, and I said, "Tom, we gotta do it."

He nodded. So I went out into the rain and I said, "We’ll look after your dog for you."

In the pouring rain, he gave me his name, Joe Torres, and I gave him our numbers, and he went into the Superdome and we took the puppy.

Well, the puppy was with us the entire time. He sat out the hurricane with us. He actually sat it out in "Swampboy," the name of our big satellite truck. He is part-pit bull, part-Labrador, with a golden color. He is just a lovely puppy, just a true baby. In the eight days we’ve had him, we’ve all just fell in love with him. But, most especially, Tom fell in love with him.

Tom is this big, 6'6", heavily-built, wonderful, kind-hearted man. He has been all over the world with me in the most terrible places. He got closer and closer to the puppy, as did we all. As a matter of fact, having the puppy with us through these terrible days was the one thing that kept a lot of us going.

Joe had named him "Cain," but we called him "Storm."

Tom made elaborate plans to keep him and take him off to Miami and give him a good life. But we always knew in our heart of hearts that if the owner came back, we’d have to give him back because we were just caretakers. Tom took the truck out for emergency repairs and got him all checked out and got him all his shots. In the ten days we had him he almost doubled in size.

Then, yesterday, we got a call from a little church in Duncanville, Texas, near Dallas, which is where Joe Torres finally ended up. We were the first call that he made to see if he could get his puppy back.

We were all heart broken, because we had started to hope that Tom could keep the dog. We did tell Joe that since he was in strange circumstances, we would be happy to keep the dog and make sure he has a wonderful home for the rest of his life. But he was absolutely adamant that he get the dog back.

Then I spoke to a lovely lady named Polly, who has eight New Orleans people staying with her in her little church in Duncanville. I explained the situation to her. She said, "I know that it’s going to break Tom’s heart, but Joe has nothing else in the whole world except his puppy."

She said I know he looks like a bit of a vagabond, but she said that they found him a job. Joe starts his new job and his new life in Duncanville today.

So we had a little cry, Tom Baer and I. Tom will drive the puppy to Dallas and see that he gets there properly, back to his family, back to Joe. The one thing Tom said to me was, "It shows me that you need something else in your life other than a satellite truck."

Thanks to an above-and-beyond effort by some caring people, Bill Harris and his feline of good fortune, Miss Kitty, were reunited Friday in his hospital room in Hattiesburg, Miss.

"I'm doing better; I've got Miss Kitty," Harris said by phone, moments after Slidell, La., animal control officer Horace Troullier and Donna Wackerbauer, a volunteer with the animal rescue group Noah's Wish, surprised him by bringing the yellow-and-gray cat into his room. "She jumped into my arms and she's stayed with me the whole time.

"I am so happy, I don't know what to tell you."

"We've got our miracle," Troullier told me moments later. "When he first saw her he said, 'That's my cat. That's my cat.'"

I just spoke with Howie Kurtz of the Washington Post who is apparently writing on same for tomorrow. What I said to him and what I will repeat today is this: it can be said absent slant, ideology or opinion that the security presence in much of central New Orleans is in response to lawlessness that no longer exists.

[snip]

On those long, dark and early nights of the unfolding crisis... with no power and rising water in the Quarter... the law enforcement officers who we saw there were the picture of courage and personal sacrifice. They were hot, they were tired and they had no option but to consider everyone (who wasn't displaying obvious media, relief agency or law enforcement markings) a possible threat. Yesterday afternoon, I watched a column of troopers from the 82nd Airborne march down Bourbon Street, which was empty... save for the occasional hotel worker hosing down the sidewalk. We saw a total of three pedestrians in the Quarter, and interviewed two of them. It is also easy to see why Carol Browner (former EPA head under Clinton) theorized that the city proper may well become the nation's largest de facto toxic waste site. The water, so thick and toxic... is now receding while you watch in places... and I fear the sludge and dust left behind won't necessarily present itself to people as the danger we know it is.

With jet fuel prices soaring in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, U.S. airlines have asked Congress and the White House for $600 million in tax relief.

