So We( me, my mother,lauren and Ashley)woke up so we can take Ashley home. We visited for a while with my cousin Jerry. We laugh and talked and stuff like that


I know that we are deeply effected by what has happen in the last few days. There were are ups and downs. We can all be thankful now of what we got.
Another event to write down in our history books.
If I was running the country ( or part of it,
or some kind of influence)
I would probally sent help wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy before the storm hit. I make sure the poor and helpless and sick and hospital people get out first. The weathly and the well off and can take what they need and get out. But that's what they already did in the first place. After the storm hit, I would have helicoppters stand by with supplies and rescue workers on foot trying to help whose left.

But let look at the glass as if it were half full.






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Troops Bring Food, Medicine to New Orleans
AP - 1 hour, 24 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - To cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" and catcalls of "What took you so long?," a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters Friday into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - With the rotors of President George W. Bush's helicopter sounding overhead, New Orleans' poor and downtrodden recounted tales of murder, rape, death threats and near starvation since Hurricane Katrina wrecked this city.

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Ending days of abandonment since the hurricane struck on Monday, the U.S. National Guard handed out military rations and a bottle of water to thousands of evacuees -- the first proper meal most had eaten in days.

But as the masses lined up outside, herded by Army troops toting machine guns, inside the convention center where these people slept since Monday was the stench of death and decay.

Leroy Fouchea, 42, waited in the sweltering heat for an hour to get his ration -- his first proper food since Monday -- and immediately handed it over to a sickly friend.

He then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old.

"They died right here, in America, waiting for food," Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.

He said people were let die and left without food simply because they were poor and that the evacuation effort earlier concentrated on the French Quarter of the city. "Because that's where the money is," he spat.

A National Guardsman refused entry.

"It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there," he told a Reuters photographer. "We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq."

As rations were finally doled out here on the day President Bush visited the devastated city, an elderly white woman and her husband collapsed from the heat.

"I had to walk two blocks to get here and I have arthritis and three ruptured discs in my back," said Selma Valenti, 80, as her husband lay beside her, being revived by a policeman in riot gear. The two had eaten nothing since Wednesday.

Valenti and her husband, two of very few white people in the almost exclusively black refugee camp, said she and other whites were threatened with murder on Thursday.

"They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us," she said, sobbing. "They were plotting to murder us and then they sent the buses away because we would all be killed if the buses came -- that's what the people in charge told us this morning."

Other survivors recounted horrific cases of sexual assault and murder.

Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights raping and murdering children.

She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.

"She was raped for four hours until she was dead," Joseph said through tears. "Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night."

Several others interviewed by Reuters told similar stories of the abuse and murder of children, but they could not be independently verified.

Many complained bitterly about why they received so little for so many days, and they had harsh words for Bush.

"I really don't know what to say about President Bush," said Richard Dunbar, 60, a Vietnam veteran. "He showed no lack of haste when he wanted to go to Iraq, but for his own people right here in Louisiana, we get only lip service."

One young man said he was not looking forward to another night in the convention center and wondered when conditions would improve. "It's been like a jail in there," he said. "We've got murderers, rapists, killers, thieves. We've got it all."

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers promised Friday that a $10.5 billion measure funding immediate rescue and relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina would be but the first step toward a comprehensive response by Congress to the catastrophe.

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The bill advanced amid widespread complaints among members of Congress that the government's rescue effort has been inadequate. Lawmakers also promised oversight hearings into flawed disaster plans and the government's slower-than-hoped response.

"We have to ask ourselves ... how could things have been different?" said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "What could have been done to prevent the magnitude of this tragedy? These are questions that Congress should legitimately ask."

The relief bill passed the House by voice vote after Senate approval late Thursday. It comes as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government's front-line responder in natural disasters, is spending more than $500 million a day on Katrina.

The new aid averts the possibility that money might run out before Congress reconvenes on Tuesday.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said the bill was only the first step toward a "comprehensive, long-term response to the Katrina disaster." He promised Congress would provide more humanitarian aid, combat gasoline price gouging, provide assistance to businesses and the unemployed, rebuild infrastructure and utility systems, and help local law enforcement.

"Make no mistake, this $10.5 billion is initial relief," DeLay said. But it was too early to say exactly what further steps Congress might take to help the situation along the Gulf Coast — or make sure future disaster response efforts go more smoothly.

Lawmakers also promised hearings into gasoline prices and the adequacy of preparations by the federal and state governments for such a disaster.

"We need to understand from the key authorities what went wrong, what should have been done, and, most importantly, what needs to be done so we're ready next time," said Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz.

President Bush welcomed Congress' quick action on his request for an infusion of funds.

"I want to thank the Congress for acting as quickly as you did," Bush said of the $10.5 billion measure, which he signed into law later Friday. "But I've got go to warn everybody that's just the beginning."

Frustration with the rescue effort — and the continued lack of help for many of the mostly poor and black victims in New Orleans — reached a boil as the Congressional Black Caucus blasted Bush's handling of the crisis.

"I'm ashamed of America. I'm ashamed of our government," said Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. "I'm outraged by the lack of response by our federal government."

"Last year, when the president's election was in question, his response to the hurricanes in the swing state of Florida was tremendously fast," said Rep. Robert Wexler (news, bio, voting record), D-Fla. "Where was he in the immediate aftermath for the Gulf Coast? Where were the trucks of food?"

The bill combines $10 billion in new FEMA funds — enough to last just a few weeks — and $500 million for the Pentagon's role in the relief mission.

