Original subtitles

Communities, homes, and lives all along the Gulf Coast have been shattered and

destroyed.

The mayor of New Orleans said that hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of

in the city are dead.

Bodies are being left floating in the floodwaters. The emphasis is all on

rescuing the stranded.

We're told that about 100 ,000 people are still in this city with no way to

out. Leaving residents to hold up desperate messages for whoever might be

watching from above.

After all the panic in the attic, we found an old cell phone that

still had some power.

I was like, oh, my God.

I called 911.

They said, we're going to send someone over to rescue you guys.

And maybe about five hours after that, a boat came.

to the interstate, offload, and I come right back. It won't take me long.

So he drove us toward Interstate 10, and on the way to the bridge,

there was a baby, hair freshly combed,

that was in the water.

And she was deceased, but I so wanted to get this baby out the water.

And I told the guy that was driving the boat, I said, there's a baby right

there. So let me get the baby and I'll take it to someone

on the bridge and maybe we can find out who her parents is. You know, he said,

that baby's gone. She's deceased. And I was like, anyway, just let me get her,

you know, out the water and I'll take her to the bridge. And maybe, you know,

the ambulance or something up there is waiting and they can.

take her and he can identify her.

And he took a stick or some kind of board he had

in the boat and he pushed the baby away.

He was like, ma 'am, we're worried about the living, not the dead right now. We

have to, we have to get the living.

Wednesday was already becoming a particularly bad day.

Our first responders were exhausted from dealing with one crisis after another.

And by that point, FEMA had a full 24 hours to take action on that list

of our needs.

But there was still no cavalry, no help.

And so we felt as if

FEMA was maybe not the right organization for what we were dealing

throughout the city of New Orleans because we knew that the deterioration

quickly getting worse and people needed to get out today.

The Superdome, which was the shelter of last resort, has become the last place

anyone wants to be.

Inside, the toilets and air conditioning are broken.

They got disease in there. They got dead bodies.

The bathrooms, we haven't used it since, like, Tuesday.

And then when you have to really use it, you have to use it almost anywhere.

Hey, hey, shoot this bad drum right here.

It was unbearable.

So a lot of us started going around gate to gate and talking to the different

National Guard members and, you know, trying to see if they'd let us out.

And they would say, well, go down to that gate, and he wouldn't let us out.

We'll go down to the next gate, they wouldn't let us out. We'll go to another

gate, they wouldn't let us out.

But then all of a sudden, somebody that was with my group, Just start checking

the gate like, yeah, man, let us out here. We're getting, you know, such and

such and this.

And he just started saying a whole bunch of stuff. And that's when the National

Guard pulled the M -16 out.

And he said, y 'all better go down that way.

Go, go, go.

It's kind of like they didn't really work with us.

They was rotating different groups of National Guard members.

But nobody still would say who was in charge.

In a disaster, the First Army collaborates with the National Guard.

But Louisiana was not my assigned area when Katrina hit.

The general that was actually in charge of Louisiana, he was still at his

headquarters in San Antonio.

So when he told the Pentagon I was in Mississippi, they said, get that general

in New Orleans.

And that's how I ended up designated by the president to be the commander of

Joint Task Force Katrina, which put me in charge of coordinating the response

with FEMA.

When I arrived at the Superdome, it was like thousands of eyes were looking at

me.

And my first thought was, we've got to get these people out of here.

So General Honoré comes in, where the mayor and I were.

We had FEMA, the city, and emergency personnel represented, and everyone is

sharing with him what we need.

But the FEMA representative interjects to say, we can't do this, we will do

that, this we have to do by the book, we're going to do that, but it takes

General Honoré at this point had had enough, and he says, excuse me, FEMA,

before you speak, you need some fucking success.

So I said, all right, what is the priority?

The mayor said, we need to get food and water, we need to save these people.

Okay?

And we've got to evacuate the city.

Same thought I had.

By this point, We had already asked federal and state officials for buses

to transport people out of the city.

They knew buses were one of our top priorities.

So we expected that the buses would be arriving later that day.

So after that meeting with the mayor, I said, well, I need to go check in with

the governor in Baton Rouge.

Because they had trouble talking to each other.

Not only politically, but the lines were down.

There is no comms.

And since the loudspeaker system didn't work, I walked around the 30 ,000 people

in the Superdome to let them know we're working on it. I think it's going to be

buses and we're going to bring it. I don't know how it's all going to work,

buses are coming.

It did uplift our spirit.

And so I was watching people settle beats and shaking hands, you know what I

mean?

