NEW ORLEANS — Police officials threatened Wednesday to resort to forced evacuations by the end of the week to clear out residents who had not left, pointing to environmental tests warning of dangerous bacteria levels in the floodwaters.
As health authorities joined New Orleans and Louisiana officials in urging the city's estimated 10,000 holdouts to leave their homes, Bush administration officials said they would earmark $51.8 billion in new funding to speed help to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Amid simmering anger about the federal government's halting response, congressional leaders formed a joint House-Senate committee to investigate the breakdowns after the storm hit Aug. 29.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday September 15, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Forced evacuations -- An article in the Sept. 8 Section A about possible forced evacuations in New Orleans referred to J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) as the House majority leader. Hastert is the speaker of the House.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the inquiry would scrutinize government performance across the board. "The initial response to Hurricane Katrina was unacceptable at the local, state and federal levels," he said.
Democratic lawmakers had pressed for an independent panel along the lines of the 9/11 commission, which found pervasive government failures leading to the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and the Pentagon. "I don't think the government should be investigating itself," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) said.
But Frist said he and Republican House Majority Leader J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had settled on a bipartisan panel of senior congressional leaders to "do all we can to learn from this tragedy." The inquiry is to be completed by Feb. 15.
Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- who is under fire for the agency's slow response to the flooding -- said Wednesday that scores of police and volunteer firefighters from around the nation, as well as trucks loaded with donated water, were even now being prevented from entering New Orleans while troops conduct house-to-house searches.
"They can't just yet," Brown said during a briefing in Baton Rouge. "There is going to come this natural time when we will release this floodgate of cops and firefighters who want to help. It's the same for anyone who wants to volunteer -- we have over 50,000 offers of donations from the private sector. It has to be coordinated in such a way that it helps."
Numerous state and local officials in Louisiana have accused FEMA of making the situation worse with red tape and a hesitant response immediately after Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
