My sense now is there are victims out there whose stories haven't been heard.". And the mayor began to tell us some of the things that he needed. Their communications center was useless. Listen 7:57. Around 8 a.m. the storm's eye passes eastern New Orleans. Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina. We go to Sam's and Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie and gather up food and water and start distributing it because we had 60 hours' worth of resources that we had stored, but now we're out of it. Airborne debris will be widespread and may include heavy items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. , "Law and order all but broke down in New Orleans over the past few days. They were making suggestions about we need to do this and that. Hurricane Katrina: Survivors on the Storm's Impact - People By the end of the day, the projected storm surge is 18 to 22 feet, locally as high as 28 feet. [Mayor Nagin] was upset with everything. '", Mayor Ray Nagin But prosecutors have struggled to hold officers accountable. I wasnt poor before Katrina, and Im certainly not poor afterward, but Trouble the Water pisses me off all over again, in a good way. There are still gangs of armed criminals roaming the city; police and National Guard, now numbered at 16,000, have a better handle on the situation than earlier in the week. An Unfiltered View: Producers of Police on Trial on What the Documentary Reveals 2 Years After the Murder of George Floyd, From the Archives: How the World's Deadliest Ebola Outbreak Unfolded, Russias Invasion of Ukraine, One Year Later, War Crimes Watch Ukraine: More Than 650 Documented Events, From the Archives: How the U.N. & World Failed Darfur Amid "the 21st Century's First Genocide". The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused . And he said: 'No, you don't have to leave. The National Weather Service writes that Hurricane Katrina is "one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States." Hurricane Katrina caused up to $161 billion worth of damage, largely due to the fact that the breached levees led to flooding in 80% of New Orleans. First categorized as a tropical storm, Katrina hit New Orleans, flattening buildings, breaking levees, and flooding the city with terrifying 125 mph winds. And then finally I just stopped and said: 'Excuse me, but time is of the essence. According to a New York Times article of September 29, "During six days when the Superdome was used as a shelter, the head of the New Orleans Police Department's sex crimes unit, Lt. David . If you would like to customise your choices, click 'Manage privacy settings'. Sept. 15, 2005, 7:50 AM PDT. "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". to support FEMA disaster relief efforts, but it will be two days before the troops arrive in the city. The 42 reports include assaults that happened inside New Orleans and outside the city, for instance, in host homes. But by late morning, when FEMA director Michael Brown arrives in Baton Rouge, water is already coming over levees in the 9th Ward and there are reports of breaks in the Industrial Canal and 17th Street Canal levees. Henry Glover was last seen alive in the backseat of a white Chevy Malibu on Sept. 2, 2005, days after Katrina hit. We knew what had to be done. [He] came on site, I think it was Monday after the event. Director of HBO Max documentary 'Katrina Babies' chronicles a Spectacular Disaster: The Louisiana Superdome and Subsumed Blackness in A final, official tally of those killed in the disaster is still not in. The outer ends of the hurricane also produced tornados . So many people have Katrina Fatigue, as I like to call itthe hurricane is four years out, and I applaud anything that brings another testimony into the public conversation; that shows people how bad it was, and how bad it still is. And that is unacceptable. Years after Hurricane Katrina, a new documentary asks: What happened to There was all kinds of crime taking place on a much higher level than usual. Winds continue to damage or destroy buildings and blow out windows. She was featured in Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke and is author of Not Just the Levees Broke: My Story During and After Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina [ edit] Refugees on the field inside the Superdome, August 28. Here's the things I think we need to focus on. 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. And when I saw it then, and watching it again now, I think that Trouble the Water is an amazing accomplishment, and something everyone should see about the people who had to live through what we all went through here in New Orleans. Floodwaters keep rising. 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 the guard unitspent most of the next 24 hours saving itself. 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 . "The fact that something wasn't reported to the police doesn't mean it didn't happen," Benitez says. There are still areas that look like Katrina hit yesterday. 