Katrina Lost & Found: Loyalty

Politicians in Washington know bad things happen when you neglect the unglamorous but essential task of providing personal service to constituents.

Take the recent example of New York international banker and lifelong conservative Jeffrey Volk . Volk once worked in the Nixon White House for speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan . He help draft Ronald Reagan 's economic platform in 1980.

Over the years he's contributed to and raised money for Republicans. In 1998, Volk was one of those who urged George W. Bush to run for president. He attended Bush's second gubernatorial inauguration that year in Austin and contributed to both Bush presidential campaigns, the Florida recount and attended the first presidential inauguration.

Volk, who saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center and ran away from a collapsing tower, found himself in New Orleans in August with his wife and daughter, a freshman at Tulane University, when Hurricane Katrina hit.

Volk figured they could ride it out at a downtown hotel. His daughter had no ticket home, he said and, besides, "usually they blow in and out." Not this time.

The huge hurricane struck on Sunday, and it wasn't long before arsonists and looters were prowling the streets, the hotel across the street was being ransacked, there were no lights and fresh water was barely running. Volk called the White House for help.

"I was sent to voice mail," he said, where he was told he could "leave your comments." He called back and asked to speak with someone from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. More voice mail. His third try got him to FEMA in Alabama, which had its own concerns. "I called a half-dozen times . . . there was no one to talk to."

"I decided I would call my senator," Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), whom he'd never met, Volk said. "An aide in Clinton's Washington Senate office took the call and said I needed to call Dan Burton , a caseworker in New York. When I called, he knew to expect a call from me.

"He basically said: 'What would you want Senator Clinton to do?' I said, 'Call [Gov. George E. ] Pataki and get the National Guard plane and send it down for the New Yorkers.' "

Burton could not get the plane, but "he called two or three times a day to make sure we were okay," Volk recalled.

"I can't begin to tell you how much that meant to us in that hotel," he said. "The fact that anyone in government cared that we were there meant maybe there was a list somewhere, maybe we could get out. It was enough just that someone in government knew we were there."

Finally, on Wednesday, hotel employees put together a five-car caravan to move the guests to Baton Rouge.