Life as a Spectator Sport

Many of the points in this timeline were found in the blogs of Bark Bark Woof Woof, Americablog, Daily Kos, and Echidne.

Friday, August 26:

President Bush is on vacation in Texas.

Vice-President Cheney is on vacation in Wyoming.

The National Weather Service issues an urgent warning:

490
WWUS74 KLIX 281550

NPWLIX

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

..DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

HURRICANE KATRINA A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

Governor Blanco's office declares a state of emergency

Saturday, August 27:

Greyhound Bus Station closes

Rental cars no longer available

Sunday, August 28:

Mandatory evacuation ordered.

Louis Armstrong Airport closes, trapping hundreds of tourists who have no other way to leave.

State of Louisiana asks the federal government to declare a federal state of emergency

The White House responds with this "Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana" (screen capture from whitehouse.gov—click to enlarge)


City of Chicago offers

36 members of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies" to the federal government for post-hurricane rescue and cleanup.

Monday, August 29. 2005:

Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf Coast.

The 17th Street levee breaks, pouring water into New Orleans.

President Bush goes to Arizona for John McCain's birthday party.

Vice-President Cheney still on vacation in Wyoming.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005:

Governer Blanco says the situation in the Superdome is "degenerating rapidly."

Helicopters from the U.S. Navy vessel Bataan, which had already been in the Gulf when Katrina moved through, begin picking up surviviors from rooftops. Its landing craft, loaded with water, supplies and a doctor, begins the 90 mile trip up the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

The Bataan is ordered away to Biloxi, and its landing craft is told to return to the ship. The Navy must coordinate its rescue efforts through FEMA, it is told.

An offer by a Walmart store to give away food and diapers turns into a free-for-all, with people grabbing jewelry, electronics and clothing. Other looting occurs throughout the area, with police sometimes taking part.

Offers of aid pour in from other countries, including Venezuela (whose elected president was recently threatened with assassination by a prominent American religious leader). Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice begins her vacation in New York City.

President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld go to California for a VJ Day memorial event.

Vice-President Dick Cheney is still out of contact in Wyoming.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Health and Human Services declares a federal public health emergency.

Two babies are born and one man commits suicide in the Superdome.

State of Louisiana accepts offer of Canadian help.

Plans are announced to move over 20,000 refugees from the New Orleans Superdome to the Houston Astrodome.

President Bush returns to Washington after staying overnight at his home in Crawford, Texas, and holds his first news conference on the hurricane.

Condoleeza Rice continues her vacation in New York, playing tennis with Monica Seles.

Vice-President Dick Cheney is still on vacation in Wyoming.

Thursday, September 1, 2005

[CORRECTION -- I mistakenly listed this on Wednesday, instead of Thursday, when it actually took place.] NPR's Robert Siegel asks the Director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, about CNN reports of of thousands of refugees in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Chertoff repeatedly argues with Siegel and refers to the Superdome instead. When Siegel stresses that he is talking about the Convention Center, not the Superdome, Chertoff calls the reports a "rumor."

Michael Brown of FEMA says on television that his agency didn't know thousands were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center without water, food or sanitation.

Canadian aid flight is not allowed into the US:

On tonight's news, CTV (Canadian TV) said that support was offered from Canada. Planes are ready to load with food and medical supplies and a system called "DART" which can provide fresh water and medical supplies is standing by. Department of Homeland Security as well as other U.S. agencies were contacted by the Canadian government requesting permission to provide help. Despite this contact, Canada has not been allowed to fly supplies and personnel to the areas hit by Katrina. So, everything here is grounded. Prime Minister Paul Martin is reportedly trying to speak to President Bush tonight or tomorrow to ask him why the U.S. federal government will not allow aid from Canada into Louisiana and Mississippi. That said, the Canadian Red Cross is reportedly allowed into the area.

Canadian agencies are saying that foreign aid is probably not being permitted into Louisiana and Mississippi because of "mass confusion" at the U.S. federal level in the wake of the storm.
Report from a Canadian reader on Daily Kos blog

Condoleeza Rice purchases shoes at Ferragamo's in New York. A woman demands to know why she is out buying expensive shoes when New Orleans is in such dire trouble. Condoleeza Rice has security remove the woman. But bloggers pick up the story and Rice cuts short her vacation to return to Washington.

On Good Morning, America, Bush says "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Vice-President Dick Cheney is still not available in Wyoming.

Friday, September 2, 2005

Ted Koppel, on NBC's Nightline, asked FEMA director Michael Brown why the federal response has been so slow, when FEMA was authorized on Monday to take whatever steps it deemed necessary. Yet Brown replies, "The federal government did not just come in here and tell the state governor how or what to do. We came in here and said, 'What do you want us to do? We will help you.' We are now taking it upon ourselves to do what we think needs to be done. And we will continue to do that."

In another nationally televised interview, Michael Brown contradicts his statement of Thursday evening, saying, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day." (even if he mis-spoke and meant the Superdome, that was not true).

Military ready to make food drops to affected areas, but must wait for a request from FEMA

As reports continued of famished and dehydrated people isolated across the Gulf Coast, angry questions were pressed about why the military has not been dropping food packets for them -- as was done in Afghanistan, Bosnia and in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami.

Bill Wattenburg, a consultant for the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one of the designers of the earlier food drop programs, said that he has lobbied the administration and the military to immediately begin something similar. He said he was told that the military was prepared to begin, but that it was awaiting a request from FEMA.

"We know very well how to do this, and it's just incomprehensible that we're not," Wattenburg said.

The federal government finally gets back to Chicago regarding its offer of help: send just one tank truck, FEMA says.

Bush says to former (fired) horse association commissioner, now FEMA director, Michael Brown: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

President Bush visits New Orleans. All air deliveries of food and aid are stopped while he is in the state.

Equipment to repair the levee break, seen on television during Bush's visit, is removed after he leaves

German news reports that an open-air food distribution site that Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immedately after he left.

Food, supplies and medicine finally arrives at the Convention Center for the thousands of people stranded there.

A New Orleans pastor blames homosexuals for the disaster:

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

Vice-President Cheney's old employer, Halliburton, is hired by the Navy to do clean-up and repair at three naval installations in Mississippi.


Bush laments the loss of Trent Lott's expensive beach-front house (screen capture from whitehouse.gov—click to enlarge).

Saturday, September 3, 2005:

Vice-President Cheney finally returns from vacation.

In Houston, the Fire Marshall says the Astrodome can handle no more than 15,000 people; refugees must endure another hours-long bus trip to Dallas.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

The Bush administrations blames Louisiana for not asking for help sooner.

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