The place started getting real trashy.

So a lot of the teenagers, they started coming together and they started

cleaning up.

There was a young man pushing around one of those hotel luggage carts with a

person laying on it. And he said, hey, this lady just passed out.

What do you want me to do with her?

And she was okay, and she was conscious, but she was clearly overheated.

And I said, can you roll her to the medical center? It's right down there.

so he took it, and he came back about 10 minutes later.

He's like, you want me to keep doing this? If I see stuff where I need

And I was like, please do.

He loved that he had a role.

The risk of allowing that young man to help push people to the medical arena

this much.

the impact of other people seeing how he was helping was colossal.

The

National

Guard chaplain would talk to us and he would say, what are your concerns right

now? What are you thinking?

And people just, you know, would say, My loved one. I know you're a loved one.

Look, one of the things we want to focus in on is, as bad as it is, we can

refill the house. I have no home to go to either.

Everything I have has been destroyed. I'm wearing what I have.

So we're all on the same boat.

But you know what?

All of my family is okay.

New Orleans is a city that prays.

And I thought he did a great job.

And he, as a man of God, stood up there and he spoke to us and he made us feel

better.

A lot

of people started feeling like,

you know, now we're chosen at this point in time.

We're in this thing together.

And before we get it even worse, we're going to get out of here.

I've called for the president. I'm expecting him to call me back anytime

But I've asked the president to give us all the resource possible today.

We need his help today.

Time is of the essence. It's critical that we move quickly and begin to

stabilize our situation.

We are live on the Cosway Bridge over Interstate 10, where the scene behind me

here is just unbelievable. It is a massive refugee camp filled with

and thousands of people waiting for a ride out of the city.

They have been rescued from... We went up onto the interstate bridge on

Wednesday. My sister and the people we were with decided we were going to go as

far down as we could go.

So we walked miles away from my house, hoping to cross into Algiers because it

wasn't wet over on the West Bank.

We got to where we could look at the Superdome, and the National Guard was

driving past us.

And it became very apparent that they weren't going to worry about us until

last minute.

It was really stressful because there were a lot of seniors and kids.

And we were almost in 100 degree temperatures on concrete.

But there was no access to water.

That's the thing that really gets me because you can survive without food for

couple of days, but you have to have the water.

You got a government.

What the f***?

So it was unbearable, but then we noticed that some guys went down

under the bridge to the Kentwood Water Company, and they took trucks, and they

came up on the bridge with water.

And this is the part that...

i was amazed that when they started distributing the only thing they said

drink it don't waste it because we don't know how long this will

last or how long it'll be before we get out so um that's when i started noticing

that you have to be very careful about media and what you read and what you see

I've watched all day long the stories of the people who are causing trouble, who

are, you know, screaming and yelling about things and just being thugs.

These are supposed to be the thugs that they talk about.

They were the ones who went to the Circle Food Store, which is about a half

mile from where we were, to get us dry food, dry clothing, because they had a

clothing store inside of there, too.

Most of the network's live setups weren't in those areas that were heavily

flooded.

They were generally in downtown, tethered on Canal Street, broadcasting

from satellite trucks.

So if there's a shooting on Canal Street and there's looting, you just got to

turn the camera there.

That's easy -pleasing.

And you're done.

You know, and that can lead your broadcast.

The unrest is so bad that his boss ordered him to leave the city.

He said the looting was starting to get so out of control, our general manager

is fearing for our lives.

As if emptying the store shelves wasn't enough, some decided to go one step

further and take the shelves themselves.

They're so busy with hauling out big racks full of food, they're not

about anybody else. They're just, I mean, they're... Everybody for

Everybody for themselves.

I was dismayed watching the news, the way they depicted black folks who

were living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

It's like they didn't see us as regular people, law

-abiding, church -going, hard -working people.

It's just hard to believe this is reality. And yet people living in these

conditions turn to...

You know, in some cases, turn to animals.

It's much more difficult to get the full story and not just the headline.

My new director always said, people come first, property comes second.

And that's what we kept the focus on.

We're starving out here. Look, we ain't got nothing over here. Can't get no food

cooked, you hear me? So we had to go break in with this and do what we had to

do.

Look. You had some stupid stuff that was going on.

But the majority of this community was not people in chaos wanting to go out

just loot everything.

There was people trying to survive as things got worse all over the city.

So I flew to Baton Rouge, saw Governor Blanco, and she said, we've asked FEMA

for buses. We don't know when they're going to come, General.

But I'd appreciate it if you do what you can to help New Orleans get evacuated.

