Now . The water is going recede. The National Guard came and took control of the city, but what next . 80 of the city was covered in water. 110,000 homes in just new orleans were flooded. Around 20,000 businesses. Most of the schools were flooded. The electric system was practically destroyed and had to be rebill. The rest of utilities theres 250 billiongallons of water on the streets of new york excuse me new orleans, and the think about water is its really heavy, so it broke the streets. Broke the sewer pipes, broke the gas pipes, and you cant just turn on the gas if theres broken pipes everywhere. You had most of the citys buses destroyed. There were 24 street cars that flood it at a Million Dollars apiece, half the fire equipment, fire engines, quarter of the police vehicles, you had a the Police Headquarters was flooded. The criminal courts were flooded. Evidence rooms were flooded. Destroying evidence that was necessary to prosecutor people. The morgue was flooded there wasnt a working 911 system, and on the flipside, you had virtually every business closed. I was down here for the New York Times for eight months. I go to the Economic Development department and the revolving door was blocked by wood. You had to use a Side Entrance to get into the Economic Development, which i thought was so symbolic of six months later how wounded the city was, and the director told me that 21,000 out of 22,000 businesses in new orleans, six amongst after katrina, were still close it. Where was the sales tax going to come from . Property tax . Who is paying property tax on a drowned home they didnt even have the ability to send out the property tax bills to ask for the money. So i just seemed this extraordinary moment in urban history, new orleans after katrina is called the worst urban disaster in modern u. S. History. We had to go back to 1096 and the earthquake in san francisco, chicago in the 19th century, galveston in 1900, to find a city damaged this badly. In fact, professor powell, who is sitting right right here, told me its the largest diaspora that he knows of going back over 100 yearsforget the 1. 2 Million People had to evacuatement unparalleled in modern times in this country. So new orleans is a cultural jewel, on extraordinary city. What was going to happen . You had forces in washington, dc the republican president , republican controlled senate, republican controlled house. You had people publicly saying, i dont think theres the money to rebuild that whole place. Dennis hastert, then speaker of the house, saying it should be bull delwareed. How is the city going to recover . What would it take . What was the will . So i just got done telling you how my focus was on the recovery, and in fact that is most of my book, but i do open the book with the blockade of the Crescent City connection, more of n the vernacular, the Mississippi River bridge, i call it the greater in bridge. For the shorthand, and i want to read also piece because as much as my fascination was with re rebuilding, i was really preoccupied by what happened on the gretna bridge. We have this story we tell ourselves, and its ontrue, september 11th in new york city is a good example. After a crisis we all come together. Right . Black, white, rich, poor, doesnt make a difference, near this crisis together. This is beautiful, beautiful notion, and often is true. But then theres the gretna bridge. If it was up to me the gretna bridge would be synonymous going back in time with howard beach, with ferguson, missouri, with west baltimore after freddie gray died. Just one of those incidents that really shows that race is just underneath the surface. So, a few things before i read. You all in the audience here understand, but perhaps others dont, that the Crescent City connection, the gretna bridge was the escape route for a lot of people. From the center of town, the way from flooded new orleans to the dry part was glowing across the mississippi was going across the mississippi and all. It was shut down by the Gretna Police depth, city of 18,000, and the sheriffs. I they actually had no right to do that. Its a staterun bridge. The governor could shut down the bridge, the secretary of transportation could shut down down the bridge but they had no right and when the governor at the time found out that theyd shut down the bridge, she was furious but of course says to much chaos going on there, a failure of communication, took a couple of days before she learned what was going on. And it really didnt have to be. Im not going read this section but a piece of what i write about is on wednesday evening, a Police Sergeant in gretna and two other officers did this extraordinary thing. Coming over the bridge, the first exit is going to be gretna, and he just stationed two Police Officers there while he was working, whatever communication equipment he had, to try to get buses, make sure everyone is orderly in a 12 hour period, they were able to get 1500 people out of town. But for some reason, that was pretty much the end of it. The next morning the Gretna Police, the sheriff in jefferson parish, the bridge police, got together and decided to close it down. One last piece add ago to the chaos, the craziness. So the bridge is locked but the mayor, who is hold up in the hyatt hotel with his staffing her has no idea. He has his communication director on her black blackberry tap out go to west bank, its dry there. So the city is sending people over the bridge. And theyre being blockaded. So the scene is a group of 300 transit workers, bus drivers, dispatchers and all, the workers and theyre families. The rga headquarters is in a part of the city that never flooded, but of course after katrina it did and there was water everywhere. Tuesday morning, their low on water, low on food. The generator flooded. And so they broke into two groups. Anyone who wanted to walk through the water up on the elevated highway and try to make it over the gretna bridge went one way. Those