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Hurricane Katrina

City's wish list after storm stirs questions

WASHINGTON - A senator leading an investigation into the response to Hurricane Katrina questioned whether requests after the storm by New Orleans officials for golf carts, air conditioners and travel aid were necessary.

Documents released Thursday by Senate aides show that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration also asked for hundreds of laptop computers, patrol cars, handcuffs and guns for police. There was looting in the flooded city after the Aug. 29 storm, and many of its police cars and other equipment were destroyed.

The city's police chief defended the requests Thursday, saying that the Federal Emergency Management Agency told the police department to "think big" in asking for supplies lost in the storm.

However, what the city asked for "struck me as not the typical request," said Sen. Susan Collins, leading a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that examined FEMA's response operations.

"Are these typical of the requests that you would expect to get from state and local governments to FEMA in the aftermath of a disaster?" said Collins, R-Maine.

Scott Wells, the agency's top coordinator in Louisiana, said: "I think this is an indication of a lack of understanding - this came from the local level - of what FEMA is there for, what we can do."

A message left Thursday with Nagin's office was not returned.

E-mails from state officials also released by the Senate indicate confusion over how to ask for enough resources to ensure that needs were met.

"I am going to ask if there isn't some blanket "FEMA do everything possible everywhere' request," Stephanie Leger, an aide to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, wrote in a Sept. 3 e-mail.

The documents - FEMA and state request forms - detail requests from city officials immediately after the storm. They include:

100 laptop computers, 200 Crown Victoria cruisers, 300 bulletproof vests, 400 hundred semiautomatic guns, 1,000 handcuffs, 1,500 military boots and 2,000 uniforms for city police.

10 gas-powered golf carts to transport firefighters around staging areas at the Zephyr baseball field in New Orleans.

At least one air conditioning unit for City Hall offices.

A month later city and state officials asked for more Katrina-related aid. Among the items were:

A bus for Nagin and 20 employees to travel to Shreveport, La. The request said the bus needed to come with fuel, meals and lodging. It was rejected by FEMA.

New Orleans' police chief, Warren Riley, said FEMA promised to replace lost equipment and encouraged them to apply for it.

"And it is FEMA officials that initially came and said anything that you lost - uniforms, equipment, anything - order it. And the comment was always, "Think big, make sure that you get your equipment.' So naturally we followed those instructions," Riley said.

[Last modified December 9, 2005, 01:20:12]