found on CNN.com...

Well, this really gives me hope

President also scheduled to stop in Mississippi

Monday, September 5, 2005; Posted: 1:24 p.m. EDT (17:24 GMT)

President Bush sits Monday with Ailisa Eugene and Frank Jack, of Metairie, at a shelter in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

On his arrival here, Bush went to the Bethany World Prayer Center, a huge hall half covered with pallets and half filled with dining tables. Several people ran up to meet him as he and first lady Laura Bush wandered around the room. But just as many hung back and just looked on.

"I'm not star-struck. I need answers," said Mildred Brown, who has been there since Tuesday with her husband, mother-in-law and cousin. "I'm not interested in hand-shaking. I'm not interested in photo ops. This is going to take a lot of money."

Bush praised the volunteers and churches who have been working to take care of storm refugees. "The response of the country has been amazing," he said.

Bush spent about an hour at the shelter, which was visited at the same time by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. Like estranged in-laws at a holiday gathering, the Republican president and Democratic governor -- each facing criticism for a slow response to the disaster -- kept their distance as they walked around talking to people.

"All levels of the government are doing the best they can," Bush told reporters. "So long as any life is in danger, we've got work to do," he said.

"Where it's not going right," he promised, "we're going to make it right."

Bush hasn't gone a day without a public event devoted to the storm and its aftermath. But none of those trips so far -- nor appearances by several Cabinet members in the region -- has quieted complaints that Washington's response to the disaster has been sluggish.

Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, just south of New Orleans, broke down on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he talked about people who waited for help.

"They were told like me, every single day, the cavalry's coming, on a federal level. The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming. I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry ..." Broussard said.

"They've had press conferences -- I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."

It was Bush's third inspection tour, the second by ground. Last week, he had his pilot lower Air Force One, the presidential jet, to an altitude of about 2,500 feet as he flew over the area. Last Friday, he walked a neighborhood in Biloxi on Mississippi's coast and stopped at the airport and a breached levee in New Orleans.

Baton Rouge, about 80 miles northwest of New Orleans, largely escaped damage. Its population, however, has swelled dramatically with displaced people and is experiencing clogged roads and supply shortages.

Poplarville, where Bush was to meet with state and local officials at the Pearl River Community College, is about 45 miles inland. But the area was in the path of Katrina's eye and devastation in the town and surrounding rural areas was enormous.

"The world saw this tidal wave of disaster descend upon the Gulf Coast," Bush said Sunday during a visit to the Red Cross disaster operations center in Washington, where he urged Americans to donate money, time and blood to the relief effort. "Now they're going to see a tidal wave of compassion."

In Houston earlier Monday, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton announced a nationwide fundraising campaign to help the hurricane victims. Teaming up again after working for tsunami relief earlier this year, they said that the new Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund will send proceeds to governors in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to help with disaster relief. (Full story) (Watch former President George H.W. Bush announce creation of the fund -- 6:53)

Federal officials, meanwhile, confirmed the local officials' worst fears and agreed the death toll will skyrocket. "I think it's evident it's in the thousands," said Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.

The Red Cross said that by Monday morning, 75,000 names were on its "family links registry" for disaster victims and their relatives. Victims go on the list when they are registered at shelters.

Red Cross spokeswoman Tracy Gary said the relief agency was caring for 135,000 survivors across 14 states. At least 470 shelters were operating by Monday and Red Cross chapters across the country were alerted to find additional locations as victims are sent out of the Gulf Coast.

More than 5,000 Red Cross volunteers made their way to the disaster areas any way they could get there, joining thousands of volunteers from the affected areas. The agency has raised more than $400 million so far.

Bush has come under fire for waiting until two days after Katrina hit -- and a day after levee breaks drowned New Orleans -- to return to Washington from his August break in Texas to oversee the federal response.

It ended up taking several days for food and water to reach the tens of thousands of desperate New Orleans residents who took shelter in the increasingly squalid and deadly Superdome and city convention center. Outlying areas, though receiving less nationwide attention, suffered some of the same problems.

Officials are now reporting some progress, and some new worries.

The leader of the air component of the military's task force said rescuers have plucked tens of thousands of terrified residents in readily visible locations, but is just starting on a door-to-door search that will take weeks, if not months.

Hundreds of federal health officers and nearly 100 tons of medical supplies were on their way to the Gulf Coast to try to head off disease outbreaks, feared because of the hot weather, mosquitos and standing water holding human waste, corpses and other contaminants.