PUBLIC MARKS with tags katrina & hurricane

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Director Spike Lee was shocked not only by the scale of the disaster, but by the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery effort.

The National Rifle Association has filed a motion for contempt against Mayor Ray Nagin and the City of New Orleans over the confiscation of guns in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last fall. According to an NRA statement, the motion, which also targets the acting chief of police, alleges the officials failed to comply with a temporary restraining order, handed down Sept. 12, ordering an end to all gun confiscations in the city.

Federal, state and local officials all failed to anticipate the devastation threatened by Hurricane Katrina and then were slow to react when the storm overwhelmed New Orleans levees, said a draft report by a special House committee investigating Katrina.

In September 1998, Hurricane Georges swept up a beachfront house along the Gulf of Mexico and tossed it like a bowling ball into John and Gail Leacy's summer home on the western edge of this barrier island. The Leacys collected thousands of dollars in federal flood insurance and rebuilt. Last year, Hurricane Ivan slammed their Creole-style three-bedroom cottage with wind and floodwaters. And in late August, a wall of water from Hurricane Katrina severely undercut the house's concrete pad and pilings.

A combative Michael Brown blamed the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him for the dismal response to Hurricane Katrina in a fiery appearance Tuesday before Congress. In response, lawmakers alternately lambasted and mocked the former FEMA director.

Federal dollars won't make the Crescent City great. So we are sending all the king's horses and all the king's men to fix the Humpty-Dumpty of New Orleans. Put it back together on a sinking wall of mud and see if it falls off again.

Our president is very generous with other people's money. Worse, he is generous with the money of people who are in no position to object, either because they are too young or because they haven't been born yet.

With close to 600,000 participants, public rips Nagin response to hurricane Katrina as 'poor'

The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security blocked a vanguard of Red Cross trucks filled with water, food, blankets and hygiene items from bringing relief to the thousands of hungry and thirsty evacuees stranded in the New Orleans Superdome after Hurricane Katrina struck, according to a Fox News Channel report.

Pro-life advocates say Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion business, continues to exploit victims of Hurricane Katrina. The organization previously said it would provide morning after pills to victims, instead of food or shelter, and is now raising money off of the hurricane for its local abortion centers.

Democrats led by Sen. Hillary Clinton are blaming the Federal Emergency Management Agency for failing to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. But FEMA didn't do much better under much less taxing conditions, when the floods that followed Hurricane Floyd left tens of thousands stranded up and down the Eastern seaboard, wondering what happened to federal rescuers.

The Bush administration is being widely criticized for the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the allegedly inadequate protection for "the big one" that residents had long feared would hit New Orleans. But research into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding.

Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin failed their constituents.