The Legacy of Katrina
The Events In New Orleans Exposed The Bush administration as Callous and Incompetent. And Neither The City Nor The Administration Have Recovered in The Two Years’ Since.
Here, on this second anniversary in the US of Hurricane Katrina, it’s worth looking back over the events of that fateful day. Fateful isn’t too strong a word: It was on August 29, 2005, and over the next three or four days, that the presidency of George Bush fell into the toilet from which it has never emerged.If you’re still not sure exactly why, this timeline will help explain things. There are several such timelines online from which this abbreviated one is drawn.
Sunday, August 28, 2005, 9:30am: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin orders the complete evacuation of the city.
Same day, 11:30am: Bush, vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, gives a speech consisting of exactly 203 words about Katrina, and 819 words congratulating the Iraqis on their new constitution.
Same day, late evening: 30,000 people gather in the Superdome to hunker down for the storm, with 36 hours’ worth of food. The Louisiana National Guard requests 700 buses.
Monday, August 29, 7am: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall.
7:30am: The first levee in New Orleans is breached.
Mid-morning: Bush receives two warnings, from then-FEMA director Mike Brown and from the head of the national hurricane center, that this is “the big one” (Brown’s words).
Around the same time: Bush holds a photo-op with Senator John McCain on an airport tarmac in Arizona, presenting McCain with a birthday cake.
Late morning: The crucial 17th Street levee is breached.
Around the same time: Bush leaves McCain and visits an Arizona resort to participate in a forum with hand-picked senior citizens about his prescription-drug benefit plan.
Same day, 4:40pm: Bush appears at another prescription-drug event, this time in Rancho Cucamonga, California. He briefly addresses Katrina, seemingly unaware of the facts of the situation: “It’s a storm now that is moving through, and now it’s the time for governments to help people get their feet on the ground.”
Same day: Dick Cheney continues on his vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he stayed until early September. Donald Rumsfeld attends a San Diego Padres baseball game.
Tuesday, August 30, early afternoon: Reports of widespread looting and chaos begin to emerge. Homeland security chief Michael Chertoff acknowledges that levees have been breached.
Same day, 2pm: Bush holds a photo-op event at a San Diego naval base with country singer Mark Wills. Wills presents Bush with a guitar, with which Bush poses, smiling broadly and pretending to play.
Same day, shortly thereafter: Bush returns to Crawford to resume vacation.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005, midday: reports emerge of 80,000 people trapped in the city; tens of thousands stranded in the Superdome without adequate facilities and water; 3,000 stranded in the city’s convention hall under similar conditions.
Same day, shortly thereafter: Chertoff says “We are extremely pleased with the response that every element of the federal government, all of our federal partners, have made to this terrible tragedy.”
Same day, that afternoon: Bush flies over the damage in Air Force One but does not touch down.
Same day, 4pm: Bush finally gives first address on Katrina. The New York Times says his demeanor is “casual to the point of carelessness.”
Same day, 7pm: Condoleezza Rice, visiting New York, attends musical Spamalot! Some audience members boo her. Later she would visit the damaged areas in her home state of Alabama, urging patience: “The Lord is going to come on time - if we just wait.”
Thursday, September 1, 2005, 7am: Bush says live on television, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” Subsequent revelations show he was told several times before they did that the levees might break.
Same day, mid-afternoon: Nagin delivers “desperate SOS” to federal government. Reports begin to emerge from New Orleans of rapes, beatings, lootings. Brown finally learns, at least 24 hours after the fact, about the thousands stranded in the convention hall.
Same day, mid-afternoon: Rice, still in New York, buys about $3,000 worth of shoes at Ferragamo.
It goes on in this vein, but you get the idea. The next day, Bush finally visited New Orleans. Several reports at the time indicated that vital services and rescue-workers, including 50 firefighters from Atlanta who’d come to the region to help people, were diverted away from the scene of the flooding to serve as backdrops for presidential photo-ops. Levee repair work was orchestrated for his visit, and then stopped immediately thereafter.
