Bush to Skip RNC for Gustav Trip

President to visit evacuees and workers in Texas

By Newser Editors and Wire Services

Posted Aug 31, 2008 1:06 PM CDT

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Bush to Skip RNC for Gustav Trip — FEMA Administrator David Paulison, right, listens as President Bush briefs members of the traveling press corps, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008, at FEMA Headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President George W. Bush will skip the Republican National Convention tomorrow and travel instead to Texas to meet with emergency workers and people who evacuated the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Gustav bore down. He will hold off traveling to Louisiana, however, because he does not want to get in the way of emergency personnel.

After a briefing today at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Bush said he was assured that New Orleans' levees "are "stronger than they have ever been." But he said people across the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans need to understand there is a serious risk of flooding from a storm of this size, and urged them to heed local officials' order to evacuate.
(Read more Hurricane Gustav stories.)

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