Posted on 09/12/2005 4:54:28 AM PDT by Brilliant
On Sunday, Sept. 4, Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press" asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to explain President Bush's statement that the government couldn't have anticipated breaches in levees in New Orleans.
Mr. Chertoff talked about news coverage. "Well, I think if you look at what actually happened, I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers, and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet,' " he said. "Because if you recall, the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse. It was on Tuesday that the levee -- may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday -- that the levee started to break."
But now it is known that major levee breaks occurred much earlier than that, starting in the morning of Monday, Aug. 29, the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Even as the storm veered off and many observers felt a sense of relief, the Industrial Canal levee in eastern New Orleans was giving way, and a rush of water swiftly submerged much of the Lower Ninth Ward and areas nearby, trapping thousands of people on rooftops and in attics. The 17th Street Canal levee also was breached early Monday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now believes, resulting in a slower-rising flood over a larger area.
Yet it wasn't until Tuesday that most people across the country, apparently including Mr. Chertoff, realized that any levees at all had been breached. Did media outlets get it wrong, as Mr. Chertoff claimed? Some did, some didn't.
A look at news reports of the events of Aug. 29 paints a picture of confusion, miscommunication and conflicting information among some government officials and news media...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I agree that the first 24 hours after Katrina hit NO, the reports were quite optimistic that the city had been hit, but spared the most severe outcome of a levee break. It does seem to me that I remember later on Monday some mention of flooding beginning in NO, but the exact nature of the seriousness was not known until early Tuesday.
And throughout the entire time, both Nagin and Blanco seemed clueless.
Can you give us a synopsis of "Why Levee Breaches In New Orleans Were Late-Breaking News"? What's the writer's explanation.? No inspectors at the dam keeping an eye on it?
any chance you could post the entire article?...rto
I think that was Chris Matthews that used that term
My recollection on watching the news on Tuesday morning following the hurricane was that the Mississippi coast had been flattened, but New Orleans had again dodged a bullet. I didn't hear anything about flooding until later on Tuesday.
pretty much everyone in the south refers to the Gulf coast that way.
The earliest I heard of it was mid day or later on Tuesday.
Yes we do.
You may be right about that. I do remember that after the hurricane caam on shore, there was at least 24 hours before we knew that NO was going to be in more serious shape than originally reported. The first thing I remember hearing when I listened on Monday morning was that Katrina had veered east and was hitting the Mississippi coast and NO was on the fringe of the western eye of the storm.
Among many amazing things about this to me:
- a city that lived below sea level relied on a pumping system powered only from the electrical grid. My single family home has a backup generator.
- in normal conditions, the city is surrounded by water. The city owned 3 boats, only one was functional. It is hurricane season.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1477255/posts
has a timeline.
check the original timeline for updates
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/category/katrina-timeline/
Levee break was known late Monday AM, but not mentioned by the Mayor as a cause for alarm until late TUESDAY afternoon, well after looting began and it was known the water was still rising.
The mayor was playing chicken and he lost!
* * *
COMMENT: Note that the journalists who wrote this article are playing word games. They claim newspapers did not say New Orleans "dodged a bullet." Instead, they said New Orleans "avoided the worst of the worst" or as the New York Times claimed August 30, 2005, "Katrina Misses New Orleans, Heavily Damages Mississippi." Washington Post, CBS News, NBC, NPR and many others in the omniscient establishment press also reported New Orleans had been "spared."
In other words, Chertoff was more honest in recounting the known facts in the immediate aftermath of Katrina than Russert and the rest of the MSM.
That is a great slideshow, IMO. It also shows that the NOPD were on the job, as much as possible, by the time the flodding began, in words and pictures. Pics of a cop making sure the looters were confined to Foot Action,; pics of official vehicles, all trailering boats, getting prepared as the waters began to rise.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=14ewb3ap.b147fdut&Uy=nyvoby&Ux=1
Flooding
Dodged the bullet probably came from TV coverage - as mind numbing as that was - the term was repeated on at least two cable outlets. [Fox for one]
Not trusting my recollection, I looked back through the archives for this selection of posts ...
May be old news, but ABC just had the mayor of NO on, via telephone, and the mayor is getting word that some of the Levees at Lake Pontchartrain have been breeched.The storm was still ongoing, and it is clear that reports of the Industrial Canal breach came late Monday morning. The media was looking at the levees that define part of Lake Pontchartrain, and not to the Industrial Canal or 17th Street levees, and imputed to "no failure of a levee at the lake", the quality of "no flood in NOLA."742 posted on 08/29/2005 8:46:29 AM EDT by Northern Yankee
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
814 AM CDT MON AUG 29 2005
* A LEVEE BREACH OCCURRED ALONG THE INDUSTRIAL CANAL AT TENNESSE STREET. 3 TO 8 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED DUE TO THE BREACH.
* LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO ARABI AND 9TH WARD OF NEW ORLEANS.1,063 posted on 08/29/2005 9:23:48 AM EDT by silentknight
msnbc guy just saying that LA governor said the NO levees are not being breached - that it's just water coming over the levees. Someone in Louisiana - please send this idiot woman away from any microphones!!!1,916 posted on 08/29/2005 10:54:29 AM EDT by daybreakcoming
well, storm's over.....let's move on...
..Shep has spoken and said NO got lucky and dodged it again...2,124 posted on 08/29/2005 11:19:33 AM EDT by Guenevere
I went to bed last night KNOWING that New Orleans was going to be destroyed. That last minute jog and decrease of intensity appears to have saved it. If the levees hold for another couple of hours, which they probably will, the city will have escaped a death sentence.It's not over yet, but I am so elated at the moment. I guess I now know what it must be like to be bi-polar, because I can't imagine a more significant mood swing in the past 12 hours.
2,342 posted on 08/29/2005 11:43:28 AM EDT by Dog Gone
As reported by Fox News about 11:15CST, Major levee breach on east bank of the Industrial Canal has flooded eastern New Orleans and the New Orleans lower 9th ward above many first floor windows, and up to ceilings in most houses. Reporter is stuck on an overpass and reports water topping U-Haul delivery trucks on the roadways. Also reports whitecaps in the streets and lapping onto houses. Let's hope the Lake Ponchartrain levees hold, as we are reaching a critical point with water being forced south by severe north winds at this point.
http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=48218 Source2,781 posted on 08/29/2005 12:34:10 PM EDT by HoHoeHeaux
I'm also confused.All morning I've been hearing about breached levees and that P lake spilling over.
And yet I keep reading that NO dodged the bullet.
I am totally unfamiliar with NO. I'm not proud of that fact.
I do know about hurricanes being from Merryland and now living in Delaware.
But it sure doesn't sound like a dodged bullet to me.
2,824 posted on 08/29/2005 12:38:56 PM EDT by Fishtalk
COE is checking on the levee breech. Flooding is severe along major roadways in N.O. - many homes flooded up to chest level and some up to the roof tops. Mayor says that many businesses are destroyed and leveled. Witnessing looting in a number of buildings that were destroyed. Anyone else hearing this...3,370 posted on 08/29/2005 2:09:02 PM EDT by silentknight
I agree with you. and it appears that the levees around the lake have held up (??), so this adamant prediction from people like Bastardi that the eye moving east of NO would cause the north to south wind that would drive the lake into NO, did not pan out, those levees along the lake held.
Those live threads are now an outstanding research reference, but it takes quite a bit of time to slog through them. "Part IX" would pick up where this thread left off, and one could get a good sense of when the media PROMINENTLY figured out that NOLA was flooded or flooding.
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