Some months later, a video emerged from August 28 in which Bush was briefed on the growing tragedy - and in which he does not ask one single question as the situation is outlined to him.
That’s this presidency in a nutshell: substantive incompetence and indifference at every turn, yet great care taken with the photo-ops. This was the week that sunk the Bush presidency, and deservedly so. What a tragedy that one of America’s greatest cities had to sink as collateral damage.
Michael Tomasky is editor of Guardian America.
© 2007 The Guardian
okay, enough, basta ya!!!
shrub has had far more than enough benefit of too many doubts. when things seemingly haven’t “gone according to plan,” as they mostly haven’t, it’s almost a reflexive response to accuse him of incompetence—you know, the kennebunkport version of a goober accent, the mispronunciation of “nuclear” etc.—but his screwups have been too consistently to the benfit of his class to pass the smell test.
let’s assume that everything he has done is intended to have the outcome that it has had, and challenge him to prove otherwise. in the case of katrina/rita, what if the intent was the same as the rash of eminent domain abuse taking place elsewhere: the forced displacement of one class for the benefit of another? just as erstwhile mayor rudy giuliani selectively closed certain firehouses around new york city as a spur to emigration, so the neglect of infrastructure in and around new orleans led inevitably to the same result—and not by innocent error; in fact, quite the opposite.
I just posted on PBS that their ‘coverage’ of the anniversary of this tragedy was woefully deficient. They were very happy to concentrate on the technicalities of the disaster, completely ignoring the folk who died in their hospital beds, the massive subjugation and relocation of the poor. They repeated the comforting (to them) but false statement that ‘many do not want to return’. Fortunately, most people will remember what happened; it was one of the few occasions tv news told it like it was.
“it was one of the few occasions tv news told it like it was”
This.
It was the only time I’ve ever been slightly grateful for Geraldo Rivera’s histrionics - when he was reporting live from the Superdome, holding up babies to the camera and crying and swearing and demanding to know why nothing was being done for these people.
I’d also like to remind everyone that what happened to those people after Katrina is exactly what is in store for every one of us, when the next “disaster” happens somewhere else. God help you if you’re not white and/or wealthy enough to save yourself.
Had Katrina happened on Dennis Kucinich’s watch the situation would be extremely different.
When will we awaken to Reality and hire the right person for the job of Leader? Do the research and come back to me with why I am wrong.
Lynda at LMI dot net
“substantive incompetence and indifference”, “callous”
i can agree with indiference and callous. but, what this administration is not is incompetent. they seem to be getting their way on everything they want.
jbs hit the nail on the head! Until the media and the Democratic Party stops calling neocon regime actions and inactions “incompetent” and starts calling those actions and inactions “criminal”, the neocon agenda will continue to advance and the Democratic Party will continue its demise!
One correction to jbs’ observation: They don’t “SEEM to be getting their way on everything they want”, they ARE getting their way on everything they want!
All true, but, seriously: if NO never existed, and someone proposed we build a city below sea level in between two mighty rivers right in the path of ever more powerful hurricanes, would you vote yes on the bond measure, and then move there? Would you expect an insurance company to be willing to support such a proposal?
Why isn’t the debate about how ridiculous it is to even consider such an idea? Why not go build a few towns at the foot of Mt. St. Helens while you’re at it?
I am so disgusted with what our Government is doing in the Gulf region, especially local governments. Biloxi is turning into the Gulf’s very own Las Vegas because people are forced to sell their properties while the rich folks reap the rewards of republicans gone wild.
I am sick hearing of people who are loosing thier properties, many of which have been in families for generations, because deed records were conveniently destroyed in many areas, and they have no proof that they were the owners. Yes this is happening.
