Their communications center was useless. "At that stage, we had mission-assigned the Department of Defense to start giving us everything they could in terms of air-lift capability. Documenting evidence of potential war crimes in Ukraine. Thousands of troops poured into the city September. ", "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", Note: In the last hours before Katrina made landfall, dozens of copies of the, "To cries of 'Thank you, Jesus!' When presented with the additional cases collected by victims' advocates groups, Benelli acknowledges that the police simply doesn't know the extent of sex crimes after the storm. And I said [to the president], 'Look, we talked about that option, and then we also talked about another option, that we would federalize, and the governor said she needed time to think about it. Around this time 17 years ago, Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, and permanently changed life for thousands of people across the country. We had pre-positioned supplies, medical teams, Meals Ready To Eat, and food in the Superdome. Commander Dave Lipin says they saw two women who said they'd been raped -- different women than those the police attended to. FEMA National Situation Update: President Bush's Sept. 15th address to the nation. Producer Martin Smith: So we're just eating sandwiches and making nice while people are stranded on rooftops? Kimberly Roberts is the star of the filmif you can call her thata 24-year-old aspiring rapper who did not have the finances to get the hell out of New Orleans when Katrina hit, and still, she managed to film all of her harrowing experiences on a Hi-8 camerathe water rising, being trapped in the attic with her husband and neighbors, the fear they felt. Blanco and said, 'We've got to move National Guard troops in there. FEMA Situation Update: Rescuers drop them off wherever there is high ground; many are dropped at interstate overpasses and the Superdome. Listen 7:57. Directed by New Orleans native Edward Buckles Jr., who was a teenager when Katrina struck, the documentary, which premieres Thursday on HBO, reminds us of the storm's real-life ramifications. No, they weren't. "We'd heard the story of a man killing himself, falling . ', And we left and had a press conference. Remembers Covering Katrina Preserving History After Hurricane Katrina Katrina's Affect on Charter schools quiz: 10 Questions on Katrina. Inside the four triage tents, medical personnel tended to people who had gone for days without their medication. A Louisiana State University computer model of a 115 mph storm strike shows the overtopping of levees protecting New Orleans and nearby areas. With Glovers story as a jumping-off point, FRONTLINE partnered with the Times-Picayune and ProPublica in 2010 to investigate six questionable shootings by police revealing that, in the midst of post-Katrina chaos, law-enforcement commanders issued orders to ignore long-established rules governing the use of deadly force. And we need to get these people out of the Superdome because it's a shelter of last resort, and they only have a limited amount of resources.". The skies darkened, and the wind started to pick up. The line to get in was already a quarter-mile long. On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We . On that first night after the storm, the city had lost power, and she was sleeping in a dark hallway, trying to catch a breeze. Another group, Witness Justice, a Maryland-based non-profit that assists victims of violent crimes, claims to have received 156 reports of post-Katrina violent crimes; about a third of those involved sexual assaults. [Governor Blanco] probably should have asked sooner. Katrina Cop in the Superdome. Oh, absolutely not. Mayor, we had a good meeting. And I said [to the president], "Here's my piece of paper. 49 But it was the subsequent flooding of New Orleans that imposed catastrophic public health conditions on the people of southern . And we said, "Plan your route carefully. Now, other than media reports, I don't know what's happening at the other end. When Hurricane Katrina ripped the Superdome's rubber seal off, tore open the steel roof paneling and penetrated the stadium, it shed light on the conjoined problems of concentrated poverty, socialized and environmental racism, and America's ability to ignore the suffering of its own citizens. Mayor, what do you need?' That's the attitude I would take if I was operating in the dark too. [Note: The information in this timeline is drawn from the news and government agencies' reports, as published daily during the crisis, and from FRONTLINE's research and reporting.]. / HBO Around this time 17 years ago, Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, and permanently changed life for thousands of people across the country. FEMA Situation Update: And you need to order mandatory evacuation. