HURRICANE KATRINA Documents give inside look at response

A White House spokeswoman said she hasn't seen the documents.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- As Hurricane Katrina roared ashore and began its assault on homes and lives across Louisiana, a political storm was brewing in the Louisiana governor's office and the White House, newly released documents show.
Memos, handwritten notes, e-mails and phone logs turned over late Friday to congressional committees investigating failures in the government's disaster response shed more light on what happened behind the scenes in the frantic days surrounding the Aug. 29 storm.
Katrina stranded thousands of people in homes, on rooftops and in the Superdome for days, flooded neighborhoods and killed more than 1,000 people in Louisiana alone.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco and others blamed the federal government for a slow response. The White House said the governor was slow to ask for troops and that state and local officials were unorganized and indecisive.
Letters
The 100,000 pages of documents that Blanco sent to Congress on Friday include a series of letters starting with one Blanco sent President Bush a day before the hurricane hit.
"I have determined that this incident will be of such severity and magnitude that effective response will be beyond the capabilities of the state and the affected local governments and that supplementary federal assistance will be necessary," Blanco wrote.
Three days after the storm, Blanco wrote Bush asking that the 256th Louisiana National Guard Brigade be sent home from Iraq to help. She also asked for more generators, medicine, health-care workers and mortuaries.
Five days later, Bush assistant Maggie Grant e-mailed Blanco aide Paine Gowen to say that the White House did not receive the letter.
"We found it on the governor's Web site but we need 'an original,' for our staff secretary to formally process the requests she is making," Grant wrote. "We are on the job but appreciate your help with a technical request. Tnx!"
The stack of documents also includes a time line put together by Blanco's staff detailing the state response; notes expressing frustration about missing items such as a communications center for police and rescuers promised by the Federal Emergency Management Agency; and e-mails working out logistics for New Orleans visits from Bush and Cabinet members.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Saturday that she hadn't seen the documents.