Robert Gibbs became extremely upset at the very thought of having the Obama administration’s performance regarding the BP Oil Rig disaster compared to the Bush administration response to Katrina.  I did some research to try to determine what mistakes were made by the Bush administration with regard to Katrina.  I was shocked at how badly this situation was misrepresented in the main stream media, including Fox News.  There was gross incompetence here, but the vast majority of it was by the main stream media who committed media malpractice in the way they reported this important event.   Until I researched this article, I never realized that not only did the press get this all wrong, they missed one of the greatest stories of all time. 

The media image was one where the federal government was totally disorganized leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of people to fend for themselves.  Following are just some of the comments made by the news media and others:

Kim Segan, CNN:

It was chaos.  There was nobody there, nobody in charge.  And there was nobody giving even water.  The children, you should see them, they’re all in tears.  There are sick people.  We saw…people who are dying in front of you.

Mayor Ray Nagin:

The Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe and we are running out of supplies for 15,000 to 20,000 people.

Evacuee Raymond Cooper:

Sir, you’ve got about 3,000 people here in this – – in the Convention Center right now now.  They’re hungry.  Don’t have any food.  We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Ceter by our mayor.  And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

FEMA Chief Brown:

That has not been reported to me, so I’m not going to comment.  Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, “We have bodies located here or there,” I’m just not going to speculate.

Chris Lawrence, CNN:

From here and from talking to the police officers, they’re losing control of the city.  We’re now standing on the roof of one of the police stations.  The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn’t safe to be out on the street.

FEMA Chief Brown:

I actually think the security is pretty darn good.  There’s some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there’s somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face.

Homeland Security Director Chertoff:

Now, of course, a critical element of what we’re doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted.  And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing in enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

Mayor Nagin:

They don’t have a clue what’s going on down here.

Phyllis Petrich, tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton:

They are invisible.  We have no idea where they are.  We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where?  We have not seen them.  We have not seen FEMA officials.  We have seen no one.

Anderson Cooper, CNN:

And when they hear politicians . . . you know, thanking one another, it just . . . cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body in the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman has been laying in the streets for 48 hours. 

Celine Deon:

I open the television, there’s people still there waiting to be rescued, and for me that’s not acceptable.  I know there’s reasons for it.  I’m sorry to say I’m being rude but I don’t want to hear those reasons.

FEMA Chief Brown:

Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

Aaron Broussard, President Jefferson Parish, LA.,  Meet the Press, Sept 4, 2005:

The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.

On September 2, 2005, CNN ran a report titled “The big disconnect on New Orleans”  They were right. But it was CNN, and the rest of the main stream media, that was disconnected from the truth.  What we saw on television was almost totally wrong.  While Homeland Security and FEMA were pretty much out of the loop, the comments made by FEMA Chief Brown and Homeland Security Director Chertoff were far more accurate than anything being reported on CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS or MSNBC.  What happened is that the news media was simply shooting from safe locations and running the same graphic video clips over and over again.  In the meantime, the greatest rescue operation in the history of the world was going on right under their noses.  Their reporting was so bad that FEMA showed up Friday, September 2, 2005, with an 18-wheel tractor and a refrigerated trailer to pick up the 200 bodies.  There were no bodies!  There were no rapes.  There were no murders.  The only shots fired were false reports by ill-informed reporters. 

Here is what really happened, the story NEVER told to the American people:

By Thursday, August 25, 2005,  Hurricane Katrina had already hit Florida as a Category 1 storm.  Virtually every forecaster was predicting this to be a massive Category 5 hurricane, and it was heading directly toward New Orleans.  President Bush declared a State of Emergency authorizing federal aid on Saturday, August 27, 2005, in order to make funding and National Guard assets available to the state of Lousiana and the City of New Orleans.   Governor Blanco praised President Bush for his quick response and leadership until the news media convinced her she was wrong.  Mayor Nagin refused to order a mandatory evacuation and instead ordered a voluntary evacuation.  Although there were many buses readily available, the Mayor made no attempt to help people evacuate.  President Bush called both Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin on Sunday morning and warned them that this was a very dangerous storm and urged them to order a mandatory evacuation.  Finally, a mandatory evacuation was finally announced at 10:00 a.m.  But, even though hundreds of buses were available to evacuate people, they were not ordered to be used until Wednesday.  By then, a large number of these buses were underwater. 

Less than two hours after the mandatory evacuation was ordered, the Superdome was designated as a refuge of last resort, and 4,444 Army National Guard and 932 Air National Guard troops were deployed with three truckloads of water and seven truckloads of MRE’s to the Superdome.  This was enough to supply 15,000 people for three days.   In addition, a dozen emergency shelters were set up, 200 plus boats were secured, dozens of high water vehicles were positioned, 150 helicopters were assigned and a triage and a medical center was set up.  All of that happened before Katrina made landfall.  It was the largest National Guard deployment in history with over 50,000 troops deployed in less than two weeks.

