Washington – President Bush tonight will call for an unprecedented federal commitment to rebuild New Orleans and other areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina.
He will put the United States on pace to spend more in the next year on the storm’s aftermath than it has over three years on the Iraq war, according to White House and congressional officials.
Bush is to speak to the nation from an undisclosed location in the disaster area at 7 p.m. The speech is to be televised by broadcast and cable channels.
With the federal tab for Katrina already nearly quadruple the cost of the country’s previous most expensive natural-disaster cleanup, Bush plans to offer federal assistance to help flood victims find jobs, get housing and health care, and attend school, according to White House aides.
Bush will commit the federal government to what many predict will become the largest reconstruction effort ever on U.S. soil.
The president will call on Washington to resist spending money unwisely, but some in his own party are already starting to recoil at a price tag expected to top $200 billion – about the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
As emergency expenditures soar – with new commitments as high as $2 billion a day – some budget analysts and conservative groups are warning that Katrina has combined with earlier fiscal decisions in ways that will wreak havoc on the government’s finances for years to come.
BILOXI, Miss.
Half-million homes hit, Red Cross says
Hurricane Katrina damaged or demolished nearly half a million homes in three states, the American Red Cross said Wednesday – four times as many as Hurricane Andrew did when it hit South Florida in 1992.
The Red Cross’ attempt to quantify the wreckage in Katrina’s aftermath found a swath of destruction that extended 150 miles inland, with entire neighborhoods flattened and flooded. Mississippi suffered damage to as many as one out of five homes.
In all, more than 240,000 homes in Louisiana, another 240,000 in Mississippi and 1,700 in Alabama got hit in some way, the Red Cross said. Hurricane Andrew, which until now was the costliest storm in U.S. history, damaged about 125,000 homes.
The six Mississippi counties closest to the coast saw the most widespread destruction, with one out of three houses wrecked or completely wiped out. More than 80 percent suffered damage.
“You look at communities like Pass Christian – almost everything is gone,” said John McFarland, former chairman of the state’s Red Cross chapter.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency cautioned that Red Cross estimates are sometimes high but said its own assessment won’t be done until all homeowners’ claims are filed and evaluated.
HOUSTON
Two evacuees kill selves; 55 others die
At least two of the Katrina evacuees scattered around the country have committed suicide, and 55 others have died as well, most of them sick and elderly people whose conditions may have been worsened by their stress, authorities said Wednesday.
In Texas – which has at least 250,000 victims of the hurricane, more than any other state – at least 53 have died in the 2 1/2 weeks since they were evacuated from the New Orleans area. Two deaths were reported in Tennessee.
Two suicides were reported in the Houston area: A 44-year-old man from Metairie, La., shot himself to death in a Humble hotel Sept. 4, and a 25-year-old man from Marrero, La., hanged himself Saturday in a Pasadena apartment, authorities said.
Most of the post-Katrina dead were elderly or already sick, with heart conditions, cancer or other terminal illnesses, authorities said. Many had been living in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes. Several suffered heart attacks.
NEW ORLEANS
Putrid air found to be not overly polluted
The putrid air rising from New Orleans’ slowly receding floodwaters was found Wednesday not to be overly polluted, encouraging news for a mayor weighing the reopening of the French Quarter and other dry parts of the city.
Mayor C. Ray Nagin had said a clean bill of health for the air would allow the tourist-friendly French Quarter and central business district to open as early as Monday. And while the Environmental Protection Agency still found the floodwaters contained dangerous levels of sewage-related bacteria, the air pollutants were found to be at acceptable levels.
“We’re bringing New Orleans back,” Nagin promised earlier. “We’re bringing this culture back. We’re bringing this music back. I’m tired of hearing these helicopters. I want to hear some jazz.”
About 40 to 50 percent of the city was still flooded, down from 80 percent after Katrina hit, as 53 permanent and temporary pumps worked to siphon off 8 billion gallons a day.
WASHINGTON
Major officials not at Katrina hearing
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the first of its long-awaited Hurricane Katrina hearings Wednesday, but major players were in short supply.
Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who serves on the committee, decried the lack of any federal-agency officials among the witnesses who testified.
“And until those federal officials responsible appear in public before this committee, then anything else here today or otherwise – I regret to say, Madam Chairman, but I must say – anything else is part of the administration’s coverup,” Dayton said.
Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the committee did not want to “divert resources from the recovery efforts that are still at a critical stage” but instead wanted to focus on the best way to assist the victims.
DEVELOPMENTS
HEALTHY OAKS FELLED IN ERROR IN MISSISSIPPI
In the final indignity for one Mississippi town, contractors uprooted dozens of oaks that had stared down Katrina and survived. An entire 3-mile stretch along U.S. 90 was stripped bare.
The state Transportation Department, which hired the contractors to clear fallen trees and limbs, blamed an apparent “lack of communication” for the removal of the healthy oaks. “Since the storm, I can’t think of anything that made me sicker,” said Gulfport Mayor Brent Warr.
BANK RELIGHTS TOWER BEACON
New Orleans’ Hibernia National Bank relit the tower atop its landmark building in New Orleans’ central business district at sunset Wednesday as a symbol of hope and renewal for the damaged city.
The tower light, which has served as a beacon for ships on the Mississippi River and a reference point for revelers during Mardi Gras, had been off since Hurricane Katrina knocked out power to the city and surrounding parishes on Aug. 29.
PUSH FOR REVIEW PANEL BLOCKED
There will be no independent panel like the 9/11 commission to study the government’s reaction to the storm – at least for now.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., moved on Wednesday to create one, but Senate Republicans blocked her.
EPA: POLLUTION A RECORD-SETTER
The Environmental Protection Agency cast doubt on New Orleans’ safety, with administrator Stephen Johnson calling the pollution left behind by Katrina the worst environmental disaster his agency has ever seen.
Sediment left from floodwaters is so contaminated with petroleum byproducts that the agency is having difficulty testing for other pollutants, he said.
NURSING-HOME PROBE BROADENS
Louisiana prosecutors are probing New Orleans-area nursing homes and hospitals to determine whether they neglected their patients as Katrina slammed ashore. The investigation follows the arrest Tuesday of the husband-and-wife owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home on charges of negligent homicide.
Thirty-four people, including many elderly patients, died at St. Rita’s as floodwater reached the roof.
