Gulf Watch

June 4, 2007 - Hurricane Katrina is still killing people almost two years after it struck. Or is it? There's some disagreement in the medical community -- though the closer one gets to local front-line caregivers, the stronger the consensus becomes that the storm continues to claim the lives of those who survived the immediate destruction.

May 31, 2007 - The Associated Press has identified five coastal areas of the United States that are particularly vulnerable to hurricane disasters -- and four of them are in the South.

May 31, 2007 - At a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee on hurricane readiness held earlier this month, Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) asked Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison to address complaints that trailers housing Katrina and Rita survivors have dangerous levels of formaldehyde, the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger reports:

May 30, 2007 - State and local governments in storm-stricken areas of the Gulf Coast will no longer have to put up their own money in order to get federal rebuilding funds, thanks to the emergency war spending bill approved by Congress last week and signed into law by President Bush.

May 30, 2007 - The Government Accountability Office has released a report into concerns that cronyism tainted a deal that led to more than 30 problematic flood-control pumps being installed in New Orleans.

May 25, 2007 - Since Katrina, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has received heaps of praise for his political savvy -- and ability to use his GOP connections to get a lion's share of federal relief funds for his state.

May 25, 2007 - Louisiana's largest state-led recovery initiative for hurricane victims -- the Road Home housing assistance program -- faces an estimated $3 billion shortfall, and federal officials yesterday told a Senate subcommittee that they have no plans to bail it out.