92,000 reasons not to forget about Katrina

Hurricane Katrina has blown off the media radar, the one-year anniversary having passed and other issues -- Iraq, the upcoming elections -- seizing media time. Of course, there are many reasons Katrina should be at the top of today's political debates. That Hattiesburg American gives 92,000 reasons in Mississippi alone:

There are about 92,000 reasons why Gov. Haley Barbour needs to be concerned about when it comes to Hurricane Katrina and the response of the government.

They're called FEMA trailers. Nearly 14 months have passed since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, and there are still too many Mississippians living in the trailers, elaborate tin cans that have proven to be more of a headache than a cure for the housing needs of Gulf Coast residents displaced by Katrina.

The governor's office last week held a series of meetings to pick the brains of trailer residents on what the government can do to improve emergency housing.

Here's a better idea. Stop picking brains. Instead, start using the brainpower the state has at its avail. Use those brains to get FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has dropped the ball on the emergency and management components of its title) to be more responsive to the needs of those 92,000 Mississippians who have had to live with this incompetence for too long.

According to rules and regulations, trailer residents have 18 months before they have to give up the trailers. Most would gladly comply, given the myriad problems they've had to absorb. But for now, it would help greatly if the governor would use his ties to Washington to remind the administration and Congress that people are still hurting.