Commercial airlines, which have been battered, and in some cases bankrupted, by high energy costs are seeking a one-year reprieve from the 4.3-cents-per-gallon federal tax on jet fuel.

“We’ve discussed it with the Department of Transportation and folks on the Hill,” said Jack Evans, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a Washington-based trade group. “I think, so far, people have been receptive.”

I spoke with Harris by phone several hours ago as he lay in a Hattiesburg, Miss., hospital, where he is being treated for internal bleeding apparently related to his chronic kidney condition.


“I was shook,” Harris says, describing an earlier phone call when Red Cross workers told him that the cat he credits with saving his life during his hurricane ordeal had been found alive earlier in the day. “I just didn’t have any idea anyone would do that for me. … I’m kind of crying right now.”

And after hearing a description of the cat trapped by an animal control officer and an animal rescue volunteer in his ruined condominium in Slidell, La., Harris has no doubt that it’s Miss Kitty.

“She’s the only one in the whole neighborhood,” he says of the brown and gray cat.

Harris got another piece of fabulous news during the same phone call. His mother, Jane, is alive and well in a Slidell nursing home. Andrew and I visited the nursing home where she lives Thursday afternoon, when she told us that that the residents ended up staying put during the hurricane and had no problems.

And her son has some story to tell about how he survived Katrina’s powerful storm surge and ended up becoming an Internet celebrity.

Amid all the death and destruction wrought by Katrina, Harris’ story struck a chord with us and with readers of Katrinablog, generating a flood of e-mail offering prayers, suggestions on strategies for locating the cat and postings that matched her description.

And, yes, there were some wondering why we are making so much fuss about one man and his cat.

That’s not an easy question to answer. The best explanation I can come up with is that that the dramatic story of their ordeal and the poignancy of Harris’ search for the cat he credits with saving his life by leading him to the chair that he stood on for three days in his flooded condominium somehow made him and Miss Kitty a symbol of hope amid all the despair left in Katrina’s wake.

My son joined the Cub Scouts, and we had a meeting tonight. We were thinking about projects for the boys, and I suggested collecting school supplies for displaced children and sending them with a letter signed by all the boys in my son's den. Yes, it's a drop in the bucket, but the lesson the kids would learn would be, I thought, invaluable. Only one other parent thought it was a good idea. I heard, "It's too much trouble." "The government is already helping those kids." "Where would we get big enough boxes?" "I don't want to spend any money." "What difference would it make if seven kids send stuff?" Never mind that most kids here have more school supplies than they can ever use. I offered to supply boxes and donate the postage, but no.

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Brown's lack of experience in emergency management isn't the only apparent bit of padding on his resume, which raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before putting him in charge of FEMA. Under the "honors and awards" section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University". However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). "He may have been an adjunct instructor," says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of "professor." Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the '70s and '80s, says that Brown "was not on the faculty." As for the honor of "Outstanding Political Science Professor," Johnson says, "I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he's not aware of it." Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean's list or was an "Outstanding Political Science Senior," as is stated on his online profile.

[snip]

Under the heading of "Professional Associations and Memberships" on FindLaw, Brown states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. But an administrator with the Home, told TIME that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." She says there was a board of directors until a couple of years ago, but she couldn't find anyone who recalled him being on it. According to FEMA's Andrews, Brown said "he's never claimed to be the director of the home. He was on the board of directors, or governors of the nursing home." However, a veteran employee at the center since 1981 says Brown "was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative

Meanwhile, veterans such as U.S. hurricane specialist Eric Tolbert and World Trade Center disaster managers Laurence W. Zensinger and Bruce P. Baughman -- who led FEMA's offices of response, recovery and preparedness, respectively -- have left since 2003, taking jobs as consultants or state emergency managers, according to current and former officials.

Because of the turnover, three of the five FEMA chiefs for natural-disaster-related operations and nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity, agency officials said.

Patronage appointments to the crisis-response agency are nothing new to Washington administrations. But inexperience in FEMA's top ranks is emerging as a key concern of local, state and federal leaders as investigators begin to sift through what the government has admitted was a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.

The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.

The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.

