Washington – Newly released video footage taken just hours before Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast shows that federal officials delivered stark warnings to President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that the storm could lead to massive loss of life.
“We are fully prepared,” Bush responded.
While the information in the video has been public for months and was the subject of hearings and reports by Congress and the White House, the footage is giving new life to charges that the administration was detached and unresponsive in the face of the nation’s worst natural disaster.
The edited video, released by The Associated Press, shows Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, briefing state and federal officials – including Chertoff and Michael Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency – on Aug. 28. Bush was at his Texas ranch and participated by videophone.
Mayfield tells the officials he wants “to make it absolutely clear to everyone that there is potential for large loss of life … in the coastal areas from the storm surge” and emphasizes that there is a “very, very grave concern” about the ability of the levees that separated Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans to stand up against the force of the storm.
A few seconds later, the video cuts to an ABC News clip from Sept. 1 in which Bush says, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”
Tensions over the administration’s actions both before and after the storm hit Aug. 29 led House Democrats to boycott a select investigative committee.
That panel issued a highly critical report Feb. 15, finding that the government had failed in its “most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare.”
Eight days later, the White House released its own detailed chronicle of federal, state and local dysfunction in the preparation for and response to Katrina but carefully avoided assigning blame.
Even so, Democratic reaction to the video Wednesday was swift.
“Never has the need for an independent and thorough investigation into the government failures surrounding Hurricane Katrina been more plainly demonstrated than today,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
“Two Republican investigations into Katrina have been completed. Two reports have been issued. It is now apparent that both have only scratched the surface. This administration has a lot to answer for, and America must learn the truth.”
A White House spokesman, Blair Jones, defended the administration Wednesday, saying that before, during and after the storm, Bush “received multiple briefings from multiple officials and was completely engaged.”
Associated Press spokesman Jack Stokes said the news service had obtained raw footage of the entire briefing – as well as transcripts from seven days worth of similar government briefings – from a variety of sources.
The selectively edited video of the Aug. 28 briefing shows Brown at one end of a crowded conference table dotted with microphones, telling federal and state officials that “my gut tells me this is a bad one and a big one – this is, to put it mildly, the big one, I think.”
It cuts to a shot of Bush, speaking by videophone from his ranch, assuring state officials that the federal government is fully prepared. A voice-over notes that the president asked no questions about the presentations on Katrina or the dire predictions of what the storm might bring – a fact confirmed by the transcript of the meeting.
Questions about what – and when – the administration knew of the hurricane’s potential for disaster have haunted Bush and Chertoff. On Aug. 27, the president declared a state of emergency for Louisiana, freeing up federal money and allowing the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s parent agency, to coordinate the disaster response.
Transcripts show that by Aug. 28, the administration was aware that military help would probably be needed and that the Louisiana Superdome might not provide safe harbor during the storm.
In the video of the briefing that day, Brown warns that the stadium roof might not withstand a Category 5 storm and notes that the building is 12 feet below sea level.
“Not to be kind of gross here, but I’m concerned about (the medical and mortuary disaster teams) and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” he says.
The AP video does not include footage of Chertoff asking Brown if he needs any other help or of Chertoff asking if Brown wants him to approach the Department of Defense. Transcripts show that to both questions, Brown indicated that no additional assistance was needed.
In the transcript of a briefing the following day, Brown is quoted as saying that Bush “is very engaged, and he’s asking a lot of really good questions I would expect him to ask.” Brown – whom Bush praised on Sept. 2 for doing “a heck of a job” – resigned under pressure Sept. 12 and has been blamed for much of the failed response.
