People were getting homes, jobs - everybody was getting served one way or another.

Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings.

There are few cities with so many good as New Orleans and also few cities where there is such a stark coexistence with the bad. It is this city, the Big Easy, that is home to kind and generous and Christian people . . . and yet also this city that has allowed evil to flourish in a way that has become truly dangerous.

It's real important to get these dollars to local agencies to serve the area.

I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep, ... And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims. To a congressional inquiry into the response to Hurricane Katrina|Hurricane Katrina

I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down and get over differences and work together. I just couldn't pull that off. I want this committee to know FEMA pushed forward with everything it had, every team, every asset it had, in order to help what we saw as potentially catastrophic disaster.

I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it.

FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications...Many may be surprised to learn that, guess what, FEMA doesn't own fire trucks. We don't own ambulances. We don't own search and rescue equipment. The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it. Responding to criticism on his leadership at FEMA