Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
We did it. This is officially the final episode of Season 6. That was fun, huh? But unfortunately, the fun is over. Like most season finales, a temporary hiatus will follow. But don't worry. This happens every year. We'll be back. Stay subscribed, tell your friends, and enjoy the reruns for now. Or better yet, stay entertained by becoming a Swindled Valued Listener at ValuedListener.com.
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Also, if you like the music in this podcast, and you should, go check out Deformer's album inspired by the show. It's called Deformer Swindled. It can be found on all major streaming platforms. There are links in the show notes. Enjoy. This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Betsy's bringing in danger from a totally unexpected quarter. Her winds are pushing a 16-foot wall of water out of Lake Bourne in the Gulf, the greatest tidal surge in Louisiana history. Sweeping over the Delta, Blackman's Parish, St. Bernard, topping the highest levees, roaring across the industrial canal into the southeast section of New Orleans. No one knows the full size of the disaster yet.
Hurricane Betsy made landfall in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 9th, 1965, a Category 4 on the yet-to-be-invented Saffir-Samson scale. The storm brought 150 mile-per-hour winds and torrential downpours to the Louisiana Gulf Coast, having already wreaked havoc in Florida and the Bahamas.
On the eve of the hurricane, local authorities urged residents in Harms Way to relocate to one of the city's makeshift shelters. There was plenty of food, plenty of water. More than 300,000 people accepted the offer. Others chose to stay put.
We were all sitting around that night and the house shook so hard. In the middle of the night I wanted to go out and hold on to this tree while the eye passed over. The next day I went out and the tree wasn't there. Most of the land in New Orleans sits below sea level and it's surrounded by bodies of water. Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Bourne to the north, the Mississippi River to the south, and canals on both sides.
If any of those bodies of water flood into New Orleans, the water just sits there like a bowl until it is pumped out. That's why the city is surrounded by hundreds of miles of levees designed to prevent such disasters from happening. The French built the first levee system in New Orleans as early as 1717. In 1965, those levees were only about 3 to 4 foot tall and no match for the 14 foot tides that Hurricane Betsy brought with her.
Water overtopped some of the levees. Many others broke apart and were breached. By midday, several New Orleans neighborhoods were underwater, 9 to 10 foot deep. The water kept getting higher and higher and we knew we had to get out of here. And I'm five feet and the water got up to here and it's about four feet in the house. After assessing the damage, United States Senator Russell Long from Louisiana called President Lyndon B. Johnson
Mr. President, he said, aside from the Great Lakes, the biggest lake in America is Lake Pontchartrain. It is now drained dry.
that Hurricane Betsy picked up the lake and put it inside New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. At 5 o'clock, Air Force One lands at New Orleans, bringing the President, his aides, and leaders of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation to survey the damage, see what needs to be done. The President declares Louisiana and Florida both disaster areas, tells the Office of Emergency Planning to coordinate federal assistance.
The flooding lasted for days. More than a billion dollars in damage had been inflicted. Crops were destroyed. Hundreds of ships, barges, and offshore oil facilities were sunk or damaged, including one vessel near Baton Rouge containing 600 tons of liquid chlorine, enough to produce more poison gas than used throughout the entirety of World War I.
Luckily, that ship was located on the sea floor of the Gulf months later and recovered without incident. A rare blessing from Hurricane Betsy, a storm that had been quite unforgiving.
Thousands of livestock drowned, and as many as 80 people across the Gulf Coast had died. 57 of the 80 were killed in New Orleans. Many were found lifeless in their attics a week after the flooding. They'd simply run out of high ground while trying to bargain with the rising tide. You ever seen anything like this before? Never have seen anything like this before, no sir. Never have, and I hope I never see it again. My children are staying down at my sister-in-law's because I don't want to bring them any. It's that bad? Oh, it is.
164,000 homes were flooded. The displaced could not return to their houses for weeks, if at all. Many of those homes belonged to poor black people in the 9th Ward and surrounding low-income neighborhoods. They lived in the cheapest properties on the cheapest land, which was more susceptible to flooding.
Unsurprisingly, this intense distrust between races and classes bred interesting conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the disaster.
There was talk around town that New Orleans Mayor Vic Schiro had the levees near the poor neighborhoods intentionally dynamited to steer water away from the wealthy French Quarter. Another rumor suggested that Mayor Schiro had pumped the floodwater out of his own affluent neighborhood into the Ninth Ward. Neither of those events were ever confirmed to be true.
That didn't happen. But here's something that did. Before Hurricane Betsy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that designed and maintained New Orleans levees, had become aware of a gap in the industrial canal levee, which ultimately failed.
According to the Corps' own Betsy Damage Report, before landfall the agency had sent three members to sandbag the leak, but aborted the plan when the hurricane winds made the mission impractical. The public was never alerted. Sure, a warning would have been nice, but at least the response was decent.
Emergency relief arrived timely in the form of trailers for the homeless, $1,800 in forgivable federal loans to individual victims if they qualified, and tens of millions of dollars to rebuild farms and schools.
Congress also appropriated funds to enhance the levee system in New Orleans after Hurricane Betsy. Louisiana Governor John McKeithen took a quick break from advocating for states' rights to accept the federal money, proclaiming, "Nothing like this will ever happen again." Now because of Betsy, Congress took immediate action. Within just one month, they approved federal funding to build new levees.