The event, the America Supports You Freedom Walk, is billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and a show of support for those serving in the military, topped off with a concert by country singer Clint Black, known for his pro-troops anthem, "Iraq and Roll." Organizers said they expect 3,000 to 10,000 participants.

We are just finishing our interview with shelter director John Tobin when Andrew’s phone rings. It’s Mike Stuckey, our editor in Redmond, Wash., telling us that Horace Troullier, the Slidell animal control officer, just called to say he thinks they caught Miss Kitty.

We can hardly believe our ears but are exchanging high-fives without knowing any facts, wanting very badly for the news to be true.

We try to call Troullier, but our cell phones aren’t working. Fortunately, Tobin has an unrivaled communications system in this neck of the woods and radios Covington animal control to get them to contact Troullier on our behalf. A few minutes pass before we hear the response blare out of the radio: “Horace has that cat, Miss Kitty.”

Stunned almost to speechlessness, we babble our goodbyes to Tobin and set off for the Red Cross shelter in Evans Creek, where we met Harris on Monday, which fortuitously was only about 20 miles from Covington.

We decide during our drive not to tell Bill about the discovery initially, not wanting to get his hopes up in case it turns out to be the wrong cat. Instead we’ll simply say that we’ve contacted some animal rescue experts and that they’re looking for the 17-year-old brown and gray cat. Then, we’ll drive to Slidell and figure out the best way to make a positive identification.

We walk in the shelter and tell one of the volunteers there that we’re looking for Harris and watch her face plunge. Slowly, she says that Bill, who has chronic kidney failure, has been taken away for medical treatment. She says she’d like to tell us more, but the Health Information Privacy Act bars the release of such medical information.

Moments later, we find another person at the shelter who tells us what happened: Just hours after Bill told us his heart-rending story and pleaded for help finding his cat, he collapsed and had what appeared to be a seizure. A doctor at the shelter declared that Bill was in need of immediate hospitalization and bundled him into his car and drove away.

The person providing the account didn’t know where the doctor took Bill, and the Red Cross personnel at the shelter said they couldn’t provide that information, again citing HIPAA.

“I’m shaking I’m so excited. I’m about to throw up,” Wackerbauer says as we walk up.

Troullier says they found the cat in the trap they set at Harris’ condominium when they returned Thursday morning.

“She jumped out of the truck first, but I beat her to the scene,” said Troullier, declaring it the most exciting moment he’s had on the job.

We squat down to see into the cage they are hovering over and there, scrunched in the back, is a sleepy-looking long-haired cat with yellow-colored eyes looking calmly to the left. Its coloring is a mix of brown and gray, not in patches like a calico but intermixed over most of her body.

Troullier says the cat is an adult female though her age is hard ascertain.

Still, the cat fits Harris’ description to a T, and Troullier says he has no doubts.

“That’s Miss Kitty,” he says. “It’s just got to be.”

Dear friend,
As you may know, tens of thousands have been evacuated and thousands are feared dead in Hurricane Katrina's devastating aftermath. World Vision is responding by shipping emergency supplies and other essential items to children and families in the Gulf Coast region. Your gift today will help provide relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina through World Vision's American Families Assistance Fund! We got your email through the assistance of microsoft internet links department.
World Vision has already begun responding – sending shipments of emergency supplies, donated by generous corporations and distributed in partnership with local churches and Christian agencies to children and families in need. Because the supplies have been donated, your gift will multiply in value to ship and distribute urgently needed items to those who need them the most.
World Vision's American Families Assistance Fund works in partnership with local churches and Christian agencies to provide lasting hope for American children and families in difficult situations, including those affected by disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
President Bush and others who've seen the devastation firsthand warn that recovery will take years. World Vision will be there for long-term – coming along side children and families that have been devastated by the hurricane to rebuild communities in need.
Your donation will help children and families in need
You can help by contacting our office, the head of department for the releif administration, for victims of the Hurricane katrina disaster
American devastated Families Assistance Fund.
Mr. David Jonse
Email: contributions@cooperation.net or
Email: david_jonse@excite.com
All donations will be duly aknowledge.

