In the hours after Hurricane Katrina passed and went off to become a series of benign storms, the true magnitude of the damage was slowly becoming apparent. And it was something no one in the Governors Mansion, the Press Room or the FEMA office was prepared for. Governor Kathleen Blanco, together with Senator Mary Landrieu and Senator David Vitter assembled a press conference to make a somewhat feeble attempt to convey there was a plan in place. That help, like the cavalry, was on its way.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco: “We have a very difficult situation in the city of New Orleans because two drainage canal levees have been breeched, and water is pouring into the city. After the hurricane was over there was no . . .no significant water and the downtown areas that couldn’t have been handled with their normal pumping operations. But right now, water is growing higher and higher. We have several emergency situations that need to be taken care of and that is an engineering feat that needs to be handled expeditiously, almost before anything that looks like normal operations can resume.”
Loosely translated; "we don't have a clue".
Meanwhile, the flood waters kept rising. As did the death toll.
