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Kathleen Blanco: Louisiana gov brought down by Katrina dies

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Even after Hurricane Katrina ended her political career and as cancer ate away her strength, former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco still described her life as “charmed.” With strength in her faith and her family, the state’s first elected female governor time and again refused to wallow in disappointment or disaster.

Blanco called it an “honor and blessing” to lead Louisiana through the fury and destruction of Katrina. As she knew her end was near from an incurable melanoma, Blanco talked of her final months as a “wonderful time for me.”

A pioneering woman in Louisiana politics, Blanco died Sunday in hospice care in Lafayette.

She was 76.

“She was a woman of grace, faith and hope. She has left an eternal mark on all who knew her, because she was generous and unconditional in her love, warm in her embrace and genuinely interested in the welfare of others,” Blanco’s family said in a statement issued by Gov. John Bel Edwards’ office.

A Democrat, Blanco held Louisiana’s top elected job from 2004 to 2008, and served in state government offices for more than two decades. But her legacy rests with Katrina, the devastating August 2005 hurricane that killed more than 1,400 people in Louisiana, displaced hundreds of thousands and inundated 80% of New Orleans.

Historians will continue to debate whether any governor could have been prepared for such a catastrophe, but Blanco shouldered much of the blame after images of thousands stranded on rooftops and overpasses were broadcast to the world, and the government was slow to respond to the desperation.

Blanco was criticized as unprepared, overwhelmed and indecisive. While she successfully fought for billions in federal aid, the recovery she guided moved ploddingly.

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