I said, I got it, ma 'am.

So after that, I got a note that the FEMA director, Michael Brown, wanted to

me. General Honoré has been working incredibly closely with FEMA and doing

the civil support stuff that we've asked him to do.

So I went to his office. He was in a big, fancy mobile command headquarters

Baton Rouge.

And he said, that's your desk right there. I want you right next to me.

I said, I don't think so.

I said, I'll put somebody in that desk, but the problem's in New Orleans. I

can't solve it here.

And he insisted.

He said, we have to have unity of command.

I said, well, we can have that, but it won't be me.

I've seen the eyes of those people in New Orleans. That's where I need to be.

So I left.

The situation in the Superdome was getting worse and worse and worse.

So I sent a lot more emails to FEMA headquarters to alert them, just...

how bad it was.

Wednesday, August 31st, an email to Mike Brown.

Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical.

Here are some things you might not know.

Hotels are kicking people out.

Thousands gathering in the streets.

Hundreds still being rescued from homes.

The dying patients at the disaster medical assistance team tent are being

medevaced. Estimates are that many will die within hours.

Plans developing for dome evacuation, but hotel situation is adding to the

problem. Phone connectivity is impossible.

More later.

The tone of the entire building changed dramatically.

And I found myself wondering, how many unanswered questions is this group of

people who are here, how much longer can they take this environment that we're

asking them just to hang in there with us? Hang in there, hang in there, hang

there.

I felt that, boy, if we make one false promise, we would lose their trust.

Like, if I say to them, buses are going to be there today, and then the buses

don't come, I think it'll all tip over. I felt that.

So it was very, very important to me that I didn't overcommit or overpromise

anything, because, again, it was a razor -thin level of trust between me and,

wow, thousands of people who I talk to every day.

From where we was at on the bridge, all the people that were looking for

somewhere to go, they were saying, don't go by the Superdome because, you know,

the Superdome trashed out. There's nowhere to go in there.

You know, so they were like, well, go to the convention center because that's

where, you know, that's where the shelter's supposed to be and that's

bus is supposed to pick people up.

My main focus was to get the kids to safety, and the little bitty babies,

can't really walk.

So I had one baby, and my brother had the other baby, and we got the other two

little children, and we walked for miles.

Because of the conditions in the Superdome and the Interstate 10 bridge,

started hearing that people were now spilling over into the convention

So we just worked straight through.

I don't remember sleeping much at all.

For days now, people have been rationing what little food and water they have,

waiting for help.

They say they feel like they've been abandoned by humanity.

What's it been like here?

It's been like hell.

It's been like hell. We have people here, sick people haven't had medicine

four days.

We're just worried about medication for my mom because she's almost out of

insulin. My sister's got her sixth child attack right now. We're trying to see

what we can do to get some IV fluids to her. We're trying to keep the babies

hydrated. And my little baby getting sick, he just keeps crying in diarrhea.

He don't have no more milk or nothing.

I've been crying for two days, and I try not to let him see me cry.

What do you do as a reporter?

People are asking you for water, and, like, I had a few bottles, and I gave it

away, but, like, I can't help them.

And that was a sobering time for me because I realized that all the stuff

wanted to do as a reporter, like, let's get the story, let's get great pictures,

like, at that point, none of that mattered.

When you're dealing with people's lives, like, they want to let their family

know that they're alive.

Ma, uh -uh, pa, uh, my grandma, uh, one of y 'all, if y 'all out there, you hear

me? Can y 'all hear yourself?

Just let me know y 'all living, you heard me? Because I ain't seen y 'all

Katrina hit, and I really missing y 'all, you feel me? And I'm hurting.

I'm hurting. See this body right here?

That woman been dead since Tuesday.

There's six bodies upstairs on the third floor, and another lady laying on the

floor by the lady's bathroom dead.

It's just terrible. It's an awful situation to have to live in.

We went inside the convention center,

The only way that I can describe it, and I don't want to get into detail, is

that it is the smell of human suffering.

I couldn't stand the smell that's on myself.

You know what I'm saying? I'm nasty. My shoes wet.

Everything wet. I don't have nothing.

I felt embarrassed.

You know, like I couldn't talk to nobody.

And even though, you know, all the people out there, it was in the same

predicament. So, you know, we all was like, you know, people who used to

stuff and having things and taking care of themselves, and they couldn't, you

know, they felt the same way.

I was totally like out of myself already.

I just felt like I was just going to pass out and die at any time.

But also, the kids didn't have no more food.

