This article was originally published on Sept. 6, 2005. Read the rest of the Reveille’s Remembering Katrina special here.
The city of New Orleans has been destroyed.
In what many have called the United States’ worst natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina’s 145 mph winds and the levee-shattering flood have left the city and much of the Gulf Coast under water and demolished and its residents wondering where to begin starting over.
It is impossible to know how many people have died so far. An official at just one morgue in a St. Gabriel prison said he is expecting between 1,000 and 2,000 bodies. And the numbers continue to rise.
Many Louisiana officials said they think the federal response was both “inadequate and insufficient” because some of the hundreds of thousands left homeless in New Orleans also lack life’s most fundamental necessities: food, water and shelter.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has repeatedly blasted Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the federal government for what he called a slow response.
“Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here,” he told WWL-AM on Sept. 2. “They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.”
Nagin was responding to Blanco’s press conference Sept. 1 — four days after the devastating Monday storm — in which she said she had asked for 40,000 National Guard troops to come to the city to help stem the looting and violence that erupted in New Orleans two days after Katrina hit.
As of press time, there were 21,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region with more arriving each day.
Cedric Richmond, Democratic state representative and spokesman for the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, said he thinks the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the 10,000 people seeking shelter at the New Orleans Superdome during and several days after the storm — without food or water — was an embarrassment.
“FEMA’s response was horrible and pathetic,” Richmond told The Daily Reveille in a telephone interview from the Baton Rouge Office of Emergency Preparedness. “They came with good intentions and were willing to effectuate any orders they were given, however, things slipped through the cracks — and there were a lot of cracks.”
Thousands of people gathered at the Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to wait for transportation out of the city — some dying as they waited.
Richmond said he went to New Orleans and handed out food to people and saw no reason for FEMA not to have been in the West Bank area immediately after the storm, using the area as a staging ground for relief operations.
“We got to the West Bank with no problem. The roads were dry,” Richmond said. “There is no reason FEMA didn’t have facilities on the West Bank.”
Richmond, among other state officials, said he thinks FEMA should have been better prepared for a hurricane toppling New Orleans, because in 2001, the organization issued a report to President George W. Bush stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely potential disasters.
FEMA did not return several phone calls for comment.
Chris Paolino, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-La., said Jindal was not happy with FEMA’s response to the evacuees seeking refuge in the Superdome.
“The fact that people sat at the Superdome without food and water is unacceptable,” Paolino said.
The National Guard began delivering food and water to the Superdome on Sept. 1 — four days after the storm.
Paolino said Jindal thinks the Superdome and the thousands left stranded there can serve as an example for future rescue operations.
“Jindal saw a number of problems in New Orleans, including the Superdome, and we need to make sure that as we continue with the rescue mission, we don’t have that happen again,” Paolino said.
Jindal also said in a press release that the Louisiana Legislature is committed to returning New Orleans to its position as “the jewel it has been for 300 years.”
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu , D-La., told the International Herald Tribune on Sept. 4 she was so angry about the federal relief that if she heard any more criticism about local efforts — even from President Bush — she might “punch” him.
Bush himself said on Sept. 2 — five days after the storm — that “the results are not acceptable” in the Gulf Coast, but he did congratulate FEMA Director Michael Brown during a tour of Alabama, saying, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
Though U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said he thought FEMA deserved a failing grade for its initial response to Katrina, he said he was pleased with both Congress and Bush for their passing of $10.5 billion for disaster relief.
Congress passed the bill in an emergency session four days after the storm, issuing federal money to the Gulf Coast region.
“We need all the federal help that we can get to rebuild the city of New Orleans and our coastal communities,” Vitter said in a press release. “This federal funding will be a good start to help support our recovery from Hurricane Katrina and help Louisiana families rebuild their lives.”
Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, who was working as Secretary of the Navy and was in the White House on the morning of the Sept. 11 attack in New York City, said he thinks the federal government is doing a pretty good job in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida considering “this is everyone’s worst nightmare.”
“I haven’t been able to watch much of the news lately, but it’s hard to be critical of the response because [FEMA director] Brown is dealing with such a huge geographic area,” O’Keefe said. “This is like 9/11 multiplied by four because you have four states involved with the hurricane. The scope of the challenges [FEMA] is dealing with is monumental.”
O’Keefe said he has spoken to Brown sporadically as O’Keefe oversaw the University’s transformation into a special needs medical evacuation center since the Sunday before Katrina.
“In every disaster scenario, there is a definite pattern,” O’Keefe said. “First, the initial information is always wrong. Second, it is never as good or bad as it first appears. Third, there is never enough time to meet the full demand of the situation. Finally, there is always a recrimination phase.”
But O’Keefe stressed that there are more important things to be concerned with now than placing blame.
“We are dealing with the immediacy of the challenge and trying to accommodate everyone at once,” O’Keefe said. “We are all trying to do our part.”
The New York Times contributed to this report.