The headline, of course, in most of the papers on Tuesday — “New Orleans Dodged a Bullet,” or words to that effect...

The disastrous federal response to Katrina exposes a record of incompetence, misjudgment and ideological blinders that SHOULD LEAD to serious doubts that the Bush administration should be allowed to continue in office.

When taxpayers have raised, borrowed and spent $40 billion to $50 billion a year for the past four years for homeland security but the officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot find their own hands in broad daylight for four days while New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast swelter, drown and die, it is time for them to go.

When funding for water works and levees in the gulf region is REPEATEDLY CUT by an administration that seems determined to UNDERMINE the public responsibility for infrastructure in America, despite clear warnings that the infrastructure could NOT survive a major storm, it seems clear someone is playing politics with the public trust.

When rescue and medical squads are sitting in Manassas and elsewhere in northern Virginia and foreign assistance waits at airports because the government can't figure out how to insure the workers, how to use the assistance or which jurisdiction should be in charge, it is time for the administration to leave town.

When President Bush stays on vacation and attends social functions for two days in the face of disaster before finally understanding that people are starving, crying out and dying, it is time for him to go.

When FEMA officials cannot figure out that there are thousands stranded at the New Orleans convention center -- where people died and were starving -- and fussed ineffectively about the same problems in the Superdome, they should be FIRED, not praised, as the president praised FEMA Director Michael Brown in New Orleans last week.

When Mr. Bush states publicly that "nobody could anticipate a breach of the levee" while New Orleans journalists, Scientific American, National Geographic, academic researchers and Louisiana politicians had been doing precisely that for decades, right up through last year and even as Hurricane Katrina passed over, he should be laughed out of town as an impostor.

When repeated studies of New Orleans make it clear that tens of thousands of people would be unable to evacuate the city in case of a flood, lacking both money and transportation, but FEMA makes no effort before the storm to commandeer buses and move them to safety, it is time for someone to be given his walking papers.

When the president makes Sen. Trent Lott's house in Pascagoula, Miss., the poster child for rebuilding while hundreds of thousands are bereft of housing, jobs, electricity and security, he betrays a careless insensitivity that should banish him from office.

When the president of the United States points the finger away from the lame response of his administration to Katrina and tries to finger local officials in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., as the culprits, he betrays the unwillingness of this administration to speak truth and hold itself accountable. As in the case of the miserable execution of policy in Iraq, Mr. Bush and Karl Rove always have some excuse for failure other than their own misjudgments.

We have a president who is apparently ill-informed, lackadaisical and narrow-minded, surrounded by oil baron cronies, religious fundamentalist crazies and right-wing extremists and ideologues. He has appointed officials who give incompetence new meaning, who replace the positive role of government with expensive baloney.

They rode into office in a highly contested election, spouting a message of bipartisanship but determined to undermine the federal government in every way but defense (and, after 9/11, one presumed, homeland security). One with Grover Norquist, they were determined to shrink Washington until it was "small enough to drown in a bathtub." Katrina has stripped the veil from this mean-spirited strategy, exposing the greed, mindlessness and sheer profiteering behind it.

It is time to hold them accountable - this ugly, troglodyte crowd of Capital Beltway insiders, rich lawyers, ideologues, incompetents and their strap-hangers should be tarred, feathered and ridden gracefully and mindfully out of Washington and returned to their caves, clubs in hand.

NEWS ORGANIZATIONS are usually uneasy about showing images of the dead, as a matter of both taste and respect. But it's a decision for individual newspapers and television stations to make. When the government attempts to play the deciding role -- as the Federal Emergency Management Agency did yesterday when it began trying to prevent photographing of the dead in New Orleans -- it smacks not of concern for the feelings of survivors or the sensibility of readers, but of a desire to cover up the bad news.

Is there an echo here? For more than a year, the Bush administration prevented the press from showing the return of soldiers' coffins from Iraq. They weren't part of the "reality" that the White House intended to portray. The storyline on Iraq was shock and awe followed by Pfc. Jessica Lynch followed by the big statue coming down followed by schools being repainted. Soon enough, of course, the press was reporting a different version, but the initial burst of image-making made a lasting impression, and until very recently, American officials were still going over to Baghdad and coming back with tales of a success in the making. In a strange way, the insurgency -- by making the practice of journalism so difficult in Iraq -- has enabled the administration to keep promoting its sunny tales, in the general absence of American eyewitnesses.