And they was dehydrated, you know, their lips was turning white.

So through the shame and embarrassment and the guilt, the only thing I could do

is just use the little strength I got to try to get these children some help.

So when the media came out there with their cameras and all that, you know, I

had my two little babies in my hand, and I just went to hollering on the camera.

We didn't have no food. We don't have nothing here. Our children have been out

here for days.

They don't have nothing to eat. We don't have no cold water.

Send people to get the folks out of here, folks.

We hungry, we starving, we need help.

We need medical attention.

They got old people that's sick.

I felt neglected.

I felt like the city.

That we masked in all these years and paraded in with the second lines and,

know, worked in and built these raggedy houses and, you know, that they just let

us down. Like, at this time, to them, it was like we wasn't even human no more.

People still in New Orleans, if they look to the sky, saw Air Force One.

The president flying over for a personal look at the devastation. His plane was

low just over the city skyline.

I basically told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his

in Air Force One does not do it justice.

And I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources.

A lot of people suffered, and a lot of people suffered needlessly.

If we had had the leader of the free world show up in New Orleans on Monday,

instead of just flying over the city two days after the storm, we would have had

a much different situation after Katrina.

Powerful country as we are, and we can't take care of these people. They're out

here all this time.

Doesn't make sense.

And I'm pissed.

When I joined the police department, my aspirations were high.

Then in 2002, I became superintendent of police.

And in that position, I wanted to be always accessible to the media.

And from a communication standpoint, the mayor told me any kind of cover -up

wouldn't be tolerated.

That stuck in my mind. I think I overthought it.

I didn't want to hide anything from the people.

And I was so dead set on not covering anything up that things that were

to me, I reported them quickly without getting verification, the way it would

have been under normal circumstances.

So when my tactical guys said that a sniper was shooting at our

officers, I reported that the sniper was shooting at police officers.

And my captain and I was fighting for the snipers. We went from rescue to

tactical, almost as insane as they were shooting at us in a helicopter.

They were shooting at my SWAT team. I mean, it was crazy.

Well, that whole thing of people shooting at helicopters is a reflection

people who watch too much TV.

They thought if they shot up, the helicopter would hear them or see them

come get them.

I spoke to the police chief, and I said, Chief.

Where did you get this notion that there's snipers in the city?

He said, I was in the helicopter, General, and they shot at us.

Did they hit the helicopter chief? No.

I said, why did you use the word sniper?

Maybe from the military, the jargon and parlance for sniper is different than

the jargon and the parlance that we use.

But when an unidentified person that we can't spot randomly shoots a police

officer, in my opinion, that was a sniper.

Maybe I shouldn't have used those words.

In hindsight, I guess I shouldn't have used those words.

It was getting reported over and over again, and it took a life of its own.

About the sniper fire, they're actually taking a sniper fire as they're trying

to evacuate patients.

I was there just about an hour and a half, two hours after that, looking at

same area. In fact, I didn't see any snipers myself.

Big searchlights looking all around to make sure that there were no snipers

were going to attack us.

Things became so much more difficult for us to do because of this fear.

As simple as, where's the truck that's bringing all the new food? And the

National Guard would go out and we'd find the truck that had been abandoned

the delivery driver who was told there were snipers all around the Superdome

that were shooting and killing all the delivery drivers. And all of that

completely made up.

but just made our jobs infinitely worse and more difficult.

I over -reported things I should have verified, and I'm sorry I did that.

Sir, a lot of respect to you tonight for what you have been going through,

seeing your men and women go through so much.

When Katrina came, there was no school you could go to to deal with the

worldwide media on a 24 -7 basis.

I was working off of one and a half to two hours sleep a day.

I wasn't eating well.

I had migraine headaches almost the entire time.

And I had gotten to the point where I was around the media so much, it had so

many cameras pointed on me, I actually forgot the cameras were around me.

With communications being fragmented, some people were getting reports that a

young lady was raped.

And it was in proximity to me where my daughter was at.

So by the time it got to me, it went from a young lady being raped to my

daughter was raped.

And when I thought my daughter was raped, it just, it tore me up.

I need somebody to get me a cruise boat or some type of boat, a cruise ship, or

some kind of ship, so I can put my people in some comfort, so I can help

people. We have people in the police boat who have lost their families, and

have not gotten out of this fight. I didn't know where my dogs were at for

days, and we endured.

I'm so tired of this, but it's finally almost over. That's it. I don't talk no

more.

During Katrina, the first responders were also victims.

Their homes are gone. Their families were moving from place to place to try

survive.

