WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Bush administration kept its Hurricane Katrina
response and its public relations campaign in overdrive on Sunday, even
as first confirmation came from Washington of a dreaded statistic - that
the storm probably killed thousands of people.
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS / AP
President Bush greets volunteers on Sunday at the American Red
Cross Disaster Operation Center in Washington, D.C.
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Responding to accusations of racial insensitivity, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said, "Nobody, especially the president, would have
left people unattended on the basis of race."
Rice, who was sent to her native Alabama, was among four Cabinet
secretaries and other high-ranking administration officials who fanned
who out across the storm-ravaged region Sunday. President Bush was
planning to return to the area Monday, three days after an initial
visit, with appearances in Baton Rouge, La., and Poplarville, Miss.
Six days after Katrina lashed much of the Gulf Coast into oblivion, and
five days after levee breaks drowned New Orleans and turned it into a
place of lawless misery, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
said military personnel and National Guard troops have secured the city
and ensured that those still stranded can be moved out.
But he said significant challenges remain - including how to care for
the people being relocated.
"We are still in the middle of the emergency," Chertoff said on CNN's
"Late Edition." "We are moving the city of New Orleans to other parts of
the country."
Underscoring the strain of the disaster, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.,
lashed out at federal officials who she said have denigrated local
efforts to deal with the catastrophe.
"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing, including the
president of the United States, he will hear from me," she said on the
ABC's "This Week." "One more word about it after this show airs and I
might likely have to punch him. Literally."
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, at the
government's request, announced a hot line and Web site dedicated to
reuniting family members separated by the storm. By noon EDT Monday,
people will be able to get help at 1-888-544-5475 or at
MissingKids.com , where they can post or look through photographs, lists
of names and physical descriptions.
There also were warnings of new dangers. Health and Human Services
Secretary Michael Leavitt said he had received a report from Biloxi,
Miss., of dysentery - a painful, sometimes-fatal intestinal disease that
causes dehydration. With hot weather, mosquitos and standing water
holding human waste, corpses and other contaminants, diseases such as
West Nile virus, hepatitis A, salmonella and E. coli bacteria infections
also are a concern, he said on CNN.
"We have the ingredients for a bad situation there," Leavitt said.
Hundreds of federal health officers and nearly 100 tons of medical
supplies and antibiotics were being delivered to the Gulf Coast to try
to head off the problem.
Local officials had predicted the death toll would reach into the
thousands, and federal officials agreed Sunday.
"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Leavitt said.
Chertoff said an untold number probably will be found dead in swamped
homes, temporary shelters where many went for days without food or clean
water, or even in the streets once the water is drained from New
Orleans, which could take a month or more.
"I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming," Chertoff
said on "Fox News Sunday." "It is going to be about as ugly of a scene
as I think you can imagine."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told NBC News that the situation has been "a
tragedy, a disgrace."
The Bush administration continued scrambling to counter criticism that
Bush and his administration didn't move aggressively enough right after
the hurricane swept through.
The White House quickly arranged another trip by Bush to the Gulf Coast
on Monday, while the president and first lady Laura Bush paid a
thank-you call on the Red Cross' disaster operations center and
announced a White House blood drive.
"The world saw this tidal wave of disaster" hit the Gulf Coast, Bush
said at the Red Cross center. "Now they're going to see a tidal wave of
compassion."
Besides Rice, Chertoff and Leavitt, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers also traveled to
the region Sunday.
"It's going to take many, many, many months and into years for this area
to recover," said Rumsfeld, who took a helicopter tour of New Orleans,
met with military personnel conducting search-and-rescue missions and
visited a concourse where evacuated patients were being treated.
Rice - the administration's highest-ranking black - became its chief
defender against charges that help, particularly to the
disproportionately black and poor victims in New Orleans, came too
slowly. "Americans don't want to see Americans suffer," she said in
Alabama.
On television, Chertoff was omnipresent, dispatched by the
administration to appear on all five Sunday news shows after FEMA
Director Michael Brown's damage-control efforts met with little success
last week.
Chertoff echoed the White House line - saying the time to place blame
will come later, but he also said federal officials had trouble getting
information from local officials on what was going on. For instance, he
said, they hadn't been told by Thursday of the violence and horrible
conditions at the New Orleans convention center.
