Hurricane Gustav showed us the importance of being prepared for a major storm. It was encouraging to see such a high level of communication and cooperation between the local, state and federal governments to ensure the safety of the people in south Louisiana. However, this has also shown that we still have more work to do to be prepared for future storms.

This week I have been meeting with local and state officials as well as other Members of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation to assess the damage. Yesterday we toured some of the hardest hit areas. None of our federal levees breached, but there is some severe flooding and a lot of power outages and debris from the high powered winds. Last night FEMA announced that federal disaster aid has been made available for Louisiana to help people and communities recover.

I will continue spending the rest of this week assessing the damage and working with state and local leaders to make sure they get the resources they need to rebuild from the damage. Next week I will go back to Washington and work with the rest of our Congressional Delegation to get Louisiana the necessary assistance for recovery and rebuilding.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am and is filed under Politics, Energy/Environment, Homeland Security .