The only problem is that the new and improved levee system was never finished. The project languished behind schedule decade after decade.
Cheaper, easier, and less effective solutions were prioritized by the local and state governments, resulting in a mishmash of construction and maintenance based on outdated data that left New Orleans more vulnerable than ever. And everybody knew it. Forty years later, Hurricane Katrina exposed the figurative and literal cracks in the levees
Hurricane Katrina would also expose the cracks in federalism, as failures at every level of government led to unforgettable and indescribable human misery. Yeah, the hubris of man in the face of Mother Nature is always a sight to behold, as if a rubber stamp, a badge, or a gun is any match for the worst-case scenario. A natural disaster sends a city into chaos, and the United States of America is woefully unprepared on this episode of Swindled.
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Ray Nagin loved New Orleans. He was born and raised in the city, and he had spent most of his life there, leaving only to attend the historically black Tuskegee University in Alabama. He also spent a few years in Detroit, Texas, and California at the beginning of his career.
Ray Nagin returned home in 1985 as a certified public accountant, which landed him the controller position at Cox Cable. By 1989, Ray Nagin was promoted to vice president and general manager of Cox, Louisiana. He was earning $400,000 a year. But at 45 years old, Ray Nagin gave all of that up for a run at political office in 2002.
There was a battle for the soul of New Orleans, he told potential voters, in reference to the city's culture of corruption. A vote for Democrat Ray Nagin, an honest businessman, was a vote for a reformed, more ethical city.
It's a city where contracts are awarded based upon what you can do and not who you know. By all appearances, he gave it his best shot. After taking office, one of Ray Nagin's first moves was to crack down on the city's taxicab bureau for accepting bribes. Ultimately, dozens of people were arrested in the sweep, including Mayor Nagin's own cousin. But all of those cases were later dropped for lack of evidence.
Many in the Crescent City were left wondering if the new mayor was all bark and no bite. Ray Nagin's other priorities didn't fare much better. For example, he wanted to privatize the New Orleans sewerage and water board, but it never happened. Nothing ever did. Disappointment after disappointment. That's okay. New Orleans was used to it. Three years into his four-year term, Mayor Ray Nagin was on autopilot.
Critics say Negan liked being the mayor, but he didn't like being the mayor, if that makes sense. The photo ops were fun, but the day-to-day was drudgery. I guess City Hall just couldn't match the boundless excitement that can only be found in the offices of Cogs Cable.
But not even Cox Cable could have prepared Ray Nagin for what happened next. Hurricane Katrina, the monster storm bearing down on New Orleans, coastal Mississippi, and coastal Alabama. Right now about 75 miles south-southeast of New Orleans. Tropical Storm Katrina originated near the Bahamas on August 24th, 2005. The storm headed west towards Florida, steadily gaining strength.
Two hours before landfall, Tropical Storm Katrina morphed into a Category 1 hurricane. 80 mph winds and 10 to 20 inches of rain spawned flooding and tornadoes in the Sunshine State. Almost 1.5 million people in Florida lost power. Governor Jeb Bush declared a state of emergency. Hurricane Katrina continued its westward path, still growing stronger.
When it emerged from Florida, the eye of the storm replaced itself over the unusually warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. By August 27th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a category 3 and it was bending north at 11 miles per hour. By the next morning, Hurricane Katrina was a category 5 and it was headed directly for New Orleans.
That meant sustained wind speeds of 175 mph, seemingly endless amounts of rainfall, the strongest hurricane to ever enter the Gulf of Mexico in recorded history. This was bad news.
That's Louisiana's governor at the time, Kathleen Blanco.
Both she and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared a state of emergency on August 27, 2005, when it became apparent that Category 5 Hurricane Katrina would make landfall in their state and city in a matter of days.
That same day, Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin attended a teleconference with the White House and leaders from other states in Katrina's path. Everyone, let's go ahead and get started. It's noon. We have a lot of business to cover today. That's Michael Brown, the deputy director of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
FEMA's primary purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities, something that Michael Brown had no relevant experience doing. Michael Brown, a former lawyer, was nominated to head the agency by President George W. Bush in March 2002, and he was placed in charge of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina by Michael Chertoff, the director of Homeland Security, to which FEMA reports:
Max Mayfield, a meteorologist and director of the National Hurricane Center, opened the teleconference with some grim uncertainty. I don't think anyone can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not. But that's obviously a very, very great concern. A very, very big concern, Mayfield said. If the levees are topped, the bowl fills up. An entire city drowns.
Federal officials seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.
This is FEMA Director Michael Brown assuring state and local governments that his agency would act fast. We're going to move fast, we're going to move quick, and we're going to do whatever it takes to help disaster victims. After presumably writing down the word "levy" in crayon, President Bush, who joined the meeting from his ranch in Texas, offered some additional words of assurance to the affected states before hanging up and resuming his 27-day vacation.
I do want to thank the good folks in the offices of Louisiana and Alabama and Mississippi for listening to these warnings and preparing your citizens for this huge storm. I want to assure the folks at the state level
that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. And we pray for no loss of life, of course.