who were scared of that, didnt feel capable of doing what would be a six mile walk, decided to stay hunkered down and hope that boats come to rescue them. A little past noon when the first rta employees dropped themselves into the dark murky waters that were chest high, 2 3 of the group, 200 people, chose to walk rather than remain. Children were hoisted on air mattresses along with most everyone standing under maybe five feet five inches tall. Those tall enough to walk slumlord through the smelly, oily water, guiding the others on the makeshift rafts. Sharon paul, 50yearold dispatcher was a diabetic who had gone more than 24 hours without insulin but paul was a strong swimmer, she help a pregnant woman heft haves on to a mattress. She then tied a rope around her waist ask toed the three of them. Im done but you need to walk another four or five miles. A Police Officer walked at the front of the line. Rubin stevens, Police Lieutenant and several other officers retreated to the become of the group to rang nil strays. People passed the superdome, standing like a giant space ship next to the highway and stared. Some had been at the dome as recently as sunday, where orderly lines of people were waiting to be patted down. People checked for weapons, before theyre admitted to this, quote, shelter of last resort. Now thick crowd of people milds everywhere and the National Guard stood holding weapons. Petes of the roof peeled off. The hyatt looked worse. Almost every window was shattered. They passed by five or ten people but no other contingent as large as theirs and nonseem to be walk withing the same purpose. The terrorism was in the 90s on a soupy, humid day. That had an expensive view of watery new orleans,. All the strongest among them kept walking, the bridge ahead led to algiers, the new orleans neighborhood on the other side of the mississippi. Only later did they appreciate that it was also the route to white flight suburbs search as gretna, the town they reached. At least one of them was in a wheelchair, which ranks included grandmothers, toddlers and Police Officers. None seem to be thinking about what it meant there was an almost all black Group Heading into a white community. A bus driver were the first to notice the blockade. Initially Malcolm Butler thought his eyes eyes were playing tricn him. He was set to retire after 33 years on the job. On august 31st. The next day. Their home in new orleans east had most certaintily flooded. Then there were at the fresh honor are odd the walk to the interstate. Butler, who is not tall, walked the greasy water up to his neck, is no nose and chin pointed upward, guiding dorothy, who clung to an air mattress. They had been on the interget store less than an hour, enough that theirlights dried out. When butler stopped and asked dorothy if she was seeing what she was. A pair of Police Officers blocking their passage. They were standing up there with if the automobiles blocking the bridge with shotguns and m16s, telling us we 0 could go no further. Willford, the Police Officer assigned to walk point as they headed toward the west bank, figured around 100ars from foot of the bridge when he saul the two Police Officer cars parked nose to nose, forming a wedge to block their passage. Eventually hear them yelling go back, get off the bridge. The noticed their black uniform, members of she small force policing the bridge. He was wearing a shirt with police on the. He wore a gun. Her asked the others so slow down. The smaller of the two bridge cops, young black woman, didnt care what it said on his shirt. The closer he got, the louder she seemed to scream. She was out of control, he said. She was irate. You got to bring it down a few notches, he said, looking at the female of. Youre another 10, we need to you to bring it to 3. He was coining a less experience officer but she remain belligerents. Stevens, the Police Lieutenant, came up from the back of the ranks and explained a group of city worked on duty at the time of the storm had gotten trapped by the flooding. Only trying to reach their facility in algiers where buss would pick them up. Youre not crossing my damn bridge, the i Police Officer ponded. You better get your ranks. Pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge at any time, she counter. As. She was hollering issue lolls my house, i lost everything, but al adamant. You aint going nowhere. And at the back of the line, sharon paul, the diabetic dispatcher, was looking at the Police Cruisers parked blocks away until someone told her police say we cant cross. She look at them, at her friends and said, dont they know we got water in new orleans . So, im here in new orleans, which feels different than talking about this book in other places, at the risk of a bad punishing thats youre probably hearing too much, deluged with the coverage of memories. I argue what has been going on is that its kinds of a replay of that those first months. Most of the attention is being paid to those first horrific days. Theres sad stories, important stories to share and tell . He never recovered from that. You had mayors race. It was bad timing, too. Six months after katrina there was a scheduled mayors race that was delayed and politics is playing an essential role. You had a circus of an election with 20 candidates. The debate was an msnbc. A city electing a mayor and they broadcast the debate nationally. Then there was just the over day h heroics. The sewer and water board i dont expect they are spoken positive very often of but they were amazing after katrina. The u. S. Army core of engineers tells the city it is going to take at least 80 days to dewater the city, to dry out the city. Sewage and water did it in 11 days. I mean, you know, it was just extraordinary. And then you had these every day heroes. Someone in this room from lake view isnt involved in politics but her community is destroyed and what is she going to do . She steps up and i maintain her prekatrina