FEMA to give Katrina survivors $2,000 and up on debit cards and Brown waited

FEMA to give Katrina survivors $2,000 and up on debit cards

BATON ROUGE, La. (CNN) -- The federal government will begin issuing debit cards worth $2,000 and up to victims of Hurricane Katrina to help those displaced by the storm begin rebuilding their lives, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday.

FEMA Director Mike Brown said the money will allow the hundreds of thousands who lost homes in the disaster to get "cash in hand" to begin putting their lives back together.

"This is something that FEMA has not done before," he said. "We think it's a great way to, again, empower these hurricane survivors to really start rebuilding their lives."

Brown-Chertoff memo shows FEMA director waited hours after Katrina landfall before asking for volunteers
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown waited hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall last week before requesting volunteers from the Homeland Security Department, but the agency said that request was for secondary volunters and that first responders were already prepositioned to respond.

In a memo dated Aug. 29, Brown asked Department of Homeland Security Security Michael Chertoff for 1,000 the DHS volunteers willing to deploy as soon as possible "for a two-week minimum field assignment" in hurricane-struck states. (Posted 8:37 a.m.)