And he said: 'No, you don't have to leave. and catcalls of 'What took you so long?,' a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters Friday into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses. FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. authenticate users, apply security measures, and prevent spam and abuse, and, display personalised ads and content based on interest profiles, measure the effectiveness of personalised ads and content, and, develop and improve our products and services. Why haven't the bosses decided to move the people out?' I said, 'We need to do this.' Pack as though you're going on a camping trip. About 16,000 people . The price tag has not yet been determined. Conditions are deteriorating with bathrooms overflowing, no power for air conditioning and little food and water. The Coast Guard mobilizes to respond after the storm hits. And he said: 'Mr. Other people call me the Dr. Phil of the streets.. Theres a river of water moving into this area.'. After suffering heavy damage during Hurricane Katrina, the Superdome was re-opened on September 25, 2006 for the Saints' Monday night game against the Falcons. Heres What the Claims Say and Where They Stand. "[I] got to the president. Lt. Dave Benelli, commander of the sex crimes unit with the New Orleans Police Department, denies that. President Bush arrives in New Orleans and holds a meeting on Air Force One with federal and local officials. By the end of the day, there are 30,000 people at the Superdome. I've never seen a hurricane like this in my 33-year career. The Department of Defense's "Joint Task Force Katrina" -- 4,600 active-duty military headed by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honor -- sets up at Camp Shelby, Miss. Rescuers drop them off wherever there is high ground; many are dropped at interstate overpasses and the Superdome. At daybreak, rescuers set out on boats to help others still stranded. And that was that.". And I think thats whats going to help us rebuild the mosttalking about what happened and how we can move onand why documentaries like Trouble the Water are still so relevant. The skies darkened, and the wind started to pick up. Blanco is there. Buckles' intimate connection to the people he interviews many of them family members, friends, and former . Mayor, what do you need?' . Some electrical substations serving downtown New Orleans are repaired, but Entergy, the local energy utitlity, must first ensure that buildings can receive the electricity safely before the power is restored. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, as seen in the new documentary Katrina Babies . ", Leo Bosner, FEMA watch officer: ISIS' growing foothold in Afghanistan is captured on film. Female victims, now displaced from New Orleans, are slowly coming forward with a different story than the official one. "We're all looking at each other like, 'Why aren't we getting orders to move on this? And Michael Brown was there listening. "Coastal residents jammed freeways and gas stations as they rushed to get out A direct hit could wind up submerging New Orleans in several feet of water At least 100,000 people in the city lack transportation to get out Louisiana and Mississippi make all lanes northbound on interstate highways". Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News/epa/Corbis. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip). There was nobody there to protect you," Lewis says. In the first few hours after Katrina hit, many people believed that New Orleans had dodged a bullet. 7:577-Minute Listen. In downtown New Orleans, some streets were merely wet rather than swamped. By Chris Edwards. I mentally moved on from the storm after I wrote the last page of my book, but this documentary has opened some old wounds and moves me to action, and I can only hope it does the same for others. " Troops poured in to restore order after almost a week of near-anarchy. The mistake that I made was not doing that sooner and not giving them the orders that we needed them to do all of that immediately. Just last week, a federal court ordered a new trial for five officers convicted of the Danziger Bridge shootings. Winds continue to damage or destroy buildings and blow out windows. Katrina Cop in the Superdome. We, Yahoo, are part of the Yahoo family of brands. At landfall, Katrina's maximum winds were about 125 miles per hour (mph) to the east of its center. And there seems to be this dance about who has ultimate authority. I began to believe that no buses had been ordered. Crime is at an all-time high. "They didn't have no food. By the end of the day it is 335 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. At a press conference in Baton Rouge, 80 miles away, Gov. "Drug and alcohol use is another contributing factor, and no police presence to prevent them from doing whatever they wanted to, to whomever they wanted to.". by JOHN DORN. I think we both should have asked sooner.". Follow a day-by-day account of Hurricane Katrina's wrath, from its birth in the Atlantic Ocean to its catastrophic effects: flooded streets, flattened homes,. Anastasia is a petite, 25-year-old hairdresser who asked that her last name be omitted. And if you dont trust the system to deliver the money to the right places, call a school yourself and ask them what they need. More women are coming forward with stories of sexual assault in the lawless days after the storm. Blanco announces New Orleans must be evacuated because of the still- rising water and uninhabitable conditions. At 7 pm it makes landfall north of Miami. And nothing happened. Exploring the experiences of a black member of the New Orleans Police Department and assorted other New Orleans residents during their stay in the Louisiana Superdome during and after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. I was able to get Governor Blanco to sit with me several times in the office that she had and talk about what needed to be done. Lewis says she was raped on Monday, Aug. 29, the day of the storm. I aint about to leave, Gettridge said. Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina fill the streets near downtown New Orleans, La., on Aug. 30, 2005. More than 1,800 people died in what was the costliest . August 27, 2015, 2:18 PM. so you had a very dynamic situation.". [Congressman] Bobby Jindal is there, the senators Landrieu and [David] Vitter, and Congressman [William] Jefferson. There is a belief that the city has avoided a direct hit. Thats why films like Trouble the Water are so important, and why its great that its making it to a wide audience via HBO. It is 45 miles northwest of Florida Keys. If you do not want us and our partners to use cookies and personal data for these additional purposes, click 'Reject all'. Reports stream in from people needing rescue. They lost 15 high-water trucks with mobile communications packages. will never be the same. And why it wasnt stopped sooner. [He] came on site, I think it was Monday after the event. Exacerbated by the recent BP oil spill in the region, the storm and its aftermath remains an open wound for local residents and others affected . Virtually all communication systems are out. For my part, I am still going out into the streets every day to talk to people about their experiencesI call it getting phyllisophical. Other people call me the Dr. Phil of the streets. I laid that out for him. Reports put the population there in the tens of thousands. There's no question.". Two national crime-victims' groups have reported a spike in the number of reported rapes that happened to storm evacuees. We began search-and-rescue missions using local state resources, waiting for the federal cavalry to arrive and believing that it would be here in 48 to 60 hours. We all did. TV-PG. Theme Foto Blog by, Hundreds Evacuated as Vanuatu Braces for Second Cyclone in 2 Days. ', We immediately did turn to the military and mission-assigned them to start doing airlifts, start bringing things in. and catcalls of 'What took you so long?,' a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters Friday into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses. And I forget whether it was on Saturday or Sunday, I told my staff that I was sick to my stomach because I could see that some things weren't looking quite right. Troops poured in to restore order after almost a week of near-anarchy. Michael Brown, FEMA director: By the end of the day, the projected storm surge is 18 to 22 feet, locally as high as 28 feet. And [FEMA Director] Michael Brown was with me at that time. There are still areas that look like Katrina hit yesterday. Phone service and electricity to some 770,000 people in the area is cut off. And the impression given in those four days is basically indelible. Nobody cared.". Instead, officers at the compound arrested Glover. During Hurricane Katrina, around 20,000 people took refuge in the Superdome. I've expressed many times that we're willing to investigate any sexual assaults that happened in this city at any time. She describes . Producer Martin Smith: So we're just eating sandwiches and making nice while people are stranded on rooftops? They didn't have water. And they hadn't. Ten years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 15, 2005, in an address to the nation, President Bush declares, "It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.". "I realized how serious things were on Sunday. ", Mayor Ray Nagin: We knew what had to be done. More than four days after the storm hit, the caravan of at least three-dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived along with dozens of air-conditioned buses to take refugees out of the city. "We'd heard the story of a man killing himself, falling . Hurricane Katrina [ edit] Refugees on the field inside the Superdome, August 28. "Katrina will regenerate on Friday over Gulf of Mexico, head west-northwest then turn northward. So I went to the premiere, knowing Danny Glover was hosting it, and I couldnt get into the screeningso I texted Spike Lee, who directed When the Levees Broke, the documentary I was in, and asked him to pull some strings, but he didnt have Dannys number. Katrina Babies is an assertion of presence, a proclamation that the devastating hurricane is not simply a past story, but a present one too. Katrina first made landfall in South Florida. Its efforts fail. And then they'd gone around the room, and everybody's talking to the president and giving their opinions. She sits on the edge of a bed in a dingy, dimly lit room in a motel in Baton Rouge. [Secretary of Homeland Security Michael] Chertoff is there. The vast majority of them were elderly. I gave people clues on how to pack. And I said, "We're doing one in the morning.". The top-notch special effects are alarmingly realistic and frightening, particularly when the 17th St. Canal levee breaches and when Katrina rips the roof from the Superdome, where in the days . But the problem was that because of the fear that resulted from the civil unrest, the bus drivers said, 'We're not going in there to pick these people up unless you put a law enforcement official on every one of the buses, because we're afraid. Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News/epa/Corbis I just sent President Obama 10 letters the other day ( I remember Oprah saying persistence pays off) saying that since Katrina, we still only have two medical trailers in this part of town, and they arent equipped to handle emergencies or even basic lab work. August 28, 2015, 2:21 PM. "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks perhaps longer. Hurricane Katrina: Caught on Camera Over three days in August 2005, a cataclysmic storm brought flooding and disaster to the Gulf Coast of America, leaving over 1,800 people dead in Louisiana and Mississippi. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. Flew into the city. "We did meet with [Mayor Nagin] Tuesday morning. In his speech, he calls on all federal, state and local agencies to review their performance. After being damaged by. "I think that that was probably over-reported," he says. What happened next was more than just a natural disaster especially in New Orleans, where the . The hurricane caused billions of dollars of damage to the city, and killed thousands. "I'm telling you the number of reported rapes we had.". If we arent talking about what we still need, how can we be sure people wont forget?. I am still going out into the streets every day to talk to people about their experiencesI call it getting phyllisophical. Lewis says that later in the week, national guardsmen forced evacuees out of the building at gunpoint. Then, the airman hesitated a minute, and asked Landreneau to hold. New Orleans resident climbing through roof of house. A final, official tally of those killed in the disaster is still not in. Around 9:30 a.m. Mayor Ray Nagin issues a mandatory evacuation. In the decade since Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which came under harsh criticism for its response to the storm says it has improved its preparedness for future natural disasters. Sept. 27, 2005, 12:58 PM PDT / Source: The Associated Press. And the president comes, and we have this meeting. Anastasia says thugs were still wandering the streets of her neighborhood more than a week after the flood.