self would not recognize who she is. I just love that. People made over it. Max mcclen in the lower ninth war. I said you are the black conito. An apolitical guy never got involved and i dont want to get involved. He used the expression the mardi gras way of live. Dont take it seriously. You cannot change things. It is a corrupt city. You had people stepping up and you had people shrinking. Ray nagan is one of them. I feel like he had one great moment. The thursday after the flood. Katrina hit monday morning, the city flooded immediately, many people think it is tuesday but within an hour the levy failed. Monday, tuesday, wednesday, it is finally thursday. No buses and 25,000 people at the super dome and 20,000 at the Convention Center and thousands more on the highway and that is when he got on the radio and said to the president of the United States on the radio get your bleep down here. And air force one showed up the next morning and the buses started showing up at least at the super dome. Some of what i wanted to do in this book is a corrective of sorts. The things are moving so fast that impressions last that often are not accurate. I think maybe the best compliments i have gotten on this book so far were i thought i knew the katrina story both from locals and people outside of new orleans but i didnt. President bush, those first days, the failures of the president and his white house were near criminal. They just botched the recovery and moved slowly. You had the head of Homeland Security who was over fema thursday on npr saying i dont think there are people at Convention Centers. The average people at home watching cable knows more than the man in charge. People started showing up at the Convention Center on tuesday. It was never meant to be a refuge so nagin had to send the police to break in. With that said, i give the president pretty good parks on the recovery. He is fighting his republican allies and gave a lot more money than the republican allies wanted to do. A cynic could say he had a big problem on his hand but for credit you cannot blame so little happening at the president s door stop. I think he did a pretty good job on the recovery. Kathleen blanco in the days leading up to the katrina she was the only one who took this seriously declaring an emergency before the governor of mississippi and two days before the mayor and the two days before the president. That week after katrina creamed her. She was seen as somebody not up to the task. I think she became one of the goats. With that said, i do put the the credit for that. She based it on the appraised value of someones home with the cost of rebuilding. I think we know a home in a black community is valued and sells for less especially in this city where the high ground is taken. A home in the 7th ward, black working class neighborhood, 50 a square foot and it cost 110 square foot to rebuild your home. You get 100,000 check but it is 180,000 to build. In lake view, the same home valued at 250,000 and they would have enough money because the formula is based on appraisal that left so many africanamericans shorts. Two thirds of the houses ruined by the flooding sold for under 125,000 but it would cost a lot more than that 125,000 to rebuild. I also want to take, and i am a little scared to bring this up. The whole shrink the footprint and greendot debate. I was there. It is pretty much misunderstood. For those who dont know, it is the death sentence essentially that neighboreds thought they were getting. The Irving Institute came in november and there are areas too low lying and shouldnt be rebuilt. They didnt name neighborhoods but they through this map up of new orleans it was an elevation map. You can think of it as blood. Northeast bright red and so on and they are not telling you what neighborhoods you cannot rebuilt. The truth is the man who presented the actual plan never said that. Some understood he is a white man in a majority black city and you are not coming back if you declare this. If all of the neighborhoods in red didnt come back, one study said 80 of africanamericans in new orleans would be in a community that got a death sentence. He has this whole plan that was just so impractical. Forget practical in new orleans where people are not planning months or years ahead but unpractical for human beings everywhere with his idea of arming every community with the facts. They will see the same elevation maps and use 6 8 million in government money to arm them with experts that will help them see which parts of my community can come back and which are too low lying. The times did great work but this wasnt one of their best. They take a famous map, and put it on the cover and it says four months to decide and there is a map of the city of new orleans and big green dots over the neighborhoods and not lake view and i will tell you why. Big green dots. What they did is take this one map from the study. From the report. And they used that and the planners who were helping joe were saying that hey there are two great parks in new orleans. City park and audubon park. You could turn some of the city into green space. It would be park land. They put dotted circles around communities they thought were low lying and maybe turn parts into the green space with more park land. The fact you can take the subtle dotted lines with the big green dots on top really scared people here. I cant really totally explain this but i work for the New York Times and you can make assumpti assumpti assumpti assumptions about politics and you are not wrong. A personal friend to george bush. Had karl roves phone number. Very conservative politically. I got it this guy was going to be in the middle. Mogul in the middle. A healthy real estate developer. And my cellphone rings the morning the story appeared really early and trust me when i tell you when you are journalist and you write about someone in sell phone ways it is not good news usually. So how are you doing . I i