The next day, Sunday, August 28, 2005, less than 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina projected to make landfall, Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco held a joint press conference to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you, but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. I do not want to create panic, but I do want the citizens to understand that this is very serious and it's of the highest nature, and that's why we're taking this unprecedented move. The storm surge most likely will topple our levee system.
So we are preparing to deal with that also. So that's why we're ordering a mandatory evacuation. Mayor Nagin announced that the 70,000-seat Superdome, where the Saints play, would be open to people with special needs and as a refuge of last resort for those citizens that cannot evacuate. But let me emphasize...
The first choice for every citizen is to figure out a way to leave the city. This is a once in probably a lifetime event. The city of New Orleans has never seen a hurricane of this strength to hit it almost directly, which is what they're projecting right now. What we're trying to do is keep the public informed, not
create panic, but create an atmosphere of seriousness and also to present options to the public. Right now we are emphasizing leaving the city. That's what we think is the best thing. If you can't leave the city and you have to come to the Superdome, come with enough food, perishable items to last for three to five days. Come with blankets, with pillows.
More than 80% of New Orleans' population of 485,000 fled the city for higher ground.
Hundreds of thousands more from neighboring parishes also hit the road. Highways in every direction were jam-packed with cars that were filled with everything they could carry. Many of the temporary displaced left behind their valuables and family heirlooms in order to take only what was necessary. Thousands left behind their pets with a bowl of water and plenty of food, thinking they would only be gone for a few days. Be a good boy.
An estimated 100,000 people remained in the bowl. Most of them had no other choice.
The city's poorest residents, tens of thousands of people, did not have cars or any other method of personal transportation. There were supposed to be buses headed north but the city abandoned that plan when the traffic became gridlocked, plus there weren't enough drivers. Instead those buses were used to transport people to the Superdome where they could wait out the storm. Eventually another bus would pick them up and take them to a more comfortable shelter. That was the plan, anyway.
Hospitals were exempt from the evacuation if it wasn't feasible, and for most it wasn't. It's estimated that more than 20,000 people, staff, patients, and family across 20 different hospitals stayed behind. There were patients hooked up to life-saving machines, pregnant women on the verge of giving birth. Where were they supposed to go?
Most nursing homes in the Gulf Coast region were stuck too. Relocating that many patients with those conditions was a logistical nightmare and almost impossible on such short notice. So they stayed put. So did a large number of New Orleans elderly, many of whom lived alone and didn't drive. Many were disabled or had been abandoned by their caretakers. So they too were left behind.
The city's prison population of 8,000 plus would also be forced to ride out the storm. At the evacuation press conference, a reporter asked what would happen to the inmates. The sheriff assured that the prisons were fully staffed and equipped with backup generators to accommodate any power loss. In other words, we're going to keep our prisoners where they belong. Let's say, la bonne temps rouler.
This is an opportunity in New Orleans for us to come together in a way that we've never come together before. This is a threat that we've never faced before. And if we galvanize and rally around each other, I am sure that we will get through this. God bless us. Thank you, Mary. Devastating damage expected.
Hurricane Katrina, a most powerful hurricane with unprecedented strength, rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille of 1969. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed.
The majority of industrial buildings will become non-functional. Partial to complete wall and roof failure is expected. All wood-framed low-rising apartment buildings will be destroyed. Concrete-blocked low-rise apartments will sustain major damage, including some wall and roof failure. High-rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously, a few to the point of total collapse. All windows will blow out.
Airborne debris will be widespread and may include heavy items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. Spurred utility vehicles and light trucks will be moved. The blown debris will create additional destruction. Persons, pets, and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck. Power outages will last for weeks as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed.
There was a sense of relief in New Orleans moments before the storm hit.
Hurricane Katrina had weakened from a category 5 to a category 3. Although category 3 hurricanes can be highly destructive with winds up to 129 miles per hour. According to multiple meteorologists and reporters, it appeared as if New Orleans had dodged the bullet or as President Bush put it, "The bullet has been dodged." Great news that couldn't be further from the truth.
By the time Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, high tides from the storm's outer bands had already swelled Lake Pontchartrain. In the early morning hours of August 29th, 2005, giant waves began pounding the levee walls. At 4:30 a.m., two wall sections of the levees on the east side of the industrial canal were flattened, sending what the Times-PICU newspaper called a deluge of water into the ninth board.
Not overtopped, flattened, broken, breached, whatever you want to call it. There was a giant hole in the levee system and water was flowing freely into the bowl. This was worse than what officials had described as their worst fear.
And it was just beginning. Levees overtopped in eastern New Orleans and Plaquemines Parish. A 20-foot wall of water tore through the Mississippi River. Lake Bourne penetrated the Mr. Gold barriers and rushed into St. Bernard Parish. Within a few hours, levees and flood walls failed in 50 different locations around the city. Water poured into New Orleans neighborhoods.
filling up the bowl. By noon, August 29, 2005, 80% of the city of New Orleans was submerged in billions of gallons of water, 10 foot deep in some areas. No one realized it in the immediate aftermath.
