Posted by Mark Silva at 8:35 am CDT
As the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches next week, political party leaders and government officials are wasting no time gaining a foothold in the publicity that is certain to surround a new look at a vast region still reeling from the storm.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D, Nev.), who faults the Bush administration for not taking the recovery ball further down the field by now, is touring coastal Louisiana today, joining Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.) on a “hope and recovery tour” of the hurricane-ravaged St. Bernard Parish. Don Powell, director of the Bush administration’s Office of Gulf Coast Rebuilding, is touring the region today, Friday and Saturday, planning to stand atop one of the miles of rebuilt levees that will guard against the next storm. And of course, President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush – who between them have made 21 trips to the region since Katrina struck – will tour next week, on the anniversary of the nation’s most calamitous natural disaster. Reid and Landrieu, along with St. Bernard Sheriff Jack Stephens, showed up this morning at the home of Nick and Greer Cuccia in Chalmette, La., and planned a tour of the recently reopened Andrew Jackson Elementary School in Chalmette. For proper message delivery, they planned to meet the press in the parking lot of Main’s Grocery.
(Here’s the message: “One year ago, the Gulf Coast endured a terrible natural disaster, one made into a tragedy by the failures of government that should have been there to help. America learned the terrible lesson that, even after the attacks of 9/11, we are still not as safe as we should be,” Reid said. “One year later, the spirit of the people of the Gulf remains an inspiration to us all, but the reconstruction has not risen to match it. After the storms last year, Democrats pledged to rebuild the Gulf Coast, and we reaffirm that commitment today. We remain dedicated to the spirit of hope and recovery needed to bring back safer and better communities across this vital region.”)
Donald Powell, the federal coordinator for Gulf Coast rebuilding, has brought Margaret Spellings, the U.S. secretary of education, with him for a roundtable this morning at the University of New Orleans alumni center. And Landrieu is doing double-duty today: She plans to join Powell and Spellings at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in New Orleans for a tour followed by that obligatory message delivery: A media availability in the school cafeteria.
On Friday, Powell is bringing U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez to meet local business leaders at Galatoire’s Restaurant on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and they will join the CEO of Home Deport in a “board-cutting” ceremony for the reopening of a home improvement big box store down in Chalmette.
On Saturday, Powell will walk some of the 220 miles of levees that have been rebuilt around New Orelans with Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They plan to take Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin along for a flood-gate opening exercise on the London Street Canal Levee.
But the political floodgates will open wide on Monday and Tuesday, the anniversary of the hurricane’s landfall on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, when the president and first lady tour the region. Bush, who was faulted for his initial response to the storm, already has made 12 post-storm trips to hurricane-stricken regions of the gulf since Katrina – including two to Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. The first lady joined the president on three, and has made an additional nine journeys of her own.
There will, rest assured, be opportunities for message delivery on the Gulf Coast.
