September 2, 2005

Hurricane Aftermath

Texas Legislator Makes Emergency Run
as Lobbyists Offer Client's Helping Hand

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

A Texas legislator is heading back home this evening after hauling emergency supplies to New Orleans as part of a major relief effort organized by a trio of Texas lobbyists on behalf of their client, Ameriquest Mortgage Company.

Austin lobbyists Todd Smith, Frank Santos and Kelly Sampley left Austin at 4 a.m. Thursday to travel to Louisiana to inform state officials there that Ameriquest had earmarked $5 million for relief efforts in the aftermath of death and destruction inflicted by Hurricane Katrina. As the lobbyists huddled in Baton Rouge with officials to discuss the private donation, State Rep. Sid Miller was on his way to New Orleans in a refrigerated truck stocked with bottled water, soft drinks and food in response to the company's appeal for volunteers to help provide relief for people whose lives have been uprooted by the storm.

Miller - a world champion calf roper - made it to the outskirts of the Big Easy this afternoon where National Guard members and displaced locals helped him unload 24,000 bottles of cold water - the first drinking water they'd seen in more than two days. The Stephenville Republican then turned around and began the trip back to Texas where he and State Rep. Bill Callegari plan to coordinate the delivery and distribution of two dozen more truckloads of items such as diapers, water and other necessities to storm-ravaged coastal areas in Mississippi at the request of Governor Haley Barbour as part of the Ameriquest care package.

While Louisiana residents were relieved to see the Texan with the big supply of water they could drink, the offer of financial assistance from Ameriquest turned out to be too much too soon for a place that's still in a state of shock and chaos from the worst natural disaster that anyone there had ever imagined much less seen. The Texas lobbyists first met with officials from Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's office and the Louisiana housing agency to determine how the money offered by the private company could best be used in the
coastal areas that were hit hardest by the storm when it roared ashore this week.

But with search and rescue missions and crime in the streets still the immediate priorities in New Orleans and other coastal areas affected by the storm, Santos, Sampley, and Smith, who represents Miller as a political consultant, turned back to the west after the decision was made to spend the private money in Texas where resources have been badly strained as officials try to cope with a massive inundation of refugees from the neighboring state.

Speaking at a press conference at the Astrodome in Houston on the state's storm relief efforts, Governor Rick Perry announced this afternoon that the contribution from Ameriquest would be used to provide temporary housing for many of the Louisiana residents who've been displaced by the hurricane.

The private assistance is part of a massive helping hand that Texas has extended to its eastern neighbor including the deployment of a water search and rescue team and the activation of 200 Texas State Guard members to help with shelter operations in the Beaumont area of Southeast Texas. Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn announced Thursday that her office is waiving the state tax on hotel and motel rooms for hurricane victims who've fled their own state - and she called on Perry on Friday to call an immediate special session to earmark a new $1.2 billion surplus for hurricane relief efforts.

House Speaker Tom Craddick has appointed a special 13-member committee to oversee the lower chamber's role in hurricane relief and ramifications. The bipartisan panel is led by State Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Houston Democrat who is the House's speaker pro tem.

The state has offered the use of Texas Air National Guard helicopters and other aircraft and waived permit fees and restrictions for temporary housing equipment that's being transported from Texas to the Louisiana and other southern states hit by the hurricane. The Astrodome and other Texas buildings have been converted to temporary shelters for Louisiana residents who are unable to return to their homes or what's left of them as a result of an evacuation order in New Orleans and other cities.

An estimated 75,000 refugees from Louisiana have taken shelter in the Astrodome, Reunion Arena in Dallas, the Alamodome in San Antonio and other large facilities in various parts of the state.