But this was the beginning of the largest residential disaster in United States history. And when you pull back for a wide shot, the scene is nothing short of apocalyptic. 80% of New Orleans, including much of downtown, is underwater. The Big Easy's famous Canal Street, living up to its name. And rising waters will now force officials to evacuate the shelter at the Superdome. Katrina's departure was just the beginning of the misery.
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They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached, and as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded, and now we're having to deal with it, and we are. The Phones died at Orleans Parish Prison on Friday, August 26, 2005, three days before the storm.
The inmates at OPP had no ability to communicate with the outside world, but they knew a hurricane was coming. They'd watched Mayor Nagin's Sunday morning emergency press conference announcing the mandatory evacuation on the common area TV. That's how they learned the prison had been excluded. The inmates learned about the flooding when their feet got wet. They were locked in their cells when Hurricane Katrina landed, climbing their bunks as the water steadily rose.
At about the same time the flooding topped the toilets, creating a free-flowing soup of human waste, the entire building plunged into total darkness. The backup generators failed because they were sitting on the ground floor, which was currently 2 to 4 feet below sea level. Within hours, most of the inmates were standing chests deep in water full of sewage and diesel fuel.
Thankfully it stopped rising, but they were trapped like that for days with no food, no water, no ventilation, no air conditioning. The heat made it a struggle just to breathe. It's okay to feel sympathy. These inmates were not the worst of the worst. Orleans Parish Prison might have prison in its name, but it's more akin to a county jail. Basically a holding cell downtown for those charged with minor crimes. No one deserved this.
But the inmates most certainly weren't getting any sympathy from the prison staff who were dealing with the same situation. In some cases it was even more traumatic. Some of the guards had brought their spouses and children to the prison for shelter, thinking it would be safer than leaving them at home. And now there were no lights or food. It was stressful to say the least.
Also, the staff was working short-handed. When the lights went out, several deputies turned in their badges and quit, not realizing that the flooding would prevent them from going anywhere anytime soon. Boy were their faces red, I'm assuming. You couldn't really see anything without setting the toilet paper on fire. Eventually, the OPP inmates were retrieved from their cells and evacuated by boat to a nearby interstate on-ramp that was partially submerged.
On that on-ramp, thousands of inmates sat stranded on the hot concrete baking in the sun. More days passed with very little food and water. It was pure torture, waiting for the help to come. We are dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history. And that's why I've called the cabinet together.
The people in the affected regions expect the federal government to work with the state government and local government with an effective response. The entire city of New Orleans was without electricity, without clean water, without cell phone reception. There were bodies literally floating down the streets. Man, woman, and animal. An estimated 600,000 pets were stranded. Those that didn't drown later starved to death.
The cats and dogs that survived were left to fend for themselves, just like everyone else. "150 miles of coast are in ruins. New Orleans is being flooded. Tens of thousands are trapped in plain sight at the Superdome and the Convention Center. Thousands huddle on rooftops amid looting and violence." The day after New Orleans flooded, reports of fires, violence, and looting were widespread throughout the city.
NOPD was preoccupied with search and rescues and did not have the manpower to police everything. Partly because some officers stopped showing up to work after a while. Partly because others had fled entirely.
48 hours after the storm, but very little federal assistance had arrived. The Coast Guard was pulling people out of houses and off of rooftops, but where was FEMA? Where was the cowboy president?
all those assurances of quick action, and they were nowhere to be found. In a radio interview that night, September 1st, 2005, Mayor Nagin pleaded for help and expressed his frustration with the relief effort. What do you need right now to get control of this situation?
I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We're talking about, you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans.
That's the thinking small, man, and this is a major, major, major deal.
And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy. I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish, they're air-vaccing people over here in New Orleans. We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish. It's awful down here, man.
This is ridiculous. I don't want to see anybody do any more goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. We'll do another press conference until the resources are in this city and then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here.
It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and let's do something. And let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same. And it's time. We're both pretty speechless here.
George Bush was still on vacation when Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast. He remained completely oblivious to the severity of the situation for the next two days until he took an aerial tour of New Orleans. But even then the president received a sanitized bird's eye view of the disaster from his helicopter window. There's no way he could truly see or understand the depth of the tragedy.
All Bush knew was that 6,500 National Guard troops had arrived in New Orleans that day, just like the doctor ordered. It seemed like everything was under control. Must be a testament to the leadership of FEMA Director Michael Brown. Again, I want to thank you all for... And Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA director's working 24 hours a day. A heck of a job, says President Bush, a man completely divorced from reality.
to Michael Brown, a man that resigned in shame 10 days later. We are living like animals, is how one person put it today. There aren't enough supplies there, there aren't enough buses to get people out of there. Bodies of the dead are literally piling up. The mayor issued an SOS today saying they don't have the supplies or buses to ferry people out of the city.
a city that tonight stands in a virtual state of anarchy. People are literally dying there. They don't have food, they don't have water, they don't have any way to communicate. And if nothing changes in the next day or two, that body count is just going to rise and rise and rise. You're going to need some help. We got babies, I got three kids. Can you water, milk, bottle?
They don't have nothing. New born babies, premature babies, everything. This is heat. New Orleans is hot. We can't take this. We've been out here for three days. And we've been asking for help. Everybody's going absolutely insane. There's no coordination right now. You look at what we see is total chaos right now.
