Miss. GOP muscle may get 1st shot at funding

AP ^ | 9/7

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

Miss. GOP muscle may get 1st shot at funding

By Laurie Kellman, Associated Press | September 7, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A triumvirate of Republican power brokers may give Mississippi first dibs in the post-Hurricane Katrina grab for federal disaster funds even though the US government focused its initial response on New Orleans.

The state's senior senator, Thad Cochran, is the new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the panel charged with determining how much and where the recovery money will be spent.

Its junior senator's home -- a place where GOP leaders from across the county once bantered about politics from rocking chairs on a porch overlooking the Gulf of Mexico -- was flattened by Katrina.

''There's nothing there now," Senator Trent Lott said of his historic Pascagoula house, which had been 12 feet above sea level. ''I found my refrigerator . . . It went down the street two blocks, turned left, and went into a neighbor's yard."

Add Governor Haley Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, and Mississippi packs more political muscle than the storm-ravaged states of Louisiana and Alabama.

Television and the Internet have introduced the men to the world in intensely emotional terms.

Before the cameras, Barbour wept, bereft of words, as he tried to describe the scene in the first hours after the storm.

On the Senate floor, the genteel Cochran spoke softly about the storm.

[EGPWS]

Hey Unc, can I offer you a kitty?

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

It is funny how some of you imply that recent sign-ups are trolls. In truth, the biggest trolls around here are the longtime accounts.

[EGPWS]

It is funny how some of you imply that recent sign-ups are trolls. In truth, the biggest trolls around here are the longtime accounts.

Here kitty, kitty....

Let the games begin.

[kb2614]

A triumvirate of Republican power brokers may give Mississippi first dibs in the post-Hurricane Katrina grab for federal disaster funds even though the US government focused its initial response on New Orleans.

They do know that the Mississippi gulf coast was hit by the full impact of the hurricane, right??

[nopardons]

No, the MSM and those who believe what they put out, have NO idea that Mississippi was the hardest hit. That fact has been completely ignored by ALL of the media.

[patriciamary]

Mississippi deserves it.

[nopardons]

Ummmmmm...could you be just a bit clearer? Miss. deserves what...the relief money, to be ignored, or its devastation?

[patriciamary]

if Mississippi was most damaged if deserves the money

[Wonder Warthog]

Mississippi "should" get first crack at funding. Despite all the hooo-hah about New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast was harder hit (and I say this as a Louisiana native with kinfolk in New Orleans).

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Yes.

And here's the last line of this AP policital hit piece.

"Mississippi's political muscle follows decades of being in the shadow of Louisiana, clout-wise, on Capitol Hill."

[Not to mention, Mississippi coastal areas were immediately devasted and that New Orleans had more than one opportunity to evacuate.]

[RSmithOpt]

Waveland, Miss. no longer exists from a 30 ft storm surge, which is 5-10ft higher than Camille depending where you're looking along the coast. From what I've seen of the coverage, the Miss. Gulf Coast is completely wiped with very few inhabitable buildings. Dang straight they deserve the money first.

The destruction seems to be much worse than from 08/17/69 Camille simply because of the increased population.

Several sources consider Hurricane Camille the largest single act of destruction in United States history (until Hurricane Andrew in 1992). To this day, Camille remains the most extreme meteorological event to take place in North America. Although there is some question as to the total death toll, the best estimates are - 255 people killed, and 8,900 injured. A number of people (50 - 75) were never found. Nearly 14,000 housing units were damaged, and 6,000 others were totally destroyed (Coburn 1977). The total damage from Camille was $4.2 billion ( in 1969 dollars). As of the 2001 hurricane season, Camille remains the most intense hurricane to enter the United States mainland."

So, the Miss. Gulf Coast has had more than its share of devastation in 36 years.

Source

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sept 3, 2005 Mississippi struggles in New Orleans' shadow***…………………In a strongly worded editorial, The Sun Herald of Biloxi-Gulfport pleaded for help and questioned why a massive National Guard presence wasn't already visible.

"We understand that New Orleans also was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but surely this nation has the resources to rescue both that metropolitan (area) and ours," the newspaper editorialized, saying survival basics like ice, gasoline and medicine have been too slow to arrive.

"We are not calling on the nation and the state to make life more comfortable in South Mississippi, we are calling on the nation and the state to make life here possible," the paper wrote. ***

[montag813]

Camille remains the most intense hurricane to enter the United States mainland

So much for the Left's theory of global warming intensifying huricanes. This was 36 years ago.

[RSmithOpt]

In 1981, LSU and Tulane meteorological grad students and professors ran a supercomputer model of the probable damage from a direct hit of NO from a CAT4 storm. Their findings are pretty much reliable then as results we see today. Remember Gilbert in 1988 and the size of that SOB that hit Mexico?

Hurricane Gilbert had the lowest sea level pressure (888 Mb) ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. Gilbert was a category 5 hurricane when it made landfall over Cozumel, Mexico, then later weakened to a category 3 storm before making it's second landfall over northern Mexico. Gilbert's northeastern track into Texas and Oklahoma caused $40-50 million in damages from the more than 29 tornadoes reported. Coastal regions in Mexico received 5-10 inches of rain. A total 318 people died due to the effects of this storm.

The US was very lucky that huge storm didn't make a right turn to NO and the Gulf Coast. We were warned clearly then.

[RSmithOpt]

I truly feel for the folks in Miss. NO and LA are getting all the attention because of the huge Left Entitlement City of NO, the number of refineries, nation's gas supply, number of victims, and the agricultural and energy shipping center of the heartland of the US.

Tent will light the fire to get it done (if not already). He still has a lot of muscle and is a key player still for W in the Senate. I've seen his demeanor the last 2 days and he's PO'd about the relief efforts to southern Mississippi.