7:577-Minute Listen. And he was the first guy that told us about the amount of devastation and the levee breaches. FEMA organizes 475 buses to be sent in to transport many of the estimated 23,000 people from the Superdome to the Houston Astrodome. FEMA National Situation Update: Trapped in the Superdome: Refuge becomes a hellhole The eye of Hurricane Katrina made landfall near Buras in Plaquemines Parish at approximately 6:00 a.m. on August 29 as a Category 3 hurricane. Years later, much of the money committed to New Orleans residents had yet to reach them. Since many New Orleans streets are still filled with stagnant, fetid waters smelling of garbage and raw sewage, the military was considering using planes to spray for mosquitoes.". Hurricane Katrina: Superdome Survivor | History - YouTube The expected storm surge is 15 to 20 feet, locally as high as 25 feet. 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 Kim's family and others through the . The interviews done as part of this project reflect the disaster's painful, chaotic, and murky aftermath. The line to get in was already a quarter-mile long. Brian Williams: From 'Heard' Of To 'We Watched' Katrina Superdome Suicide "With the evacuee situation stabilizing somewhat, and increasing numbers of armed soldiers and police on the streets, officials said Saturday they would start aggressively dealing with the bands of armed looters who pushed the city to the brink of complete breakdown. Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish emergency manager: Richard Falkenrath, Homeland Security Adviser (2001-2004): In Fight Against ISIS, a Lose-Lose Scenario Poses Challenge for West. A suicide did occur inside the Superdome, . Left to right: Mayor Ray Nagin, President Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Gov. These three documentaries and nearly 190 more are all streaming online at pbs.org/frontline. [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.]. At 7 pm it makes landfall north of Miami. 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. I aint about to leave, Gettridge said. Then we kind of figure out ways that we could coordinate. "I remember reading [that New Orleans had dodged a bullet]. Police Chief Eddie Compass admitted even his own officers had taken food and water from stores. 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. So I finally just walked up to Danny and said, Mr. Go up there, face to face and say, "What is happening here? When Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleans poet Shelton Alexander to evacuate his home, he took his truck and video camera to the Superdome. They were finally able to leave the city on Saturday. Rescue efforts are delayed because of the inability of rescuers to communicate with each other. Copyright All rights reserved. Note: In the last hours before Katrina made landfall, dozens of copies of the Hurricane Pam report are distributed to emergency planners. ', And we left and had a press conference. Persons, pets, and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck. She is at work on her next memoir, No More Wire Hangers, about domestic abuse in teenage relationships. New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, as seen in the new documentary Katrina Babies. Hurricane Katrina created enormous public health and medical challenges, especially in Louisiana and MississippiStates with public health infrastructures that ranked 49th and 50th in the Nation, respectively. Last September, when Trouble the Water first premiered in New Orleans, I remember thinking, "I have to go down to Canal Place Cinema and support this." Years after Hurricane Katrina, a new documentary asks: What happened to And I said, "We're doing one in the morning.". Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish emergency manager: That's the attitude I would take if I was operating in the dark too. I said, 'If you guys don't get together and work this out, this is going to get worse.' By. 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 home+WGBH+PBS, FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of wgbh educational foundation. He co-wrote the novel,"The Spencer Haywood Rule," and he was co-producer of the "Katrina Cop in the Superdome," a 2010 documentary about the experiences of a black New Orleans police officer and other citizens as they sheltered in the Louisiana Superdome during the Hurricane Katrina disaster of 2005. 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. He also announces that the Superdome will be "a shelter of last resort for evacuees with special needs." Hurricane Katrina: Caught on Camera - DocuWiki President Bush arrives in New Orleans and holds a meeting on Air Force One with federal and local officials. FEMA Situation Update: If you do not want us and our partners to use cookies and personal data for these additional purposes, click 'Reject all'. Oh, absolutely not. 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 . Hurricane Katrina Day by Day | National Geographic - YouTube One of the victims is Ms. Lewis, a 46-year-old home health-care worker from New Orleans East, who asked that her first name not be used. " After Katrina passed, we thought we're pretty much out of the woods. You can change your choices at any time by clicking on the 'Privacy dashboard' links on our sites and apps. