Katrina, One Year Later
Katrina hit a year ago today.
Take a few minutes to watch these briefings that FEMA’s directors and Bush himself received on the eve of the storm.
A few highlights:
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield:
(5:20) “I do expect we’ll see some of the levies overtopped.”
(5:48) “I don’t think anyone can tell you with any confidence whether the levies will be topped or not.”
George W. Bush
(6:10) “I appreciate so much the warnings that Max and the good folks have given…”
(6:45) “I want to assure the folks at the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared. To not only help you durring the storm, but we will move in with any assests that we have at our disposal after the storm.”
FEMA Director Mike Brown:
(12:30) As you know the [blanked out] has ordered the Superdome to be used as [blanked out (reading lips: a shelter of last resort. I think the meaning of that is a shelter)] of first resort. I didn’t hear about any other shelters for people to go to as they left New Orleans. As you may or not know the Superdome is about 12 ft below sea level so I don’t know what the heck the [blanked out (reading lips: we’re going to do about that)]. I’m concerned about … a catastrophe within a catastrophe…. This is to put it mildly, the Big One.”