Bush, Chertoff warned about catastrophe and possible levee breaches - new video

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Video - http://video.ap.org/vws/search/aspx/...v_katrina_bush

Story - http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-01-18-15-10

[The Emperor Fabulous]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

The footage - along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press - show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush's confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

-Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

Michael Brown, former FEMA director, in A-P interview: Brown says he doesn't buy Homeland Security's arguments to deflect blame.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

-Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility - and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."

-Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

"We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying - not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

[n]"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.[/n]

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

"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," the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?"

Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now."

Chertoff: "Good job."

In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome - which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response - would be safe and have adequate medical care.

"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."

[Ninot]

just from reading that, Brown gets a much better light, and Bush/Chertoff much much worse.

[Guynemer]

Dammit, why do the Oscars have to be this Sunday? I'd love to see a new Daily Show tonight in light of this report.

Brown may have been a patsie, but he was still clearly out of his depth in the position in the first place. And it's not like Bush & Chertoff being clueless are big revelations to anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention the past five years.

[chequita guevara]

Wow, Brown may have been out of his depth, but he clearly wasn't as clueless as we thought.

[Drake Tungsten]

Heck of a job, Brownie.

[Ted Striker]

So we shouldn't be mad at Brown for being clueless

We should be mad at Bush for scapingoating him and his minions for Swiftboating him.

Brown's conference room actually looked like a well organized command center that you would expect to be in effect during a disaster like this

[Drake Tungsten]

You guys need to get your story straight. It's a little late to stop hammering on Brown now.

[Ted Striker]

Unlike you Reactionaries some of us are able to change our opinions when new information becomes available.

Notice I give the guy a break, regardless of his political affiliations, when new evidence clearly shows a more indepth look at what was going on

You would not do the same

That's why you carry Bush's jockstrap around because he never changes his mind, which you think is cool.

[Drake Tungsten]

BUT HE JUDGED HORSE SHOWS!!!!11!!

edit: And for the record, I don't feel like any of the authorities involved did that terrible of a job. An entire US city gets flooded and only ~1300 people die? That's pretty impressive, considering as many as 50,000 die in Europe when the weather gets hot...

[DanS]

The one thing I don't like this is that the AP said Bush had been warned about the levees being "breached," when Bush actually was warned about them being "topped."

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
BUT HE JUDGED HORSE SHOWS!!!!11!!

edit: And for the record, I don't feel like any of the authorities involved did that terrible of a job. An entire US city gets flooded and only ~1300 people die? That's pretty impressive, considering as many as 50,000 die in Europe when the weather gets hot...

Thanks mister black and white analysis

There were better choices for the job than Brown, that much is still true. Someone with more disaster experience should have been at the helm.

This doesn't say he gets high marks for his handling of the situation.

It just shows he was involved and making an effort to both administer the disaster and cut through the red tape to get the job done, instead of the detached and incompetent image that was painted before.

[Drake Tungsten]

instead of the detached and incompetent image that was painted before.

Painted by whom, I wonder...

[Ted Striker]

I don't know Drake, your boys are experts at Swiftboating, and Brown WAS fired, hmmmm

[Ted Striker]

And by the way more people die from heat waves than any other natural disaster