Governor Blanco placed her request with the federal government on Aust 28th, page 1

According to Governor Blanco's office, and verified by FEMA's own website updates, the governor filed the necessary request, following defined FEMA protocol in the process:

State of Louisiana Website with downloadable PDF images of the letters

Press release as carried by the State of Louisiana website

FEMA's acknowledgement

So I guess the culpability of the preventable side of this tragedy falls more on municipal and federal authorities than it does on the state.

Does this not -- at least to some degree -- discredit the "Party Line" news sources who have been so quick to accept Washington's (obviously erroneous) word on the issue???

EDIT: According to the information linked to above on the FEMA website (posted there on August 27th):

1. Governor Blanco declared a State of Emergency on Friday, August 26th, THREE DAYS BEFORE KATRINA HIT.

2. FEMA new DMAN well that Katrina was going to strengthen before making landfall -- as predicted by the NOAA and NHC.

EDIT: Not to rock the boat or anything, but as this forum -- the lone forum dedicated to Katrina-related discussion -- does not have so much as a single thread dedicated to this particular issue, is this thread being locked because the topic is not considered as worthy as other topics related to Katrina and its aftermath?

Considering the "party line" out of this administration has to date relied so heavily on the assertion that federal aid wasn't provided in a timely matter simply because it was not requested, should not this topic be awarded the opportunity for dedicated discussion? IMHO, I fear what appears to be rather important documentation (with included references to source material) may be too easily lost amid the broad scope of discussion in the other threads you mention... Just one man's opinion.

Thx...

[edit on 10-9-2005 by sdrumrunner]