In the wake of Katrina, Washington trotted out the same strategy -- and was made to look foolish and devastatingly incompetent. As the floodwaters kept mounting, officials from the president on down persisted in delivering self-congratulatory pronouncements, when it was plainly obvious to anyone with a television set or a newspaper subscription that New Orleans and its remaining residents were in horrifying distress.

Reporters this time were embedded not with the still-idle National Guard units but with the crowds at the Superdome, and as hard as FEMA might now try to create a different construct of reality, it won't stand. Pushing the unfortunate dead out of view is not respectful but in fact the final indignity: Neglected and marginalized in life, they are to have no presence in death.

At one fire scene, I counted law enforcement personnel (who I presume were on hand to guarantee the safety of the firefighters) from four separate jurisdictions, as far away as Connecticut and Illinois. And tempers are getting hot. While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

[snip]

Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.

I have relatives who Dubya beats metaphorically bloody and on whose arms and legs this Administration economically stubs out cigarettes. And yet every morning, through split-lips and swollen eyes, they defend him. Ferociously. It wasn't his fault...or he did the best anyone could...or Liberals would be worse...or it never really happened at all.

Because to allow even a little bit of doubt to seep in, would be to admit that they have made one HUGE fucking mistake. That virtually everything they believe is a massive lie perpetrated on them by monsters who secretly despise them for their weakness and cowardice.

Their whole identity would implode and frankly Republicans would rather die (and take everyone else with them) that ever admit they were wrong.

There is parity between Katrina and Bush in that the Republicans were given ample warning of what a disaster Bush would be. Flare were fired off. Klaxons sounded. Criers ran though the streets and the firebell rang in the night.

And still, the Republican Faithful did nothing. While the hellstorm of consequences that electing criminals and incompetents and bastards to office was bearing down on this country in full fucking view, the Freepers and the Neocons and the Christopaths picked their toes, called us traitors, whined about gays and got positively nutty insisting that their comic book superstitions be taught as Science.

This is the Party that preened and prattled about their “Mandate” being the trump card over every issue. That voting for a stupid thing somehow made it smart, and voting against Science and Reality made those things go away. And that no day of reckoning would every come as long as they voted to keep hitting the Snooze Button.

OK fuckers, go ahead. Vote Katrina away. Vote NOLA back to vitality and beauty and charm. Vote the dead back to life.

In the end what you got for your vote wasn’t a Messiah, or a Moses or a Solomon.

In the end all you got was what you were AMPLY warned you would get. George W. Bush. A hollow idiot. The Bicycle Chief. The Vacationer-in-Chief. A dry-drunk, half-wit coward. A Potempkin President who would fall apart if the stink of the Real World every made it past his retinue. A prop levee that would fail when the wind started blowing.

In the end, Bush failed the only test of leadership that matters, on the only platform he every really ran on.

Character.

Congressional Republicans, persisting in hopes of enacting some form of private Social Security option despite opposition from the public and the Democrats, are considering the same kind of maneuver that enabled them to pass a controversial Medicare drug bill two years ago.

That’s the clear signal from key GOP congressional leaders and chief White House strategist Karl Rove, one of the main architects of the Social Security proposal that President Bush made his top 2005 priority.

Mr. Rove, speaking to college students and lobbyists before Congress went on its current recess, said the House would act next month and the Senate soon after, according to the congressional newspaper The Hill .

And Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and one of his party’s canniest operatives, said without giving details that his panel would introduce a retirement security bill in September. [...]

Because the Senate had passed a similar bill, Republicans could take the measure to a Senate-House conference. By excluding most Democrats from any role, they crafted the kind of bill they wanted in the first place.

That would appear to be their hope for private Social Security accounts – pass a bill in the House authorizing private accounts, accept any Social Security vehicle in the Senate that gets the issue to conference and write a final version letting the White House proclaim success.

Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.

The Stafford Act is the legal stipulator in that declaration. Under The Stafford Act:

§ 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}

In any major disaster, the President may--

# direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts.

When President Bush signed that declaration on 8/27 he accepted a responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Who has the greater resources, Gov. Blanco, or President Bush? Why is Gov. Blanco held to a higher standard of competence than President Bush, when they each had the same responsibility?"

The only problem here is the formulation: "accepting responsibility." This is something this president has a great deal of trouble doing.

Nate, the 14th named storm of the season, was centered about 275 miles south-southwest of Bermuda with top sustained winds near 60 mph. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said it could reach hurricane strength, with winds of at least 74 mph, by Wednesday.

It wasn't moving, though it was expected to eventually make a turn to the northeast, forecasters said.

"Perhaps by the end of the work week it could be posing a threat to Bermuda, but not the U.S.," hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said.

...has formed about 115 miles ENE of Miami, Fla. With the system expected to strengthen and creep toward the Florida Peninsula, tropical storm warnings have been hoisted along the soustheast coast of Florida between Titusville and Jupiter. Tropical storm warnings have also been posted for Grand Bahama, Bimini and the Abacos. Squally weather with heavy surf and rip currents will continue along the east coast of Florida for the next couple of days.

This campaign is to salvage Bush's reputation.

Like previous Rove operations, it calls for multiple appearances by the president in controlled environments in which he can appear leader-like. It calls for extensive use of Air Force One and a massive deployment of spinners.

It doesn't necessarily include any change in policy. It certainly doesn't include any admission of error.

It utilizes the classic Rovian tactic of attacking critics rather than defending against their criticism -- and of throwing up chaff to muddle the issue and throw the press off the scent.

It calls for public expressions of outrage over the politicization of the issue and of those who would play the "blame game." While at the same time, it is utterly political in nature and heavily reliant on shifting the blame elsewhere.

EVANS CREEK, La. -- We’ve heard some amazing stories from hurricane survivors during our wanderings, but the tale told by Bill Harris of Slidell, La., is the most gripping yet.

Harris, 59, who suffers from a chronic kidney disorder, said he went to sleep Sunday night in the condominium he shares with his cat, Miss Kitty, which was approximately a mile from Lake Pontchartrain alongside a canal. When he awoke, the gray and brown cat was on top of the China cabinet meowing piteously.

Harris found out why when he sat up to get out of bed.

“There was no floor there,” he says of the bizarre sight that greeted him as his bed floated in six feet of water toward a newly broken bay window in his bedroom.

Harris fell off the bed and remembers praying each of the four times he went under, fighting to avoid being pulled out the window by the roiling current. The fourth time, though, he saw Miss Kitty hurl herself across the room to a table that was still above water and struggled to follow her. He wasn’t able to climb onto the table, but he found a chair that had miraculously stayed upright nearby and managed to stand on it, soon to be joined by Miss Kitty.

Harris says he tried to get out, but found his front door blocked by a 30-foot fishing boat that had been deposited on his porch. So with no other way out, he spent the better part of three days standing on the chair and clutching Miss Kitty to his chest.

A boater eventually heard Harris’ shouts and a second boat soon arrived to pull him to safety out the window. Despite his pleas, though, the rescuers were not willing to re-enter the condo to grab Miss Kitty.

Harris remains disconsolate over the loss of the cat he calls his “guardian angel,” though he is still holding out hope of a reunion. And he is very worried about his mother, Jane B. Harris, who he believes was moved out of the Trinity Nursing Home before the flood for parts unknown.

Bush recently canceled an out-of-state presidential campaign appearance and spoke with family members and victims in the shooting at Fort Worth's Wedgwood Baptist Church.
But when Hurricane Bret threatened the Coastal Bend last month and thousands of vehicles were stuck on Interstate 37 trying to evacuate, there was no word from the governor.
Some say the governor has worked hard to address issues facing the state while he campaigns for the presidency. Others say Bush's aspirations for higher office have put state issues on the back burner.
"I don't see any of our big problems being addressed,'' said Garry Mauro, former General Land Commissioner who ran against Bush in 1998 and warned that Bush's presidential ambitions would prevent him from being a full-time governor. "If the guy's out of the state four or five days out of the week, he's not taking care of the business of the state.''