So when your first responders are also victims, it changed the character of the

response.

I made tremendous sacrifices during Katrina.

My family wanted me to stop being a chief and go get my elderly aunt and

Unfortunately, my aunt and uncle died.

And it haunts me every day.

that I could have saved them and I didn't.

So people that was not privy to the circumstances at ground zero where I was

for an entire time, they had no idea of the challenges that we faced.

All they saw was a microcosm of what the media wanted them to see.

We are live in front of the convention center, which has not been empty to

people at all.

Chief, what do you figure? How many people here? We have at least 30 ,000

here. 30 ,000? At least 30 ,000. And none have been taken out? None have been

taken out. The buses were promised. The buses are not here. They built these

people's spirits up. We need to get these people out of here now.

So, unfortunately, we discovered that while FEMA had put in requests for

Whatever reason, that didn't get moving as fast as it should have.

So people are going to have to stay there another day.

We knew that these people were getting to a desperate place in terms of their

ability to withstand the environment that they were in.

And we were really worried whether we could survive another day like this

Wednesday.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I first want to express my thanks to President Bush for the confidence that

has shown in me.

I also want to speak to the civil unrest and some of the disturbances that we

have seen.

It's just not acceptable.

And I understand that the National Guard, troops, local law enforcement,

those will do everything in their power to minimize that.

We had National Guard elements from every state come here in Louisiana.

And some people who deployed to Louisiana had already been to Iraq.

And now sprinkle on that, you know, all those rumors of lawlessness and snipers

and shootings and all of that.

It was like, oh, we're going to need weapons.

So as the deputy public affairs officer, I was really just trying to stomp out a

lot of the myths that were becoming so problematic because they're just

fear.

After I came back from Baton Rouge, I had to see to marry him. They said,

walk through the crowd at the Superdome.

A National Guard buddy told me, he said, well, we need more guards for

protection.

I said, no, we don't need any more guards. We're all right.

So I had two up with me. I said, put your guns on your back.

Don't be pointing guns at nobody.

That's when people noticed me and they noticed my name and they said, hey,

you going to get us out of here? I said, yeah, we're going to get you out of

here.

So how do you recommend we handle this?

I think we try to get a public message out on the radio.

Okay. And you tell the governor the buses need to be there early in the

We need her to get on the television and tell people.

So I saw the mayor and discussed the evacuation plan for the next day that

being coordinated with staff down in Baton Rouge and with FEMA Director

In all sincerity, my heart goes out to those people, and I am determined,

absolutely determined, to speed this thing up, make this thing work, and get

aid to those people.

Bullshit!

Later that day, I called Administrator Brown.

He said he's not available. I said, well, where is he?

So, Cindy Taylor...

who worked in the Office of External Affairs, received an email from Sharon

Worthy, who was the handler for Under Secretary Brown.

It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner.

Given that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy.

He needs much more than 20 or 30 minutes.

We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choice.

followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, et cetera.

you.

And so Cindy Taylor then forwarded that email from Sharon Worthy to me, and she

said, let me preface by saying I know he needs downtime, but how much time

do each of you need for dinner, including travel time to the restaurant

choice?

Question mark.

I'm trying to coordinate.

Where the buses are so I can answer the mayor's question and deal with the

press. But 72 miles away in Baton Rouge, this son of a bitch is waiting in lines

to go in a restaurant.

I mean, there was some stupid shit happening.

Just plain stupid.

So after I got that email, I immediately responded to Cindy.

Oh, my God.

With eight exclamation points.

I just ate an MRE.

and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30 ,000 other close

friends. So I understand her concern about busy restaurants.

Maybe tonight I will have time to move the pebbles on the parking garage floor

so they don't stab me in the back while I try to sleep.

But instead I will hope her wait at Ruth's Crisp is short.

This Email exchange was really starting to show the disconnect,

the tone deafness.

I just don't think they understood my urgency.

At the Superdome, almost everything they needed, any kind of satellite or a

tower, still didn't work.

But what did work, and we became aware,

was that a lot of people had brought radios to the Superdome.

That was how they were getting their news, which was problematic because

was a lot of mistruths and a lot of the exaggerated stories were being

perpetuated by the radio.

The situation is getting really chaotic.

There's fights breaking out.

There's a lot of murders that's occurred, rapes.

Look, you name it.

All of a sudden, walking around, we heard that some little girls

was raped and killed in the bathroom.

The chick said a woman.

It was a little girl.

Oh, a little girl? It was a little girl.

A little girl, they said.

