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Bush to visit Arkansas on Saturday Wednesday, Sep 21, 2005 By Alison Vekshin Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- President Bush is scheduled to visit Arkansas on Saturday as part of a tour of states housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the White House announced Tuesday. "The president will be traveling to cities and states that have taken in large numbers of people that had to be evacuated because of Hurricane Katrina, and the trip will be an opportunity for the president to personally thank those cities and states for taking in our fellow citizens during this difficult time," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. Bush will make stops in Alabama on Friday and Arkansas and Texas on Saturday, according to the White House. As of Tuesday, the White House did not have details on Bush's itinerary in Arkansas. "I'd like for him to see that Arkansas has received an enormous number of evacuees and to see how we have taken care of them," Gov. Mike Huckabee said. The state is housing about 50,000 evacuees, Huckabee said. Huckabee would like Bush "to know that we took as many as came here willingly and without hesitation," he said. "We hope that the broad outline that (Bush) shared on helping these folks get on their feet would follow them wherever they went, whether its schools or jobs in other states or back in the storm-affected states," Huckabee said. The governor planned to accompany Bush on his tour of Arkansas. "Any one of the camps would be perfect for him to see," Huckabee said. "It would give him a unique perspective on how we dealt with the evacuees different from other states." Many of the evacuees are staying in church camps across Arkansas. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said he talked about the visit on Tuesday with Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and senior adviser. Rove told Pryor that the trip was still tentative, depending on what happens with Hurricane Rita, Pryor said. The hurricane barreled through the Florida Keys on Tuesday toward the Gulf Coast, threatening to strike the areas already ravaged by Katrina. Some 4,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees from Mississippi and Louisiana began arriving in Arkansas on Tuesday from the Houston area where officials were making room for evacuees expected to flee Hurricane Rita. Huckabee said he welcomed the first flight of evacuees from the Houston Astrodome on Tuesday. The evacuees will be processed at Fort Chaffee before being moved to shelters in other parts of the state. "We are not a state that's equipped to handle that but we're doing the best we can," said Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. She said she would like to see the president address the state's Medicaid, health care and labor needs. "What Arkansans did do is they responded in a human way to their neighbor without waiting for the federal government to say that it was going to respond with those same values," she said. "Now we're looking at the Department of Labor and others -- the need for the federal government to come together and recognize the severity of the problems and respond," Lincoln said. In his phone call with Rove, Pryor said he urged the White House aide to make sure Arkansas is reimbursed for services to evacuees. "I want to make sure that in the immediate term that Arkansas does get reimbursed appropriately and does have access to federal funds," Pryor said. -- 30 -- |