The FEMA funds, among other uses, will finance food and emergency shelter, medical care, debris removal, generators and cash payments to hurricane victims. FEMA will also funnel funds to other federal agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, responsible for repairing levees around New Orleans and pumping out the flood waters inundating the city.

Long-term costs were anyone's guess. It could be months before New Orleans is cleared of flood waters, and until then, it's impossible to determine long-term needs. Many areas along the coast have yet to receive visits from federal officials.

Apart from the formal aid provided by Congress, one lawmaker decided to volunteer his personal labor to the relief effort.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a surgeon before entering the Senate, arranged to spend the weekend in the storm-damaged area as a medical volunteer, according to one aide.

Few lawmakers trekked to Washington for the brief House debate. Among those absent from the House session was Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who attracted criticism Thursday for telling the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper, that he wasn't sure whether it makes sense to spend billions rebuilding a city that lies below sea level, a reference to New Orleans. He subsequently clarified his remarks.

Hastert was in Indiana on Friday morning at a fundraiser for Rep. Mark Souder (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind. He then attended an auto auction, where he sold a 1977 Lincoln Continental for $50,000 after promising to donate the money to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief.


NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Military convoys rolled into New Orleans on Friday, carrying troops to try to stamp out lawlessness and supplies for desperate survivors of Hurricane Katrina after days of delays and broken promises.

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President George W. Bush, facing fierce criticism over the government's slow response to the one of the worst disasters in U.S. history, signed a $10.5 billion measure late on Friday to speed federal aid to Gulf Coast areas devastated by the storm.

Earlier, Bush toured the stricken area and vowed to fix relief efforts he admitted had been "not unacceptable."

"We're going to make it right," he said.

A caravan of camouflage-green trucks carrying National Guard troops and escorted by helicopters brought a glimpse of hope to New Orleans, which quickly fell into chaos and desperation after the storm surge broke its protective system of levees, and floodwaters inundated the city.

Thousands of people are feared killed and scenes of decomposing corpses, rampant looting and widespread destruction have shocked Americans and aroused angry complaints from politicians and local residents about the lack of aid in the world's richest country.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the federal government in an angry radio interview, saying he was "pissed" at the lack of help his city had received. "Get off your asses and let's do something," he said.

The arrival of the military convoy raised hopes the government might finally be getting a grip on the crisis.

"We got food, water and medical attention. We are gonna get you people out of here," a National Guard officer told thousands of hungry and frustrated people who have waited days at New Orleans' convention center for evacuation buses that never came.

Some cheered but others demanded to know why it had taken so long. Many stranded evacuees recounted horrific tales of murder, rape, death threats and near-starvation inside the filthy, reeking shelter this week.

'THROW-AWAY PEOPLE'

Leroy Fouchea, 42, said two infants were among those who perished because help was too slow in coming. "They died right here, in America, waiting for food."

"We are throw-away people," said Sherman Wright, 69.

A short distance away the corpse of a woman sat in a lawn chair, a towel draped over her head. She had been there since Thursday, people nearby said.

There seemed to be no end to the misery for some. One person died and several others suffered critical injuries when a bus carrying storm refugees to safety flipped on a highway near New Orleans.

Bush and Congress described the relief measure as a downpayment on what will be a larger amount of money to be made available in coming weeks.

Music lovers were glad to hear rock 'n' roll pioneer Fats Domino, who was unaccounted for after the storm, was rescued by boat from floodwaters near his New Orleans home. Domino was "stressed out" but safe, his agent said.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it may need up to 80 days to drain the floodwaters from the city after the hurricane struck Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Monday with 140-mph (225-kph) winds and a huge storm surge.

As people lined up to receive food and water from the troops, a soldier recently back from Iraq said the scene was eerily reminiscent of Baghdad.

"There were always people in the streets always asking for water and food," said Chad Blocker, 21, of the Arkansas National Guard. "It is kind of the same here except here it is your own people."

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the troops were going in with shoot-to-kill orders to stop looting. "These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded."

'NEVER THE SAME'

Nagin questioned why they had not come sooner. "People are dying, people have lost their homes, people have lost their jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same," he said.

Bush walked down a storm-damaged street in downtown Biloxi, Mississippi, and comforted a sobbing woman who told him, "I don't have anything."

The woman, Bronwynne Bassier, 23, and her sister Kim, 21, escaped the storm but her house was in ruins. She clutched a black plastic bag she hoped to use to collect some items from what was left of her home.

"Sorry you're going through this," Bush said, hugging both women.

Dozens of foreign governments offered help ranging from cash donations and helicopters to tents and medical teams. Even as the offers came in, the U.S. government was widely criticized abroad for failing to move more effectively.

Stunned New Orleans residents stumbled around bodies that lay untouched. Others trudged along flooded and debris-strewn streets toward the Superdome football stadium where they hoped to be bused to safety.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said Amtrak passenger trains would join buses and aircraft helping evacuate people trying to escape the historic jazz city.

Most of the victims were poor and black, largely because they have no cars and were unable to flee the city before Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast. The disaster has highlighted the racial and class divides in a city and a country where the gap between rich and poor is vast.

Civil right leader Jesse Jackson, speaking in Baton Rouge, said the government had been "grossly insensitive" to the needs of New Orleans' poor.

"We've sent our National Guard, our helicopters, our resources to secure Baghdad and manufacture a democracy, but leaving New Orleans vulnerable," he told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Mark Babineck in New Orleans, Erwin Seba, Paul Simao and Jim Loney in Baton Rouge, Peter Cooney in Houston, Steve Holland, Charles Aldinger and John Whitesides in Washington)