| Medication must have kicked in. |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The cursing had stopped. The tears were gone. Mayor Ray Nagin returned from his meeting with President Bush a picture of calm. He leaned back against a railing in a hotel lobby that for the first time in nearly five days was devoid of stranded, sweating, and generally miserable tourists.
``I feel much better. I feel like we've gotten everyone's attention and hopefully they'll continue to do what they're doing,'' Nagin said Friday night in the damaged downtown Hyatt hotel, where his temporary lodgings and command post have been set up since Hurricane Katrina made life in the Big Easy insufferable.
``I'm cautiously optimistic. I want to see it happen (Saturday). I want to see it happen next week. Then, when I see consistency of delivery, I'll feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.''
His comments came a day after he was heard on a radio interview erupting in tears and telling the government to ``get off your asses and let's do something.'' By nightfall Friday, his tone had changed. ``Today was a turning point, I think,'' he said. ``My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. ... I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out.'``'
Nagin said Bush gave him a hearty greeting and did not seem at all offended by Nagin's earlier outburst. Bush spent Friday on a daylong tour of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. ``I do think the pleas for help basically got the nation's attention, and the nation's attention got everybody to stop and re-evaluate what was going on, including the president. ... He basically said, 'Look, our response was not what it should have been and we're going to fix it right now.'''
The mayor asked Bush to focus on helping New Orleans with law enforcement, finishing the evacuation and draining the flooded city. He said New Orleans also needs a fleet of crop dusters to spray the city for mosquitos that could spread disease after hatching from the stagnant water that has swamped most of the city since Monday. |