The Army National Guard, the Air National Guard and the Coast Guard were on site ready, willing and extremely able to take action before the storm even hit.  Army helicopters were dispersed prior to Katrina making landfall, so that they could be deployed immediately when weather conditions made that possible.  The helicopters literally circled the storm and followed it on shore.  They started landing in New Orleans less than two hours after the storm hit. 

The response to Hurricane Katrina was the largest, fastest and most successful rescue operation in the history of the world.  Over 100,000 emergency personnel were on the scene within three days of the storm’s landfall.  Some main stream media people speculated that New Orleans suffered because of National Guard deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.  The opposite was true.  Because of these deployments the National Guard had well trained, combat hardened troops who knew how to operate under very difficult circumstances.  The leaders of the National Guard quickly took charge, and they were hugely successful because they did not have a lot of unnecessary guidance from FEMA, Homeland Security,  the State of Louisiana or the City of New Orleans.  Almost all of the mistakes in handling Katrina took place later when the involvement of all these agencies resulted in delay and confusion.

It is important to understand that by 11:00 a.m. Monday, August 29, 2005 many parts of Bernard Parish already had over 10 feet of water.  Thousands of people were already in desperate need of rescue.  There were numerous reports of people literally clinging to trees.  Other people had chopped holes in their roof, from the inside, so they could get above the water.

Initial estimates were of at least 10,000 deaths and some experts predicted the final death toll could be as high as 60,000.   Frankly, that is probably pretty accurate with regard to what would have happened if it had not been for the heroic efforts of the Army National Guard and the Coast Guard. 

There were over 50,000 people in deadly peril,- no food, no water- clinging to roofs or and trees.  The Coast Guard alone rescued over 33,000 people in less than three days.  The Army National Guard rescued another 17,000 by air and another 20,000 with boats staffed by local police, fire, Army National Guard and the Louisiana Department of Fish and Game.  The New Orleans local government command and control had collapsed and wasn’t able to communicate with anyone, so the National Guard just took over.  In the meantime, the Coast Guard stayed focused on their rescue mission.

The National Guard set up a command post, with satellite communications on the parking lot of the Superdome.  They were the only people able to communicate with the outside world.  They also set up the main command post in Jackson Barracks.  There is a well-established system known as Emergency Management Assistance Compacs (EMACs), and it worked brilliantly.  This system worked well because it deliberately by-passed local officials and the federal chain of command.  While CNN was celebrating a near miss, the National Guard knew better.  There was already over 20 feet of water around Jackson Barracks.  By noon on Monday, there was a conference call between National Guard commanders in all 50 states and two territories.  National Guard units from as far away as Wisconsin begin arriving Monday night.  The National Guard had the situation under control before FEMA knew what was going on. 

They also set up a medical triage unit that treated over 5,000 people who were injured or ill, delivered seven babies and had only six deaths.  Four were from natural causes, one died from a drug overdose and one committed suicide.

The headquarters for this massive search and rescue operation was at the Lousiana Superdome, the same place previously described by the CNN news reporter as utter chaos with no one in charge.  While CNN kept running the same 10-second clip of crying babies, they failed to see the miraculous rescue taking place right under their noses.  National Guard records show that they flew 10,224 sorties, moved 88,181 passengers, hauled 18,834 tons of cargo and saved 17,411 lives just by air.  Thousands more were saved by the 200 plus boats the guard managed to scrounge up.

The Coast Guard saved another 33,000 people.  The people in the New Orleans Superdome and the Convention Center were unhappy.  It was hot, over 100 degrees and they were only fed one MRE per day, along with plenty of drinking water.  It certainly was an uncomfortable place to be, but the Army National Guard and the Coast Guard made the right decision to concentrate on those people who would have died if they were not rescued.  While CNN was complaining about all those people “suffering in the Superdome” they were oblivious to the thousands of lives being saved.  I guess CNN thought that delivering PortaPotties to the Superdome was more important than saving lives.  Fortunately, decisions were being made by trained National Guard personnel and not arrogant CNN anchors who failed to grasp the difference between being uncomfortable and being in deadly peril.  Astonishingly, even though more than 50,000 people had to be rescued, in 100-degree heat and high humidity, not one single person died from dehydration.

