WWL TV did an interview on Monday night that described initial damage. It was devastating to hear. What’s most interesting in the interview are two points–the breach in the 17th Street Levee (remember, the one that didn’t break until after this interview according to Chertoff–but that Nagin knew was a problem during the hurricane). The other issue that really tells part of the problem with FEMA is that by the time the hurricane had passed, there was little time for a visual inspection of the City, yet FEMA did an initial assessment where he got much of the information from including
1) the Twin Spans being destroyed (anchors turned white)
2) Extensive flooding in nearly all parts of the City except at the CBD, Algiers and the French Quarter (both CBD and FQ would later have some flooding)
3) expectation of electricity out for 4-6 weeks
4) no clear path in or out of the City
5) St. Benards in worst shape–total devastation
What has never changed are his three objectives
1) Save Lives
2) Evacuate people–arguing with other parishes—indicates he’s referring to the blockade on the bridge.
3) Pump out water.
“My heart is heavy tonight, I don’t have any good news to share other than the at some point and time the Federal government will be coming in here en masse. The City of New Orleans is in a state of devastation.”
“This is a briefing I got from a gentleman named Marty who is with FEMA. He’s the Undersec, the Director of FEMA and the FEMA Secretary is coming into town tomorrow along with our Senators and Congressional leaders to do a fly over.
“We have a list from FEMA that is our wishlist of what we want and we are going to continue to work“
“When this FEMA guy came back from his areal view, and we had a map and he started to lay everything out, it suddenly hit everybody, the impact of this awesome, awesome hurricane.
I asked the guy point blank–I said was this the worst he’d ever seen. He said absolutely. Absolutely, it’s the worst situation he’d ever seen. “
“Let me just give you a little bit of good news. Whatever good news that is. We have the highest levels of government in the United States including the President of the United States focused on this issue and ready to send resources. They have told us to put together your wish list. Put together whatever you might need to deal with this and they are basically telling us they will come down and help us rebuild.”
What’s clear is that Nagin was talking to FEMA, and the professional level of FEMA understood how serious this was by Marty saying it was the worse he’d ever seen. Why then didn’t the Head of FEMA and Chertoff know all of this? Furthermore, we know that Nagin made specific requests the day of the hurricane and continued made a second request the next day.