After Hurricane Katrina busted levees and submerged New Orleans, President Bush defended his administration’s inept response, saying, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”
It was a strange claim even at the time – and now a video obtained by The Associated Press shows it also was false.
Hours before Katrina made landfall, Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff were warned that the storm could be disastrous. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, told them there was “potential for large loss of life” and emphasized “very, very grave concern” about the levees protecting New Orleans. They failed, and 1,300 people died.
The Aug. 28, 2005, briefing partly vindicates Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time, because he tried (as he later testified to Congress) to inform superiors about the potential disaster. Yet it doesn’t explain why FEMA was so ill-prepared to act.
The tape shows a president who didn’t ask pointed questions or instill any urgency into the bureaucracy – errors of omission eerily similar to those that let evidence of impending terrorist attacks go unheeded prior to Sept. 11.
For years, experts warned a big hurricane in New Orleans could cause massive casualties. Yet when the storm actually hit, all agencies seemed unprepared. By then, it was too late to take preventive steps, but the Bush administration could have made valuable use of the hours between the Mayfield and Brown warnings and when the storm struck to re-evaluate response plans.
Bush offered blind assurances to state and local officials that his government was ready. As Katrina morphed into a monster from Aug. 25-28, Bush vacationed at his Texas ranch. Katrina struck on Aug. 29, and Bush left to give speeches in Arizona and California. As New Orleans’ levees crumbled on Aug. 30, Bush was in San Diego. As New Orleans devolved into despair, Bush flew over the ruined area en route to Washington. Vice President Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming, and White House Chief of Staff Andy Card sat in Maine.
The only agency that reacted as Americans should expect was the U.S. Coast Guard, which heroically rescued 33,500 flood victims while flying outdated helicopters. Those equipment woes, like the president’s pre-Katrina reassurances, have been well documented.