It's nothing. I mean, all we want is to be helped right now. We just placed already. We are going to die here. Did you not see somebody out here right now? We're hungry. We're starving. We need help. In a minute, we're going to be eating each other. We just need to get out of here. We're going to die here. It's just as simple as that. A lot of the people that's on their roofs and are underwater and are drowning out there is because of the stupidity of the city officials. We need to
We need to feed our babies. We need to give our babies some water. Relax all of you. It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. Breathe in. Breathe in. Why nobody can get no help down here for these people, bro? They got children out here. They got pregnant women out here. They won't even bring water. They won't bring food. You got to go steal water to drink to survive out here.
The Superdome, where as many as 40,000 displaced people sought shelter, became hell on earth. It was unprepared to house that many people because that was never the plan. The plan was to transport people by bus from the Superdome to other shelters, but those buses never arrived. Those buses sat inoperable with full gas tanks in a flooded parking lot.
When the power went out, what little food was stored at the Superdome started to rot. Then the water supply gave out and the toilets overflowed. It was 90 degrees inside. The stench was eye-watering. No worries. FEMA Director Michael Brown was on top of things.
We've been so focused on doing rescue and life-saving missions and evacuating people from the Superdome that when we first learned about it, of course, my first gut instinct was, get somebody in there, give me truth on the ground, let me know, because if it's true, we've got to help those people. The people in the convention center are being fed. The people in the bridges are being fed. With all due respect, sir, the people in the convention center are not being fed.
I just spoke. The people in the Superdome, I'm sorry, you're absolutely correct. Conditions were even worse at the convention center, apparently, which wasn't even a designated refuge. 20,000 to 30,000 displaced people just flocked there after their houses flooded. According to the media, the only thing waiting for them there was unspeakable horror. We've got guys out here, you know, shooting at the police.
Some of the officers told us that groups of young men have been roaming the city, shooting at people, attempting to rape young women. They have like what I would call modern-day genocide going on. They more or less corralled us in two places, the convention center and the Superdome, with no food, no water. You could say almost 90-degree heat inside.
We have small children and sick and elderly people dying every day. Small children being raped and killed. Man, it was hectic. Urine everywhere. I mean, a lot of people, yeah, raped. And it is a war zone, an absolute war zone. People are getting killed and raped. A baby trampled to death. A seven-year-old girl with a slit throat. Dead bodies stacked in the freezer. Great white sharks swimming in the streets.
These rumors of war spread through the massive crowd of terrified people like a child's game of telephone, growing more horrific each step along the way, only to reach and be repeated by those in positions of power responsible for restoring order.
When Oprah Winfrey visited New Orleans as the chaos was dying down, she interviewed Mayor Ray Nagin, who told her that hundreds of armed gang members were terrorizing everybody in the Superdome. Quote, "They had people standing out there that had been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people." In that same interview, New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Kompas confirmed the evil. Quote, "We had little babies in there.
some of the little babies getting raped. However, the vast majority of these crimes were never substantiated then or since. The number of sexual assaults was probably severely underreported, as it is in even the most ideal circumstances, but not a single victim from the Superdome came forward. As for the violence, 10 people died in or around the Superdome, but almost half were from natural causes. There was an overdose or two.
One man committed suicide. "This man jumped to his death because he just couldn't take it no more." Four others died at the convention center, only one of which involved foul play. Tragic, but a far cry from the apocalyptic rumors perpetuated by the media.
People are so bitter, so disenfranchised in this neighborhood, they actually think the city did it, blowing up the levee to save richer neighborhoods like the French Quarter. So you're convinced? I noticed it happened. That they broke the levee on purpose? They blew it.
Years later, New Orleans new chief of police Warren Riley told the Times-Picayune that there was quote, "not one iota of evidence to show that anyone was killed or raped in the dome." Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Thibodeau of the Louisiana National Guard who was stationed at the Superdome concurred, telling NBC News quote, "The incidents were highly exaggerated. For the amount of people in the situation, it was a very stable environment. What a relief."
What's the point in exaggeration when the reality was awful enough? Good evening, I'm Carol Lynn. Let's begin with the very latest from the Gulf Coast. A helicopter crashed this evening near downtown New Orleans. It was not a military helicopter, and remarkably, two people on board were not hurt. No word yet on the cause of the crash. Earlier, military helicopters were busy rescuing people who did not evacuate. And we're learning more about a shooting on a New Orleans bridge.
17-year-old J.J. Brissett had waded out the storm with his mother in Bywater, one of the few portions of the Ninth Ward that was spared from the flood. Like many others, J.J. decided to explore the neighborhood when the winds died down. He crossed paths with his friend, Jose, from school. Jose Holmes Jr. was traveling with his aunt and uncle, Leonard and Susan Bartholomew, and their two children, 17-year-old Leisha and 14-year-old Leonard IV.
Jose told JJ Brissett that the family was on their way to look for food and water at the Winn-Dixie and Gentilly, an abandoned supermarket on the other side of the Danziger Bridge. JJ tagged along. Just after 9 a.m. on September 4, 2005, while traversing the eastern side of the bridge with a shopping cart, a large budget rental moving truck stopped in front of the family.
