Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) requested, via a letter to the U.S. National Guard Bureau on the 30th of August, additional National Guard troops from other states to supplement the Louisiana National Guard, but approval did not occur until September 1 [REF].
Some 40% of Louisiana's National Guard was deployed to Iraq at the time,[REF] and critics claim that use of the National Guard to boost troop numbers in Iraq left them unready to handle disasters at home [REF].