I am sick hearing of people in some areas, New Orleans in particular, who cannot raze their destroyed homes, because the government is requiring proof that their homes are not on the historical register(you cannot tear down historicall marked properties)
But one thing I am absolutely sick of is hearing the comments from some so-called progressives, and many people in the neo-pagan community that I am a part of continue to spwe the party line that these people, especially in new Orleans, had the chance to evacuate, and that it is their fault for staying.
That is a response that is typical from people who no nothing of poverty, extreme near Dickensonian poverty that exists in this,one of the supposed richest countries in the world.
Some people had the chance to get out. Those luck enough to have access to vehicles. Some buses were provided, but not enough and too late.and yes, many people, local gov’t included let their guard down in NOLA once Katrina moved off to the side but to blame these people for what happened to them is absurd, hateful, and in my view, extremely racist.
Its refreshing to see a few people who agree that the Bush regime is hardly incompetent. We are seeing a well planned and efficient looting of this country.
I, too, am glad to see that some people see past the “incompetent” matrix. Is it incompetent to set up roadblocks to prevent would-be rescuers from going into New Orleans? And to allow evacuation by car, but turning back those on foot by gunpoint? Amtrak had 2 trains loaded with coach cars, each with a pillow, a blanket and a bottle of water for each passenger, ready to evacuate people. (Told to me by an Amtrak employee who worked on The City of New Orleans train). FEMA wouldn’t let them use the trains to evacuate. FEMA refused to let the Coast Guard ship purify water, or open it’s hospital to victims. FEMA turned back water that WalMart sent. FEMA stopped all resucue efforts, including the Fish and Wildlife Agency, which hadn’t asked for permission, but simply started to rescue people. They were stopped after 2 days. The Red Cross was not allowed to feed the people in the Superdome. They were told “If you feed them, they won’t leave”. (the rationale changed after that was reported, to “It’s too dangerous”. Everyone could see that was ridiculous. The Red Cross goes to war zones! But that rationale didn’t make clear that the goal was to clear the poor folks out of New Orleans, so that’s why they used the second one.)
It really doesn’t matter that the news media went down and reported that the poor were stranded. Actually, they were the only ones allowed through the road blocks, so they had a part to play in the propaganda. Everyone was convinced after a few days of watching the suffering that the right thing to do was to get those folks out of there, and suddenly, FEMA became very efficient. Everyone was removed and relocated within a few days. Where was the incompetence there?
Look at the results and you’ll see that the neocons got exactly what they wanted in the most efficient way possible. Thinking that they are incompetent is very dangerous!
Here are the main points to consider.
“Sunday, August 28, 2005, 9:30am: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin orders the complete evacuation of the city.”
The people didn’t leave even with fair warning.
“Same day, late evening: 30,000 people gather in the Superdome to hunker down for the storm, with 36 hours’ worth of food. The Louisiana National Guard requests 700 buses..”
You mean the ones that democrat mayor ray nagin could have had city bus drivers use to evacuate the people?
“The Louisiana National Guard requests 700 buses.”
You mean the same national guard that democrat governor blanco had control over?
I don’t like bush either but let’s get real people.
real world–get real? Nice try. Your crap won’t fly either. They left people to die. This was beyond incompetence. Ths was cold, calculated murder.
And how, pray tell, are the poor, old and infirm supposed to evacuate? I guess they just needed to “get real.”
I’ve noticed nobody refers to New Orleans as the “Big Easy” ever since it became the poster child for incompetence at every level of personal and governmental responsibility. A nickname like that might remind others about a the corrosive “eat, drink and be merry” attitude that belied the underlying decay. We visited NOLA for the first time just before Katrina on Memorial Weekend 2005. We enjoyed the music, architecture, restaurants and historical significance. But I can attest that the Picayune-Times had a week-long series on the state of hurricane preparedness while we were there. Katrina wasn’t a surprise or a conspiracy of Washington…it was the result of a corrupt and lazy state and local political culture that wasted billions of present-value Federal Tax dollars in a futile fight against nature. Some of those even came from the uncaring Red States. Not to get all silly…but it all could have been avoided by heeding that parable about building a house upon the sand–especially if the sand is 15 ft BELOW sea level. Before every storm the media glamorizes some of the crazies that plan to ride it out–only later defending the victims and the helpless.
