Watching the narrative of the 20th anniversary of Katrina hitting New Orleans.
And yes, it is a narrative.
They skip all the (actual) failures of the city government, and the state government, and instead focus on the claimed failures of the Federal government in the aftermath.
But the reality, despite the narrative, is that the Nagin administration failed to do much to prepare despite the forecast that the hurricane would hit the city heads on days before, that the pumps had not been maintained for years, that the flood control structures had been allowed to decay over decades leading to broken levees, that the evacuation efforts were almost comical in their implementation and the leadership criminally incompetent at the city and state level.
But watching the media gloss over those failures, you’d think that the DNC types had done a wonderful job, both before the landfall, and afterwards.
And that just ain’t so.
Of course they do… FOUR days to get the Guard in there??? Pathetic! When Camille hit in 69, the Guard was there in four HOURS! And don’t get me started on ‘Chocoloate’ Nagin or NOPD…
The Cajun navy was there immediately and could not float their boats as Fish and Wildlife said they had insufficient life preservers. All they desired to do was rescue the people on their roofs.
The only guy who did anything positive was the drug dealer who stole a school bus and got 60 people out of the city.
And he was 13 years old.
Nagin refused WalMarts offer of combat loaded trailers of relief supplies, water, food, meds, clothing, etc
Also, compare the speed of recovery between New Orleans (govt relief) and Mississippi (private efforts).
Mississippi was getting things fixed 3 days after the storm, and they took more damage.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/joelanderson/how-a-small-time-drug-dealer-rescued-dozens-during-katrina
And it is interesting, we’re not hearing about Mississippi on the news because they just put their heads down and did what needed to be done and didn’t wait for anyone, like Gibson did.
It seems that he would have been better off if he hadn’t returned to New Orleans.
When Katrina hit, I was a remote worker for a company located in Laurel, Mississippi. They’re 90 miles from the coast and you’ll recognize it from the “home town” television program. Spare me the whining about NOLA. Laurel and all points south got the Bejesus beat out of them and entire towns like Waveland were completely scoured off the face of the planet when Katrina made landfall in South Mississippi. Last I knew, NOLA is still there. It had been well known for decades that the Levee Board in the NOLA area was incompetent and corrupt so everybody in that area knew well in advance what happened to the Ninth Ward was gonna happen someday. As it will again. Lather, rinse and repeat.