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's where Katrina Babies comes in. People continue to head towards the Superdome, which is now surrounded by water. On Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made its historic landfall on the Gulf Coast, hitting a number of cities along the Louisiana-Mississippi border, with the eye . With camera lenses and lights abounding, the . That is why the first place we picked to do an exercise and planning was New Orleans. And nothing happened. The death toll in the city is not known, but the dying continues as people succumb to illness, exhaustion and days without food and water. I laid that out for him. We talked about it. Top subscription boxes right to your door, 1996-2023, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. I've never seen a hurricane like this in my 33-year career. 'Katrina Babies' is a reminder of what was lost and what - Andscape He escaped the chaotic shelter a few days . That she could turn this 15 minutes of footage into an Oscar-nominated documentaryIm amazed by it. By midday, water levels between the city and Lake Ponchartrain have equalized. August 27, 2015, 2:18 PM. I am still going out into the streets every day to talk to people about their experiencesI call it getting phyllisophical. Blanco is there. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says he'll follow the state evacuation plan and will not call for mandatory evacuation until 30 hours before projected landfall. Already, these preliminary cases show a high number of gang rapes and rapes by strangers, both unusual characteristics. More than 1 million more in the Gulf region were displaced. They cast a wide net over this important event and His death came nearly two years to the day after his wifes passing. "[Michael] Brown I did not see the first couple of days. Visit us at HISTORY.com for more info. More women are coming forward with stories of sexual . And in my opinion, it was this whole 'who has ultimate authority' and whether the federal government is going to come in and impinge upon the state's authority. Military planners are considering setting up a permanent rapid reaction unit designed to respond to domestic disasters. Issues of race, class, government response and responsibility, and political rivalries interweave with personal stories of challenges faced and decisions made. At 7 am Katrina is a Category 5 with 160 mph maximum sustained winds. Driving in from the popular suburb of Metairie, it's the first building you pass. He says his team only saw a fraction of the desperate people who sought assistance. August 28, 2015, 2:21 PM. The storm that would later become Hurricane Katrina surfaced on August 23, 2005, as a tropical depression over the Bahamas, approximately 350 miles (560 km) east of Miami. About 2,000 medical evacuees remain at Louis Armstrong Airport, which has become a staging area for responders and injured refugees. "What you had was a situation where you've got a tremendous number of vulnerable people, and then some predatory people who had all of the reasons to take their anger out on someone else," Benitez says. The Mercedes-Benz Superdome is a landmark in the city of New Orleans. 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. We do our video conference calls before and during disasters. Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans: In downtown New Orleans, some streets were merely wet rather than swamped. And it was a very good meeting, I thought. 49 But it was the subsequent flooding of New Orleans that imposed catastrophic public health conditions on the people of southern . Katrina Cop in the Superdome | Apple TV 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. 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. In the first few hours after Katrina hit, many people believed that New Orleans had dodged a bullet. And they hadn't. Brian Williams' reporting on Katrina: What we know - CNNMoney At 7 am Katrina is a Category 5 with 160 mph maximum sustained winds. Phyllis Montana-Leblanc is a Hurricane Katrina survivor. By the end of the day, it is upgraded to Tropical Storm Katrina, with 50 mph maximum sustained winds. A timeline of the warnings, some of the decisions leading up to the disaster, and what went wrong with the government's response. Team members said they delivered babies, treated gunshot and stab victims, and ultimately fled for their own safety. Hurricane Katrina: Remembering the Federal Failures Around 9:30 a.m. Mayor Ray Nagin issues a mandatory evacuation. Because of the ensuing . Some 11,000 National Guardsmen are now on duty in Louisiana and increased security begins to have an effect on lawlessness in New Orleans, although some violence continues. So I can assume what the criminals were thinking, and that's exactly what happened.". "They didn't have no food. Believing the authorities abandoned her after the storm, she wonders why they would care about her now.