I really was looking for

somebody to be screaming at the top of their lungs, murder, somebody did this.

But I never seen anybody come forward.

And it's fascinating because some people are asking me, did I have video on

that? I was like, are you serious?

Like, I would have video on somebody getting raped and killed, for real.

We had already heard from the security team inside the Superdome about

what was actually transpiring. So we knew that that wasn't actually the case.

But still, the rumor took a hold.

Then it started spreading like wildfire.

I mean, a lot of people, yeah, rape, all type of violence.

You don't know who's here. You got people that's druggies. You got people

raping and doing everything they can doing, breaking in and looting and

everything. You understand?

The media was irritating.

They just wanted to be in everybody's face and getting all these interviews,

they wanted people to be scared.

I would get people who would call me, and they would ask me to confirm facts,

and then I would say, well, that's not the facts at all.

And they would write their story anyway.

And it could not have spun more out of control.

At the Superdome, there have been rapes, a murder, and various shootings.

There was a lot of misinformation all over the place.

And it wasn't just the media.

It was within our organization.

What one of the police officers told me was it is a war zone out there. People

are fighting.

He said in his words, people are losing their minds.

Some things were completely exaggerated.

Some things were completely made up. Some things were said that just

did not happen.

And you had all of this going on in the middle of a disaster.

There was chaos. There was no communication. But I saw cops on the

back at thugs that were on rooftops, etc.

I've never seen the breakdown of American society like this.

The media wanted to lead the American people to focus on chaos.

Yeah, that's what happened in the disaster.

If you don't have chaos, then it's not a fucking disaster.

It's an inconvenience.

But there are people who wanted to exacerbate it as a crime problem in the

of New Orleans.

It wasn't a crime problem.

It was an evacuation problem.

It is now shortly before dawn, about 5 .30 in the morning. For the last four

hours, we have seen no buses here.

Meanwhile, the size of the crowd has been growing, and so has its level.

of frustration.

We've been out here since 9 o 'clock yesterday morning.

Just like this.

It's about 6 in the morning now.

Listening to the news.

A lot of people lost everything.

Getting a lot of sleep and they found out they could go home.

By this time, we were supposed to be out of here.

But they never had anybody to say that they was about to evacuate the

So I was like, oh, man, I just don't believe some of this. I don't know

going to happen.

Eventually, it's getting worse. We have to move these families out of here. But

from you, I would like to know, are there buses coming for these people to

out? They keep saying that, but who can believe them anymore?

Exactly.

I tell these people.

Believe what you see, not what you hear.

People in the Superdome, what is the plan for them?

They are going to start to be moved right after we get all the medical

out. We're going to move them. They are our first priority.

Then after that, we will have 350 buses that are staged, and they're going to

start to move people out of the Superdome.

The buses started to show up.

And we came up with a route that would bring them in and a way to walk the

people out to the buses.

And at the Air Medevac site of the Superdome, I had them knock down the

poles so we could bring large helicopters in and take out the elderly.

Everything seemed to be going well.

But then a call came over the radio that a pilot reported being shot at.

When that went out, all the helicopters in round diverted.

And that just turned this situation on its head.

Desperate situation in the city of New Orleans as we speak. The effort to move

those evacuees from the Superdome to the Astrodome now halted after shots were

fired. Rescue helicopters came under fire and violence spilled out into the

streets right outside.

The largest ambulance service says it will have to severely cut back its

efforts if security doesn't improve.

We were told that the buses were stopped because things inside the city of New

Orleans were so dangerous.

The drivers of those buses and ambulances, they said, I'm not going in

I've told my wife, I'm not going in there. There's still a sense that this

riot zone, and it's not.

It was just a story that got out of hand.

And eventually, people tried to draw us in to be more focused on security than

we are on the mission of saving lives.

Some of the things like security, you look at and you think, the time has come

to empower our law enforcement officials, our military officials, to

adopt a zero -tolerance attitude, let's take these people off the street so they

can't be causing this danger.

When we realized that the looting was getting out of control, we redirected

of our police officers back to patrolling the streets.

They were dead tired from saving people. We redirected all of our resources.

All of a sudden, I just got inundated with people coming to me.

They were confused. They said, Chief, are they going to evacuate us? Or we got

to go? Who's going to feed us?

We were asking the Louisiana authorities to hunt down those looters. They must

make sure those rapists, looters, and assailants get what they deserve.

With the exposure to the national media,

All of a sudden now, at police headquarters, the message was to stop

That was the message.

And what came next was a complete mess.