"Gulf Coast's State Surprises Lawmakers"

[GreenPartyVoter]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Progress rebuilding the Gulf Coast is still overshadowed by the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina, senators said Tuesday, promising more federal help as they viewed broken levees and the shattered homes of victims trying to restart their lives.

Four months after the Aug. 29 storm, lawmakers said they were surprised to see how little progress has been made in places like Gulfport, Miss., where churches were gutted and trees uprooted, and in New Orleans, where piles of boards and rubble sit where homes used to stand.

Senators touring the destruction were decidedly less upbeat than President Bush was five days earlier, when he visited New Orleans for the first time in three months. During that trip, Bush called progress since August "pretty dramatic," but he was later criticized for visiting the city's wealthier neighborhoods, which escaped the brunt of the damage.

"It's good to say that we've made progress, but also important to say we've got a long way to go," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., on a daylong trip to some of Katrina's hardest-hit areas by members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060118/D8F6OGB81.html