[snip]

In recent weeks, security is tighter around the governor and he has had few public appearances in Austin. Media members who attend Bush news conferences must now have a special pass and are sometimes required to sign in.
Some Corpus Christi area officials have criticized Bush for his lack of action and comments about the evacuation issue during and after Hurricane Bret. Thousands of Coastal Bend residents trying to evacuate were forced to poke along Interstate 37 for six to eight hours to reach San Antonio.
The Department of Public Safety had a plan to switch Interstate 37 to all northbound traffic during an evacuation and a $1.7 million crossover ramp was built to help with the switch. But emergency officials did not open all lanes northbound, saying there wasn't enough time to do it.
Local and state officials are now trying to come up with an evacuation plan to prevent a repeat of the situation during Hurricane Bret. But Bush has not weighed in on the issue, despite several attempts by the Caller-Times to get comments from him.
Bush's staff did not consult him about the issue and he hasn't given his opinion about using all lanes of I-37 for northbound traffic during hurricane evacuations.
"It appears that the people of Texas and the Gulf Coast are not his priorities," said Molly Beth Malcolm, Texas Democratic Party chairwoman. But a spokeswoman for Bush said he relies on local officials to take care of such situations.

They've grown used to having a secretary of defense in their midst -- the way his weekend estate is tucked behind a bend in the road, how he takes casual walks tailed by dark SUVs. Now, residents of this Eastern Shore retreat are preparing for someone even bigger to buy a house down the road: the vice president.

"I'd heard it was going to close either Tuesday or Wednesday of this week," Carroll Hurley, a funeral home owner, said Saturday, seated with his breakfast gang at the Carpenter Street saloon and restaurant.

Whether it's true -- that Dick and Lynne Cheney are buying an estate here -- could not be confirmed. Those closest to the deal -- Cheney's office, the purported sellers, the listing agent -- aren't talking. Hurley admits he's not certain: "All I have is hearsay. It wouldn't stand up in court."

Still, a nosy visit here leaves a person with one of two possibilities: Either the Cheneys are coming or a lot of people have bad information. Police Chief Ed Henry -- who breakfasted along with Hurley -- even referred to the lot in question as "Cheney's house."

The house, listed at $2.9 million, backs up in spectacular fashion to an inlet of the Chesapeake Bay. "Right out by [Defense Secretary Donald H.] Rumsfeld's," said Charles Mangold Sr., whose Benson & Mangold agency brokers high-end estates in the area. "It's under contract, but he hasn't settled yet."

THE POVERTY level edged up last year, to 12.7 percent -- the fourth straight annual increase. Overall median income remained flat at $44,389, down 3.8 percent from its peak in 1999. This is a robust economic recovery?

[snip]

Administration officials counsel patience, pointing to the downturn of the 1990s, when it took several years for the poverty rate to start to fall. "The last, lonely trailing indicator of the business cycle," Commerce Department official Elizabeth Anderson said of the poverty rate.

This has about it more than a whiff of wishful thinking. For one thing, the increase in poverty between 2003 and 2004 is in fact out of the ordinary; such a rise hasn't happened between the second and third years of an economic recovery since the federal government began collecting poverty data in 1960. For another, the poverty rate may be a lagging indicator, but in this case it's not lonely: See, for example, the median income of working-age households, which declined 1.2 percent.

Another ominous signal involves health insurance coverage. Although the percentage of people with coverage remained unchanged from 2003 to 2004, that masked a shift from employer-provided insurance to government coverage. The percentage of people with employer-based health insurance fell for the fourth year in a row. Most of this slack has been taken up by Medicaid, the shared federal-state health program for the poor and disabled. But with state budgets under increasing strain from Medicaid costs and with Congress poised to make cuts in the program, it's not at all certain that states will be willing or able to maintain coverage for working Americans hovering at the edge of poverty.