NYT: Katrina Transcripts Show Officials Unaware of Levee Failures
Media Blog
Stephen Spruiell Reporting
The Associated Press wasted no time in exploiting the new Katrina videos to try to make President Bush look like a liar:
<<< 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. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm - and Bush was worried too. >>>
But the AP failed to report what the New York Times does today:
<<< WASHINGTON, March 1 — A newly released transcript of a government videoconference shows that hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, federal and state officials did not know that the levees in New Orleans were failing and were cautiously congratulating one another on the government response.
In the videoconference held at noon on Monday, Aug. 29, Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reported that he had spoken with President Bush twice in the morning and that the president was asking about reports that the levees had been breached.
But asked about the levees by Joe Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said, "We have not breached the levee at this point in time." She said "that could change" and noted that the floodwaters in some areas in and around New Orleans were 8 to 10 feet deep. Later that night, FEMA notified the White House that the levees had been breached. >>>
When Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," he didn't mean that nobody ever anticipated that they would break. He meant that immediately after the hurricane passed, the people briefing him told him the levees had not been breached. Many thought New Orleans had been spared. It wasn't until late Monday night that the White House learned of the flooding. This all fits with what Bush has said. But unfortunately, it doesn't fit with the media's preferred narrative, which is that Bush screwed up the Katrina response and then lied about it.
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