Seven heavily armed men jumped out and began shooting. A nearby news crew captured the event on audio. The Bartholomew family and JJ Brissett took cover behind a concrete barrier. One of the shooters walked up to them, leaned over the barrier with an AK-47, and, in a sweeping motion, opened fire. Susan Bartholomew's right arm was blown off. Leonard, her husband, was shot in the back, head, and foot, but survived.
So did Leisha, their teenage daughter, who was shot four times trying to shield her mother, and their youngest, Leonard IV, who escaped unharmed. Jose Holmes, the nephew, was also alive, but barely. He was shot in the jaw, neck, arms, hand, and stomach, but eventually he pulled through. Jose's friend, 17-year-old J.J. Brissett, did not. J.J.'s back and legs were riddled with bullets. He died at the scene.
Two men further down the bridge saw what had happened, turned around and started running. The shooters gave chase, firing their guns from long range. One of the fleeing men was shot twice in the back. His name was Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old developmentally disabled man who did not evacuate Hurricane Katrina because he couldn't bear leaving behind Bobby and Sushi, his two dachshunds.
A few days after the storm, Ronald was trying to get to his brother's dental office on the other side of the Danziger Bridge. Ronald's other brother Lance was the person with him that day. After Ronald was shot, Lance helped his brother to the end of the Danziger and told him to wait while he went for help. Instead, the unidentified gunman found Ronald first. They stood Ronald up, face first against a pickup truck, and shot him five more times in the back. The bullets exited the front of Ronald's body.
One of the gunmen stomped on Ronald's back to make sure he was dead. When Lance Madison returned with members of the National Guard and the state police, he was horrified to find his brother's lifeless body. He was also surprised to see the group of gunmen still at the scene.
The plain-clothed men in the budget rental truck identified themselves as members of the New Orleans Police Department. They said Ronald Madison had been neutralized because he had shot at the police first. Lance Madison was arrested on the spot for the attempted murder of eight police officers. Neither Ronald nor Lance had a gun. Neither did J.J. Brissett or anyone in the Bartholomew family. The cover-up was already in motion.
Later investigation would reveal that evidence was planted at the scene by NOPD. The lead investigator, Archie Kaufman, just so happened to find a firearm in shell casings at the Danziger Bridge the day after the shooting.
Lt. Michael Lowman helped falsify reports and invent witnesses. In New Orleans today, a federal jury convicted five current and former police officers in the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians six days after Hurricane Katrina.
The cover-up was ultimately revealed, and after a long, complicated judicial process, more than 10 NOPD officers either pleaded guilty or were convicted of a crime, including the five gunmen who were charged with multiple civil rights violations, including deprivation of rights under color of law. The most severe punishment was given to Officer Robert Falcon, who basically executed Ronald Madison.
After a sentence reduction, Officer Falcon was ordered to serve 12 years in prison. He was released after only eight. This is Rommel Madison, the dentist's brother who Ronald Madison was on his way to see. This has been a terrible ordeal for our family, our friends, and our community. We are glad that this part is over, that the New Orleans police officer responsible for this terrible incident and the cover-up has finally admitted to their guilt.
I pray to God that I will be able to recover from what has happened to me, my brother Ronald, my family, and still today, almost 11 years later, my family and I continue to suffer. The Danziger Bridge case was just one of several civil rights cases that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
A few days before the Danziger shootings, a 31-year-old man named Henry Glover was walking near a strip mall looking for a suitcase of loot that a friend had left for him. All of a sudden he heard a pop and he was bleeding. Glover had been shot by a cop perched in a second-story balcony. Instead of rendering aid, members of the NOPD drove away from the scene with Henry's body in the back of a 2001 Chevrolet Malibu that belonged to a Good Samaritan that had stopped to help.
The car was parked near a levee and set on fire, with Henry Glover still inside. Federal investigators say police officers in New Orleans shot and killed a man in Algiers in the days following Hurricane Katrina, then burned that man and his car in an effort to cover up the crime. That there is a skull right here.
In the end, Officer Gregory McRae, the man who burned Henry Glover's body, was the only person involved in the shooting and cover-up that was punished. He received a reduced sentence of 11 years. Officer David Warren, the man who fired the fatal shot, was acquitted. I don't think the real story is finished yet. This is only part one. Part two is where we are right now, dealing with all of this.
The aftermath in the city with the flooding, with the looting, with the killing, with the raping. Part three. That's the story that isn't finished yet. What's going to happen to the city? We're going to rebuild. In New Orleans, repair crews have patched one of the breached levees and water is finally flowing out of the city.
Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the pumps were running and the city of New Orleans was drying out. That is until Hurricane Rita hit in late September and reflooded the 9th ward. But by then 70% of the housing in New Orleans was already damaged and only a small percentage of the displaced population had returned home.
About 40% of the million plus people who fled the Gulf Coast would never return, choosing to settle permanently in places like Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta, places to which they were transported from the Superdome and the Convention Center when the buses finally arrived. Many viewed it as an opportunity to start a new life. Many were too poor to have a choice. As transportation became more possible, rescue crews went from house to house looking for signs of life.