Only the high parts of the area were settled originally. Can’t we agree that the Western Hemisphere has enough viable real estate that we didn’t need to have 200,000 people living below sea level? And that rebuilding in that manner is recklessly wasteful?
Recent news out of NOLA highlights that many long-time residents used personal connections to game the property tax assessment system. Seems a little uncaring and irresponsible for citizens of a city recognized to have so many problems.
Memo to Washington:
1) Offer every title holder of damaged property a settlement for the amount of their TAX ASSESSED VALUE as charitable compensation for whatever contribution the federal government’s levees played in conveying a false sense of security. Oh, and withhold the the amount of mortgages owed, and insurance received so that the compensation is commiserate with the real losses—and let’s be done with it.
2) Condemn all the land less than 10 ft ABOVE sea level as ineligible for federal flood insurance. Trust me, eventually, the private market will compensate by building high-rise buildings on cheap, cheap land to house the economically viable level of population to operate the port, tourism, and other commerce.
Memo to the rest of us:
Consider visiting NOLA soon and give the folks there a helping hand by spending some of our entertainment dollars there. It will contribute in an ethical way to rebuilding their city in a sustainable way.
If Katrina hit an unpopulated area and caused minimal death and destruction, the Democrats wouldn’t even have their congressional majority. So, the Democrats are damned lucky, and the country is damned lucky things aren’t even worse here than they are.
frank1569. Good question. Why would anyone want to rebuild the city of New Orleans? A quick look at the history of New Orleans shows that the damage done by Katrina is not the first time the city has been vitually destroyed.
New Orleans was founded in 1718 by the French as Nouvelle-Orléans,but even befoe then it was being used by French fur trappers and others amongst the Native Ameicans living there.
It was, from this founding, intended to be an important colonial city .In September of that year, a hurricane struck destroying much of the buildings. After this, a grid pattern was used in the rebuilding of the city. This grid is still seen today in the streets of the city’s “French Quarter”.
Much of the population in early days was of the wildest and, in part, of the most undesirable character: deported galley-slaves, trappers, gold-hunters and other “undesirables.” It has always been this way and to suggest that the black population is responsible for the city’s woes or decadence is simply untrue.
The Great New Orleans Fire (1788) destroyed 856 buildings in the city on Good Friday on March 21, 1788, and another fire destroyed 212 buildings in December 1794. The fires destroyed virtually the entire city. After this brick replaced wood as the main building material. Much of the 18th-century architecture is/was still present in the French Quarter.
In 1795–1796 the sugar industry was first put upon a firm basis. The last twenty years of the 18th century were especially characterized by the growth of commerce on the Mississippi, and the development of those international interests, commercial and political, of which New Orleans was the center.
The population of New Orleans also suffered from epidemics of yellow fever, malaria, and smallpox, which would periodically return throughout the 19th century until the successful suppression of the city’s final outbreak of yellow fever in 1905.
The next dozen years were marked by the beginnings of self-government in the city and state. There was immigration from Cuba of French planters. From the beginning, it was noted for its cosmopolitan population and mixture of cultures. The city grew rapidly, with influxes of Americans, French and Creole French (people of French descent born in the Americas), many of the latter fleeing from Haiti.
The population of the city doubled in the 1830s and by 1840, the city’s population was around 102,000, fourth largest in the U.S, the largest city away from the Atlantic seaboard, as well as the largest in the South.