Major John T. Dressler was at the scene and eventually prepared the after-action reports for the National Guard Bureau.  Major Ed Bush was also at the scene during most of the week.  Neither of them reported seeing a single camera crew or reporter on the scene.  Major Bush did see some reporters at the Superdome, but he felt they were only interested in confirming the stacks of bodies in freezers, interviewing alleged rape victims and verifying reports of crime and mayhem.  They weren’t interested in reporting on the unprecedented rescue operations.  Some camera crews who did manage to hitch rides on helicopters, but while they filmed people on roof tops, they provided very little coverage of the massive rescue operation.

Attached are two excellent articles documenting what really happened.  The first is from Popular Mechanics and the second is from Real Clear Politics.  Neither one can be considered a white wash of the Bush administration, since both were highly critical of FEMA and Homeland Security. 

 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/katrina_what_the_media_missed.html

 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/2315076

If there is a real villain here, it is Mayor Nagin, in my opinion.  While he was quick to scream and yell about everyone else, he was close to criminally negligent himself.  He refused to order a mandatory evacuation when every credible forecaster was describing this as a major hurricane.  In reality, Katrina was much weaker than the forecast.  He explained his reasoning during an interview with Tim Russert:

MAYOR NAGIN: Well, Tim, you know, we basically wove this incredible tightrope as it is. We were in a position of trying to encourage as many people as possible to leave because we weren’t comfortable that we had the resources to move them out of our city. Keep in mind: normal evacuations, we get about 60 percent of the people out of the city of New Orleans. This time we got 80 percent out. We encouraged people to buddy up, churches to take senior citizens and move them to safety, and a lot of them did. And then we would deal with the remaining people that couldn’t or wouldn’t leave and try and get them to higher ground until safety came.

“Who in the leadership position hates black people?” asked Russert.

“I don’t know who hates black people,” responded Nagin, “but I will just tell you this, that I think the imagery that came out across the nation portrayed that this was primarily poor black people that were affected. And I don’t know if that affected the response or not. But I got really upset when I heard about some of our residents walking to one of the parish lines and were turned back by attack dogs and armed guys with machine guns.”

Mayor Nagin ignored the fact that he had plenty of school buses available to help evacuate people.  Instead, he encouraged people, many of whom did not even own vehicles, to “consider” finding a way out on their own.    

The media reported that the majority of local police and fire fighters just took off.  That was not true.  What really happened was a total lack of leadership by the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, so the National Guard took over.  The majority of local police and fire fighters were available, but the City communications system was totally inoperative.  The Guard started passing out radios to local police, fire and numerous volunteers.  It was not a perfect communication system, but it was the only communications system available.  It worked remarkably well.

There were only six deaths at the Superdome, four of natural causes, one drug overdose and one suicide.  This is a remarkable contrast to the presentation by the media and the image believed by far too many people today.  They also managed to deliver seven babies. 

It is also important to remember that the main reason there were thousands of people clinging to roof tops was because of the gross negligence of Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco in waiting too long to order a mandatory evacuation.  While the National Guard and the Coast Guard deployed immediately, further federal assistance required the approval of the incompetent City of New Orleans and the equally incompetent State Government who demanded to be in charge.  This is very similar to what happened when General Pershing arrived with our troops in France during WWI.  The French, who had lost every battle and slaughtered thousands of their own troops, wanted to provide the same skilled leadership for the fresh cannon fodder from the U.S.  Pershing refused to just turn over his troops to such obviously incompetent leadership.  So did the Bush administration.

The media botched this story.  While most Americans thought people were dying because the federal government was too slow to react, the opposite was true.  While the National Guard and the Coast Guard were literally plucking thousands of people from death’s door, CNN was outraged because it took too long to round up enough buses needed to evacuate people from the Superdome.  That did happen, but CNN was too focused on Bush bashing to notice that the reason was because the National Guard and the Coast Guard were too busy saving lives.  Instead of demonstrating neglect and incompetence, it was a brilliant balancing of scarce resources under incredibly difficult circumstances.

This was not done because Bush was down there micro-managing things.  It was done because as Commander-in-Chief, he had delegated those responsibilities to highly qualified people and he let them do their jobs.  He did the smartest thing of all when he stayed out of the way and let the professionals do their job.  For this, he was literally pilloried in the press.

There were a lot of mistakes made by the Bush administration with regard to Katrina.  Homeland Security and FEMA pulled an Al Haig and tried to act like they were in charge when they didn’t know squat.  The White House public relations response was a total disaster.  But ultimately, it was never the job of either FEMA or Homeland Security to manage this type of situation.  It was the job of the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.  When they dropped the ball they were extremely fortunate that the National Guard stepped up to the plate and hit a home run.

The law thing Obama should want is to be honestly compared with how Bush handled hurricane Katrina.

TDM