According to estimates, more than 1,800 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing crisis. Almost 1,600 in Louisiana alone, half of them senior citizens. Many were found in their attics. About a third had drowned. A few died from carbon monoxide poisoning after using gas-powered electric generators inside. Others were killed just walking across the bridge, minding their own business, trying to survive.
Some people died heroically and failed attempts to save others. And at least one man died comedically, albeit horrific, after getting stuck in an air conditioning vent he had tried to worm his way through in an attempt to escape the flood. There's also a story of this one woman who perished soon after experiencing that moment of relief that so many in New Orleans at the time were desperate to feel.
The helicopter cable to which she was attached snapped, sending her plummeting back down toward the rooftop from which she was rescued. Some died later. Casualties of bacterial infections resulting from the combination of toxic flood waters and open wounds. Some decided to take their own lives after realizing that everything they loved was gone. Many of the recovered bodies were taken to a makeshift morgue in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, a former leper colony.
There the corpses were tagged, inspected and logged and hopefully identified through DNA or serial numbers on orthopedic parts. A process that would take months. As far as the unknowns with DNA and anthropology, we're going to be here a while. We're probably going to be doing this process
It wouldn't surprise if I'm here six months later doing this process. To complicate matters, the recently deceased weren't the only bodies needing identification. The water table is so high in New Orleans that the dead are traditionally buried above ground. The winds and flooding from Hurricane Katrina had uprooted at least 1,500 tombs and graves. A thousand coffins turned into virtual ships and floated to neighboring parishes. When the water subsided, people found them in their trees.
But that was almost the least of their worries. In total, Hurricane Katrina accounted for $108 billion in property damage. It is the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history so far. It was also one of the most extensive relief efforts to have ever taken place in this country. More than 20,000 people were saved or rescued during the hurricane, either by boat or by helicopter. That's not counting the tens of thousands that were transported. It was a group effort.
governments, public companies, private citizens, nonprofits and charities. But it took way too long. You think people died because the relief was delayed? There is no doubt about it. I watched a guy jump from the Superdome yesterday. Just couldn't take it anymore. We have two police officers that have committed suicide. They couldn't take it anymore. This is hell.
And to have this happen in the United States of America, in the state of Louisiana, and to not have immediate, immediate response, regardless of the laws, is tragic.
It seemed like the finger-pointing had started before the levees even broke. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blamed the civil unrest on the delayed federal aid. The federal government blamed the delayed federal aid on the civil unrest and the botched evacuation. Everybody blamed the Army Corps of Engineers for the ineffective levee system. And rightfully so, the Corps agreed.
In early 2006, the USACE released a report detailing the engineering failures in the levee system that had built that allowed Hurricane Katrina to engulf New Orleans. The report said it had been constructed in a disjointed fashion, inconsistent in quality materials and design that left gaps exploited by the storm. And the whole system was based on data from the 1960s that didn't correctly account for erosion or rising sea levels.
All of this as a result of cutting costs and pinching pennies. 350,000 people filed claims against the Army Corps of Engineers for its part in what happened in New Orleans. None of those claims made it to court because of the Flood Control Act of 1928, which grants legal immunity to the government in the event of failure of flood control projects like levees. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was completely absolved of any liability.
Six died in a flood seven years ago, Congress created a massive project for the Army Corps of Engineers to renovate the 13 levee systems which protect New Orleans. But the Bush administration cut funding for the flood control project, known as CELA, at a time when the Army Corps is also stretched thin from rebuilding Iraq. The most frustrating part about the engineering report is that it did not reveal any new information. Scientists, meteorologists, and journalists have been banging the drum for years.
In 2002, three years before Hurricane Katrina, the Times-PICU newspaper published a five-part series by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein called "Washing Away," which spells out just how out-of-date and vulnerable New Orleans' levee system really was. Worst case scenario, the article reads: "Hundreds of billions of gallons of lake water pouring over the levees into an area averaging five feet below sea level with no natural means of drainage.
that would turn the city and the east bank of Jefferson Parish into a lake as much as 30 feet deep. Fouled with chemicals and waste from ruined septic systems, businesses, and homes, such a flood could trap hundreds of thousands of people and buildings and vehicles. Furthermore, in 2004, one year before Hurricane Katrina,
FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, the federal agencies in charge of Katrina relief, conducted an emergency preparedness exercise called Hurricane Pam, which modeled and predicted a Category 3 hurricane hitting New Orleans, overtopping the levee system and flooding the city. FEMA predicted Hurricane Katrina.
which makes the agency's bungled response even more baffling. Katrina was a disaster that scientists, emergency management officials, and political leaders had anticipated for years. Yet the initial response was woefully inadequate.
In September 2005, the former deputy director of FEMA, Michael Brown, testified before Congress regarding the lack of preparedness by his former agency during the event of Hurricane Katrina. Michael Brown claimed he was the scapegoat for a government that had other priorities. It's my belief that had there been a report come out from Marty Bimondi that said, yes, we've confirmed that a terrorist has blown up the 17th Street Canal levee,
then everybody would have jumped all over that and been trying to do everything they could. But because this was a natural disaster, that has become the stepchild within the Department of Homeland Security. And so you now have these two systems operating, one which cares about terrorism and FEMA and our state and local partners who are trying to approach everything from all hazards.