The introduction of natural gas (about 1830); the building of the Pontchartrain Rail-Road (1830–1831), one of the earliest in the United States; the introduction of the first steam cotton press (1832), and the beginning of the public school system (1840) marked these years; foreign exports more than doubled in the period 1831–1833. In 1838 the commercially important New Basin Canal opened a shipping route from the lake to Uptown New Orleans. Travellers in this decade have left pictures of the animation of the river trade more congested in those days of river boats and steamers and ocean-sailing craft than today; of the institution of slavery, the quadroon balls, the medley of Latin tongues, the disorder and carousals of the river-men and adventurers that filled the city. Altogether there was much of the wildness of a frontier town, and a seemingly boundless promise of prosperity. The crisis of 1837, indeed, was severely felt, but did not greatly retard the city’s advancement, which continued unchecked until the Civil War. In 1849 Baton Rouge replaced New Orleans as the capital of the state. In 1850 telegraphic communication was established with St. Louis and New York City; in 1851 the New Orleans & Jackson Railway, the first railway outlet northward, now part of the Illinois Central, and in 1854 the western outlet, now the Southern Pacific, were begun.
The importance of New Orleans as a commercial center was reinforced when the United States Federal Government established a branch of the United States Mint there in 1838, along with two other Southern branch mints at Charlotte, North Carolina and Dahlonega, Georgia. Such action was deemed necessary largely because in 1836 President Andrew Jackson had issued an executive order called a special circular which demanded that all land transactions in the United States be conducted in cash, thus increasing the need for minted money. In contrast to the other two Southern branch mints, which only minted gold coinage, the New Orleans Mint produced both gold and silver coinage, which perhaps marked it as the most important branch mint in the country.
New Orleans has been there because of its commercial value, despite the frequent fires, floods, and epidemics.
That is why New Orleans is being rebuilt - because of its value. This is to say nothing of its value as a city of great cultural value.
The idea came to me in the past as to why Sacramento is the capitol of California, and not LA or SF. It was because of its commercial value and importance in bringing the gold from the mountains down river to San Francisco.
As I said, your question is a good one. But if the Dutch can exist below sea level, what’s stopping the USA from protecting and taking measures to maximise the safety of New Orleans?
That’s the question I’m asking myself.
To hybridoma2001:
There is a value to rebuilding a safer New Orleans. But it doesn’t have to follow the failed model of the past. Build it with higher density housing on the original footprint ABOVE sea level. Utilize mass transit as a means to relocate across Lake Pontchartrain and commute into the viable city core and port.
Galveston, Texas was one of the richest city-ports in the country with a similar history to New Orleans until the 1900 hurricane killed 6000 people. It was not even below sea level. The city rallied and built an 18ft? seawall but Houston ended up dredging a ship channel and providing a safer alternative.
Sacramento has historical significance and remains the capital—LA has 10 million residents—I wonder what happens to LA if the Colorado River dries up or the water rights are reallocated?
I was a victim of hurricane Katrina. I was out of my house for five months. The American people and the world was loving and kind during our desperate hours. As for the Bush administration: I want the world to know when my beloved city of New Orleans died, Bush partied out West and played air guitar in San Diego. I want the world to know that!!I also want the world to know that Fidel Castro of Cuba offered to send us doctors! Yes he did! The Bush Administration thought that offer too politically incorrect and blocked the offer. Wal Mart for all their faults, shipped in water and other comfort items only to be physically blocked by FEMA. Thousand in New Orleans were dehydrated, hungry and suffering unspeakable hardships. Last thing I want to say: anyone who would defend Bush’s criminally negligent behaviour during Katrina, better not come 1000 yards near me, because I won’t be responsible for my actions!!!
forextrader:
“Last thing I want to say: anyone who would defend Bush’s criminally negligent behaviour during Katrina, better not come 1000 yards near me, because I won’t be responsible for my actions!!!”
Another typical nonviolent “progressive” threatening violence against someone who disagrees with him/her. How typical.
Real World, you should change your handle to “delusional world”. Where do they get such creatures like you!