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. The only person I saw from FEMA was basically this guy named Marty [Bahamonde]. Some parts of the city already showed slipping floodwaters as the repair neared completion, with the low-lying Ninth Ward dropping more than a foot. When Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans poet Shelton Alexander to evacuate his home, he took his truck and video camera to the Superdome. Having largely emptied the cavernous Superdome, which had become a squalid pit of misery and violence, officials turned their attention to the Convention Center, where people waited to be evacuated as corpses rotted in the streets. "There was a period of days when we weren't sure who was directing the federal response and were all the actions being taken. The storm traveled the Gulf of Mexico and then made landfall on the Gulf Coast in southeast Louisiana near the town of Buras, on Aug. 29, 2005. Plus, if you lived in a FEMA trailer for three years like I did, the last thing you want to do is go to a trailer for medical care. Gov. The Louisiana National Guard's Jackson Barracks flood. "Katrina will regenerate on Friday over Gulf of Mexico, head west-northwest then turn northward. Hurricane Katrina made landfall off the coast of Louisiana on August 29, 2005. At the peak of the Katrina recovery effort, 51,039 National Guard soldiers from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and three territories worked in Louisiana and Mississippi, making Katrina by far . "All I know is on Wednesday night I was convinced that there were no FEMA buses. Every little thing helps. FEMA Situation Update: "[On Air Force One] we gave the president a briefing on everything that had gone on. "I know more sexual assaults took place. ". At daybreak, rescuers set out on boats to help others still stranded. "I realized how serious things were on Sunday. The choice was either run the risk of becoming stranded or take a detour to wait the storm out for a day or two in the Superdome. Locals adopt it in their idea of the city. Around this time 17 years ago, Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, and permanently changed life for thousands of people across the country. 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. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warning: With camera lenses and lights abounding, the . Hundreds of people already have been rescued. 7:577-Minute Listen. He escaped the chaotic shelter a few days later with a truckload of people and video documentation of history.Check out exclusive HISTORY content:Website - http://www.history.com?cmpid=Social_YouTube_HistHomeTwitter - https://twitter.com/history/postsFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/HistoryHISTORY, now reaching more than 98 million homes, is the leading destination for award-winning original series and specials that connect viewers with history in an informative, immersive, and entertaining manner across all platforms. In all, more than 1,500 died either duringthe storm or inthe famouslybungled aftermath which saw local, state, and federal officials uncoordinated and overwhelmed. Around this time 17 years ago, Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, and permanently changed life for thousands of people across the country. And New Orleans itself has worked to rebuild. Around this time 17 years ago, Hurricane Katrina bore down on New . ', We immediately did turn to the military and mission-assigned them to start doing airlifts, start bringing things in. And they both shook their heads and said, 'Yes, you're right.' In downtown New Orleans, some streets were merely wet rather than swamped. Michael Ainsworth/The Dallas Morning News/epa/Corbis. The expected storm surge is 15 to 20 feet, locally as high as 25 feet. These defenses held for Hurricane Ida, a category 4 storm, in August 2021. At 7 pm it makes landfall north of Miami. Kathleen Blanco. I talk to her every other day, and thats her main question How long is it going to be? At landfall, Katrina's maximum winds were about 125 miles per hour (mph) to the east of its center. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. Top subscription boxes right to your door, 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. We'd sent them all the information they needed. After Katrina, the spectacle of a Black refugee population in the Superdome, along with the short-lived plan from Mayor Nagin's committee to wipe out some Black neighborhoods, revived these . 11:09. I probably should have asked sooner. It doesn't make any sense.". Here's all these thousands of people that don't have any way to get out of the city. Twenty-five thousand miserable people - many of whom lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina - hunkered down with little food and little water, overflowing toilets, stifling heat and the . Producer Martin Smith: Were they going back and forth with each other? First categorized as a tropical storm, Katrina hit New Orleans, flattening buildings, breaking levees, and flooding the city with terrifying 125 mph winds. And the bosses say, 'Oh, okay. Benitez and others interviewed for this report believe that police authorities -- who were anxious to discount initially exaggerated reports of mayhem -- are downplaying violent crimes that happened in the anarchy after the storm. According to the New Orleans Data Center, racial disparities in income and employment are more pronounced in the city than they are nationally; the poverty rate is 11 points higher than the national average; and the incarceration rate is approximately three times the national average. 