And so there's this disconnect that exists within the system. That disconnect was detailed in a 2006 bipartisan House report on the disaster called "A Failure of Initiative." There was confusion and miscommunication and indecision at every level of government. Supplies were delivered to the wrong city even.
There were enormous amounts of waste and red tape. It was discovered that FEMA had turned away offers of personnel and supplies from private companies and municipalities or buried them in paperwork until they couldn't move. Just an overall general lack of proactivity from the top down, which can be observed in Michael Brown's emails. On the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall, the FEMA boss jokingly wrote to a colleague, quote, Can I quit now? Can I come home?
Two days after the flooding, one of the only FEMA employees on the ground in New Orleans alerted his boss Michael Brown that the situation was quote, "past critical" and listed in detail all of the human misery occurring at once. Michael Brown's entire response was quote, "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now. Please rescue me." Like he was the true victim of the tragedy.
And before he made a public appearance during the cleanup, Brown's press secretary had to remind him to quote, Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt. All shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this crisis and on TV, you just need to look more hardworking. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was almost actively making things worse for everyone.
It was reported that Amtrak offered to use its buses to evacuate victims, but never received a call back from FEMA. The agency was already contracted with Landstar Express America, a Florida company with ties to the president's brother, Jeb Bush. The political appointments, the backroom deals, gutting the budgets, then acting surprised. That's exactly the kind of cronyism that Mayor Ray Nagin had tried so hard to rid from his beloved New Orleans.
the kind of cronyism that would not be tolerated when rebuilding the city. We as black people, it's time. It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans, the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying, uptown or wherever they are. This city will be chocolate at the end of the day.
This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans. Two days later, Mayor Nagin backpedaled those comments, which some had considered divisive. How do you make chocolate? He asked CNN. You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That's the chocolate I am talking about, he said.
New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special.
Later that year, Ray Nagin was re-elected by the people of his chocolate milk city. I think the opportunity has presented itself for me to kind of go down in history as the mayor that guided the city of New Orleans through an incredible rebuild cycle. Instead, Mayor Nagin became less interested and less visible. I guess it is hard to compete with Brad Pitt after all. We knew we couldn't
bring back the families and friends that were lost, bring back the heirlooms, the pictures. But maybe in the process of rebuilding, we can build something smarter. We can create a better way of life for the people who live there. In 2006, Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation pledged to build 150 homes in New Orleans' 9th Ward and sell them to former residents at a discount. Some of the world's most famous architects signed on to be involved.
The result was overly complicated builds using poor materials not suited for southern Louisiana's climate. Less than 10 years later, of the 109 homes Brad Pitt's foundation had built, the majority of them were falling apart. The foundation eventually settled with homeowners for $20.5 million to cover the cost of repairs.
It shouldn't be difficult to find a contractor to do the work. They were circling the city like buzzards. Everybody was trying to get a piece of that $19 billion in federal relief money. According to a report released by the Justice Department, less than a year after the disaster, more than 400 people, including government officials and charity workers, had been charged with some kind of fraud related to Hurricane Katrina.
Out of the $6.3 billion given directly to victims, as much as 21% was obtained illegally. There were rings of criminals around the country using fake identities to claim emergency assistance, fake websites for real charities seeking donations for victims. Not to mention all the bribes and kickbacks between local officials and contracting companies. The sheer amount of scams was breathtaking. What would Mayor Ray Nagin think?
Oh no. Former Mayor Ray Nagin was indicted in January 2013, three years after leaving office. He was accused of awarding lucrative city contracts before and after Katrina to three different vendors in exchange for lavish trips and kickbacks.
One of those trips was to Chicago in January 2007 for the NFC Championship football game between the Bears and the Saints.
When Nagin arrived at the stadium, he discovered he had purchased fake tickets and had to call in a favor from the Chicago mayor. What Ray Nagin did was sell his office over and over and over again. Ray Nagin also awarded a city contract to a construction company that supplied free truckloads of granite to a countertop business owned and operated by Nagin and his two sons. Well, in my opinion, I've been targeted. I've been smeared and tarnished.
Ray Nagin pleaded not guilty, and in 2014, he was convicted on 20 charges, including fraud, bribery, money laundering, and conspiracy. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In addition, Negan's right-hand man, former technology chief and deputy mayor Greg Meffert, was sentenced to two and a half years for his role. As hard as rebuilding levees is, as hard as rebuilding housing is, real change, real lasting structural change, that's even harder. And it takes courage to experiment with new ideas and change the old ways of doing things. That's hard. Getting it right and making sure that everybody is included
and everybody has a fair shot at success. That takes time. That's not unique to New Orleans. We got those challenges all across the country. But I'm here to say, I'm here to hold up a mirror and say, because of you, the people of New Orleans working together, this city is moving in the right direction. And I have never been more confident that together we will get to where we need to go. Has New Orleans recovered? It depends on who you ask.
Even now, more than 17 years later, like most debates, opinions are split among classes, party lines, demographics, the gentrifier and the gentrified. But a fresh coat of paint can't hide tragedy, and some things just can't be rebuilt, like a Katrina victim's faith in their country, as if they ever had any.
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