E-Mails Show Blanco Staffers Inundated With Requests From Leaders, Press

BATON ROUGE, La. – Dan Rather and Oprah Winfrey wanted interviews. An outspoken congresswoman wanted a security escort in the flooded city. Cuba’s dictator offered medical help; Venezuela’s president wanted to chat with the governor.As looters and Hurricane Katrina floodwaters ravaged New Orleans, Governor Blanco’s top aides were inundated with requests from around the world, from celebrities, dignitaries, and people whose relatives were trapped in the city, according to documents released Friday.Ms. Blanco staffers also sought to boost her image and debunk rumors about rampant violence, the correspondence shows.” FYI, the shooting of looters in Jefferson Parish is still unconfirmed,” said an e-mail message from a state police lieutenant to Bob Mann, Ms. Blanco’s communications director, four days after the storm struck.The contents of Mr. Mann’s e-mail inbox from August 23 through September 6 – hundreds of messages each day – make up part of the estimated 100,000 pages of documents Ms. Blanco’s office sent this week to two congressional committees investigating government failures in preparing for and responding to Katrina.Many are police reports about traffic, weather and crime, logs of calls from people needing to be rescued, plus public statements from the governor and day-by-day official reports on flooding, refugees, and evacuation efforts.Typo-laden e-mail messages deal with improving the public’s perception of Ms. Blanco, who in the early days of the crisis appeared on television looking stricken and grim, and once wept during a news conference. In response, her aides sought ways to play up her strengths, even while the press continued broadcasting images of thousands of people waiting to be rescued.“We need to show the public that we’ve moved x number of people … That all the shelters in La are full,” speechwriter Chris Frink wrote in a September 3 e-mail. “TV is giving the public a view of this entire crisis based on small, limited perspectives.”Ms. Blanco’s aides were also aware of racial politics – an issue conjured up by the crowds of black New Orleanians who were forced out of their homes by flooding, then waited for days to be rescued, without food or water. When Rep. Maxine Waters, a black Democrat from California, requested security escorts for a New Orleans visit, the head of state police denied the request, saying troopers were busy elsewhere.Johnny Anderson, an assistant chief of staff to Ms. Blanco, warned colleagues to be cautious in dealing with Ms. Waters, who is often outspoken about race. “Please handle this very carefully,” Mr. Anderson wrote in an email. “We are getting enough bad national press on race relations.”Other e-mails reflect the need to dampen rumors that swirled about violence and deaths. On September 3, Blanco chief of staff Andy Kopplin reminded staffers not to pass on unfounded information, after he heard that evacuees had been quoted on the radio saying eight people per hour were dying inside the Louisiana Superdome. The report was false.“Ok, please don’t spread info like this even if conveyed by media as it is unconfirmed,” Mr. Kopplin wrote.Larry King, Dr. Phil, Oprah Winfrey, and other television stars wanted Ms. Blanco on their TV shows; reporters from around the world wanted to interview her. President Chavez of Venezuela contacted the governor’s office on August 30. He wanted Ms. Blanco to call him back to discuss Katrina.Cuban leader Fidel Castro offered to send medical help. Louisiana economic development chief Mike Olivier wrote in an e-mail he had spoken with the Cuban ambassador. He suggested some sort of response to the dictator’s offer: “Even a written email from the Governor would be good.”

E-Mails Show Blanco Staffers Inundated With Requests From Leaders, Press

More from the New York Sun

Jesse Tyler Ferguson Zings ‘Tru’ as Capote in a Poignant Revival

To Jay Powell: In the Name of God, Go

Clip Farming Their Way Through the ‘Manosphere’: Going Viral for Being Vile

Will Iranian Attacks Against Gulf States Reshape Regional Alliances?

Reports That Joe Kent Was Under FBI Probe May Provide New Motive for His Surprise Resignation

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Says She Was Booted From Arkansas Restaurant in Déjà Vu Moment

The Next Fight in the Iran War

‘She Got Money’: Harvey Weinstein’s Defense Quarrels With Prosecutors on His 74th Birthday Over How To Explain $500,000 Award to Accuser