Report: Alabama Handled Katrina Pretty Well

WASHINGTON -- Alabama officials generally responded well to Hurricane Katrina but encountered some friction in dealing with their federal counterparts and need to focus more on providing temporary housing for future storm victims, according to a House committee's findings released Wednesday.

The report notes the racial sensitivities surrounding Gov. Bob Riley's order to do criminal background checks on out-of-state evacuees housed in state parks but expresses no conclusions on whether that approach was warranted.

At a committee hearing in November, Riley said he wanted to keep sexual predators away from children and that the checks applied to all evacuees regardless of race.

The panel's 520-page report does not single out any major problems in Alabama's preparations for the devastating August storm or its handling of the aftermath. As in Mississippi and Louisiana, evacuations "went relatively well," the report states.

Because Alabama was less affected than either of the other two states, its emergency communications network remained largely intact, and its "command and control" structure suffered fewer problems, the report finds.

The report praises the Alabama Emergency Management Agency's system for tracking and addressing requests for help from local governments. On the evening of Aug. 29 -- the day Katrina made landfall -- the Mobile Police Department had to wait little more than an hour to receive vehicles for search and rescue operations, according to the report.

Earlier that same evening, the Baldwin County Emergency Management Agency asked for five generators to keep wells running. The state had checked off that task by 9:16 the next morning.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not always as quick, the report says. It waited more than three weeks to address Mobile County Emergency Management Agency Director Walt Dickerson's request to borrow four employees and took six days to respond to Monroe County's request for shelter supplies.

Alabama officials also "expressed frustration" that FEMA did not send more staff sooner to the state Emergency Operations Center in Clanton in the days before the storm hit. On Aug. 27, the report says, five to eight FEMA employees were at the state center.

Alabama EMA officials "believed that had FEMA been on site sooner with a larger contingent, Alabama may have been able to acquire needed resources and commodities more quickly," the report says.

FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said Wednesday that the agency actually dispatched an emergency response team of about 25 people. But she did not know whether some of those went to other parts of the state. Because of such criticisms, however, the agency has beefed up its pre-storm preparations, Andrews said. Before Hurricane Wilma struck Florida in October, FEMA had several hundred people on the ground, she said.

"It was a pilot of how we can expect the federal response to occur in the face of large disasters when we see them coming," she said.

The state also ran into problems when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took 200 hospital spaces out of circulation without prior notice. State officials thought those beds were still available and continued to direct patients to them, according to the report. Similarly, the U.S. Coast Guard was bringing survivors from Mississippi to already-full hospitals in Alabama. The result was confusion and a delay in the "medical response," the report says.

The report faults government at all levels for failing to prepare for an influx of homeless storm evacuees. Emergency response plans by state and local governments in Alabama "lack information about temporary housing," it states.

The specially formed House committee did not include any Alabama lawmakers. Besides Riley and Dickerson, several other state and local officials testified at the November hearing. The state also supplied the committee with numerous documents and records.

"The state of Alabama answered all questions and replied to all requests," the report says.

Bayou La Batre (of Forrest Gump fame) was the hardest hit fishing village on the Alabama coast.

Czech donation helps Bayou library

Thursday, February 16, 2006
By RUSS HENDERSON
Staff Reporter

BAYOU LA BATRE -- The Czech Republic knows something about waterlogged books.

"When the Vltava River flooded in 2002, our own libraries in Prague were flooded," Petr Kolar, the Czech Republic's ambassador to the United States, said Wednesday. "When we were in trouble, we were also helped from outside. We received donations to rebuild, and so now, we are helping."

Kolar presented a $111,000 check to this small seafood town's librarian Wednesday, and she thanked him with tears welling up in her eyes. The Mose Hudson Tapia Public Library and its collection of 14,000 books were destroyed when Hurricane Katrina sent more than 4 feet of water into the log cabin.

"A library gives you the power to control your own destiny, and that's what you're giving us," said the librarian, Ada Williamson. She said she'll use the money to buy books.

Kolar plans to visit Mississippi's storm-wracked coast today to present a $100,000 check to the St. Vincent de Paul Community Pharmacy, known for helping the Coast's poor, uninsured and elderly with medicine needs.

"Our purpose is to send the message to the people of the Gulf Coast that they have friends in the heart of Europe who want to be with them in hard times," Kolar said.

Catastrophic flooding of the Vltava in 1997 and 2002 brought millions of dollars in aid from the international community, Kolar said, and since then, the country has made an effort to itself become more prominent in handing out aid to countries in need.

The Czech Republic in the past year allocated more than $15 million in aid to various regions hit by natural disasters, including about $1 million for post-Katrina aid to the United States, according to Czech news reports.

The country sent money after the Pakistan earthquake and the Southeast Asian tsunami. The country's citizens also donated tons of blankets, camp beds, tents and other equipment for relief efforts.

The country has about 10 million citizens and a gross domestic product of $85 billion. The U.S. has 298 million citizens and a gross domestic product of over $10 trillion.

"I couldn't believe such a small country would help us so much," Sue Bosarge, Bayou La Batre Library Board president, said at a check presentation ceremony Wednesday.

Kolar actually handed the check to the librarian twice -- first at the library's temporary location in a local strip mall, then at a reception at a local home, where television cameras were present.

In 2002, the Vltava's flooding forced Prague City Library archivists to freeze thousands of irreplaceable, waterlogged documents in hopes of rescuing them later. The library later received many donations from the United States, including preservation equipment worth $20,000 from the Chicago Sister Cities cultural organization.

Bayou La Batre Mayor Stan Wright presented Kolar a key to the city as well as a painting by local artist Verna Bryant. The painting depicts a shrimp boat gliding between the upraised halves of the town's old drawbridge.

"I will need that (the painting) to remind me of this area when I'm in Washington, D.C., especially when it's covered in snow," Kolar said.

I evacuated my family to Alabama for Katrina. We got hit, but at least we didn't have to worry about drowning in N.O.
We spent a month there.
The DAY AFTER the storm the locals were out with chainsaws and whatever they had. The roads were cleared VERY quickly. Generators could be heard everywhere, and everyone got out to help their neighbors. This was in northern, rural, Mobile county. I don't know what happened in downtown Mobile, proper, or on the coast- but I was amazed at the self-sufficiency in the aftermath of destruction.

Churches and relief groups went into action immediately.
I firmly believe that, afer Armageddon, there will be a group of Baptist churchladies who will go into action. Armed
with pots, spoons, and a van to deliver food they will get things organized in no time!

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