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. The police department -- reeling from desertions, flooding and the immensity of the disaster -- was in a survival mode itself. But problems persist. Victims of Hurricane Katrina fight through the crowd as they line up for buses to evacuate the Superdome and New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005. But Mayor Nagin goes on radio and castigates state and federal officials for their inaction and demands they "fix the biggest god-damn crisis in the history of this country." FRONTLINEs documentary The Old Man and the Storm followed Gettridge for 18 months as he worked to rebuild his home, which took on 10 feet of water when the levees breached. We've all feared a catastrophic hurricane striking New Orleans. A hurricane warning is issued for the Southeast Florida coast. You'll receive access to exclusive information and early alerts about our documentaries and investigations. ', And the president was a little stunned, and he kind of stepped back, and he recovered. FRONTLINE reports from Iraq on the miscalculations and mistakes behind the brutal rise of ISIS. Trapped on Airline Drive in a traffic jam in his gas-depleted pickup truck, he didn't think he would reach his destination of Baton Rouge. Military and Coast Guard helicopters flew a steady stream of evacuees from hospitals and rooftops to the airport southwest of downtown. [He] came on site, I think it was Monday after the event. There is a belief that the city has avoided a direct hit. The numbers are not dramatic, but they are significant when seen in light of the official number of post-Katrina rapes and attempted rapes: four. Lewis says that later in the week, national guardsmen forced evacuees out of the building at gunpoint. In the 2005 documentary "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina," Williams indicated that he wasn't a witness to the suicide. And Michael Brown was there listening. Driving in from the popular suburb of Metairie, it's the first building you pass. Half of telephone service is back. At 1:30 in the morning, Denise Thornton walked with her group up to the helipad, out in the open air, and there it was. Katrina anniversary: Inside the Superdome during Katrina. What happened next was more than just a natural disaster especially in New Orleans, where the failure of the cityslevees unleashed flooding that left roughly80 percent of the city underwater. Reports put the population there in the tens of thousands. HBO. Kathleen Blanco: But prosecutors have struggled to hold officers accountable. And at that time I took some liberties I probably shouldn't take. Exclusive: A Former MPD Lieutenant Reported Another Cop. 1) At least 1,800 people died due to Hurricane Katrina. Lipin says when he arrived in Baton Rouge and turned on the TV, he was surprised by reports of rampant violence in New Orleans. But I am happy to help, even if it takes me an extra two hours at the grocery store. Katrina caused more than $160 billion in damage. Police Chief Eddie Compass admitted even his own officers had taken food and water from stores. But a growing body of evidence suggests there were more storm-related sexual assaults than previously known. They didn't have communication. Ten years ago this Saturday, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. The film features 15 minutes of live hurricane video shot by Kimberly Roberts, an aspiring rapper whose family was too poor to leave New Orleans, and follows Kims family and others through the horrific aftermath of the storm. Officials said the complete evacuation of New Orleans two days earlier was necessary, citing the prospect of diseases caused by rotting bodies and polluted waters as well as other risks caused by Hurricane Katrina. My sense now is there are victims out there whose stories haven't been heard.". But more and more people were being evacuated from their rooftops after being in the sun for long periods or overnight and being put on highways on high ground. A suicide did occur inside the Superdome, . Copyright All rights reserved. hide caption. Patrice Taddonio. Orders volun-tary evacuation where residents in low-lying areas encouraged to evacuate Sunday, August 28, 2005: Hurricane Katrina becomes a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds Superdome opens as a shelter of last resort Acadian personnel are deployed to the Superdome to help triage special needs patients and staff the rst aid station Nagin . And [FEMA Director] Michael Brown was with me at that time. And he was the first guy that told us about the amount of devastation and the levee breaches.