WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee will have hearings on the federal hurricane response.
The Tennessee Republican, a heart surgeon, picked up his stethoscope Saturday to volunteer to help evacuees at New Orleans International Airport, a day after convoys of federal troops and supplies began rolling into flooded New Orleans.
Frist said Congress would incorporate lessons learned from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina into legislation, the Hill reported Tuesday. Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown has drawn fire for a slow government response to the crisis.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, Louisiana's largest newspaper, Sunday called for the firing of every FEMA official for allowing tens of thousands of suffer in squalid conditions for days in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center.
Lawmakers also called for the removal of FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security.
