Katrina Response Sparks Outrage

For the city of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina was not so much a sudden calamity as a slow-motion catastrophe. The whole country watched in agony as the flood waters rose and houses, neighborhoods and society itself began to disintegrate along with the city's broken levees.

60 Minutes Correspondent Scott Pelley has been in New Orleans looking into how much of what happened was natural disaster and how much was man-made and avoidable.

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, is on his way to take the measure of the misery in the worst American disaster in 100 years. Most of his city has surrendered to the sea. The streets of the Big Easy are now subject to the tides of the Gulf of Mexico.

Two days before the storm, Nagin ordered the biggest evacuation in U.S. history — but he told us he never imagined his city would be abandoned, as he sees it, by the state and federal government. Nagin says communication failed and agencies dithered over jurisdiction while New Orleans drowned.

"Too many people died because of lack of action," Nagin says. "Lack of coordination and some goofy laws that basically say there's not a clear distinction of when the federal government stops and when the state government starts. And if you have federal - if the federal government takes over, then you're giving up some powers. Or if the governor don't ask the president and the president don't ask the governor, and it was just b.s."

When Pelley suggests that bureaucracy might be the cause of the confusion, Nagin replies bluntly, "Bull-crap. When people are dying, bureaucracy should be thrown out of the water."

Asked if he thought people died because of the delays, Nagin says, "There is no doubt about it. I watched a guy jump from the Superdome yesterday, just couldn't take it anymore. We have two police officers that have committed suicide. They couldn't take it anymore. This is, this is hell. And to have this happen in the United States of America in the state of Louisiana, and to not have immediate, immediate response regardless of the laws, is tragic."

National response authorities would say, "It's a disaster. It's hard to get stuff in there. It's hard to fly the helicopters and trucks in there," Pelley tells Nagin.

Nagin was unmoved. "Man, I don't wanna hear any of that. Yhis is a national disaster on U.S. soil. And if we can deploy troops around the world, if we can deploy national guards and in a confined area, this is a - this is a small city. It's about 500,000 people. We're not talking about taking over a country. We're talking about 500,000 people. And with all the resources that this state and this country has, it should've gotten done quicker."

We met Nagin at his headquarters - this shattered downtown hotel with no power—no water. He's a cable TV executive with no political experience — he won a surprise victory in 2003. This week, holed up in darkness, he lashed out on a radio talk show saying politicians bragged about their efforts while his city descended into chaos.

"They don't have a clue what's going on down here," Nagin said on a recent broadcast. "They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed."

Pelley also mentions that on the radio show, Nagin said that the people who failed to bring aid in here in 24 or 48 hours ought to go to hell.

"Well, I said - they're gonna have to account for that. And, and here's the issue. And here's what the nation needs to get ready for: they're seeing, you know, the, the starving people and evacuations and the lawlessness and, you know, that's all entertaining, but let me tell you what's getting ready to happen.

"We're getting ready to drain this city. And then we're gonna go on search, seek and find missions for dead bodies. And the body count is gonna go up. And it's gonna go up to a tremendous level. And then everybody's gonna start to wonder: if we had responded quicker, did more bodies die, did more people die because of the storm or because of the lack of response? And that's gonna be the big question."

Even now some people remain trapped. On our flight Nagin noticed a man marooned and delivered the aid himself.

Pelley tells Nagin, "When you were looking at your city from the helicopter today, mayor, I had the sense that your heart was broken."

Nagin agreed, "You know, my heart is broken. And, you know, it's, it's a tough thing. When you see a city that you love so much, and you see it so devastated and so - almost dead, and you wonder what the future looks like, i'm basically homeless now."

Nagin says the nation still doesn't know how desperate New Orleans was in the hours of anarchy — the three days before the national guard broke through.

"My police chief almost got kidnapped. He was trying to calm the crowd out at the convention center and they got into the middle of a crowd and the guys tried to take him hostage. I mean there are stories that are unbelievable, police officers crying, screaming over the radio saying 'I'm under fire help, I'm running out of ammunition.'

"My assistant police chief basically said that that is the first time in 25 years he ever heard of a police officer in the city of New Orleans saying he's getting ready to run out of ammo in a gun fight. I mean there's stories. People give me a baby saying 'look, take my baby please I can't take care of her,' you know, little old ladies saying 'just let me lay down and die.' I mean you want stories? There's stories."

You find a story on every corner when you walk in the dark, oily water downtown. It's strange to feel with your feet familiar things you're used to seeing: curbs, flower pots. We were walking down Tulane Street when we came across an armada of airboats.

They were texas game wardens heading to evacuate the biggest public hospital in the state. this is what their drive down tulane is like.

Here the living have waited days for rescue and the dead of unknown names and numbers wait in the debris, not a priority. Not yet.

We got to Charity Hospital as the last were loaded. Like the mayor said here's a story. Hundreds of patients trapped for days without power. Dr. Peter Deblieux helps run the emergency room.

"In the space of an hour and a half we moved our entire emergency department up one full flight of stairs," Deblieux says. "In an hour and a half we had over 50 critically ill patients moved up stairwells because their elevators were shot, gone, no electricity no power nothing to do it by.

"So we're using flashlights and jerryrigged ventilators everything else to ventilate, breathe for people and have the critical care," he says.

Even so Dr. Ben Deboisblanc told us patients died who might have been saved.

Deboisblanc recalls a "little old lady who sat in our ICU for three days, had a breathing problem, was on a mechanical ventilator. Her husband sat with her 24 hours a day and because the electricity was out while she would sleep he would fan her.

"He would just to keep her cool," Deboisblanc says. "We got her over to the heliport to the top of the parking garage and her vital signs began to deteriorate and we knew she was going to die."

Deboisblanc adds, "She died on the rooftop waiting for a helicopter. I haven't spoken to her husband. I don't even know where she is. I don't even know if he knows she's dead."

There is joy in rescue, but remember, most of these people have no place to go. Prisoners are now refugees.

One face tells it all: relief, regret, a last look at her job for who knows how long.

The final evacuation of the stranded is in progress. A huge military rescue thunders through the city under the command of Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, a man the mayor calls John Wayne.

Pelley asks Honore if he understands the frustration Americans felt all across the country when they were watching people on their roofs, people at the convention center and at the Superdome for days. And people are saying, "Where, where's the Army? Where's the National Guard? Why is this taking so long?"

"It took time to get here," Honore admits. "And who on that first day knew the levee was gonna break? We are blessed in a way that those people made it to the dome."

Honore continues, saying, "It was a blessing. What would've been the opposite of the storm? They all would've drown. We woulda lost a hell of a lot more people. A hell of a lot more people would've perished."

With bodies floating in the water people who are urging a faster response, Honore offers this ultimatum: "Well, right now I could either have these troops go do this or pick up the livin'. What would you do?"

We stopped on Jennette Street to find the Army picking up the living one at a time. The neighbors told us the Army wanted all the sick and injured brought to this intersection. So here they were under the hurricane of a Blackhawk. It was incredibly efficient, but they could be forgiven if they thought this might be the thing that would finally do them in.

As people flew off Jennette Street, across town sandbags were falling and disappearing into one of three breaches that betrayed New Orleans to the sea. We learned something that surprised us here. Despite what you've been hearing, not one of New Orleans' levees failed. All of the massive earthen levees survived. The failure was in flood walls like this one on the 17th Street canal. The flood walls are miles long, but only two feet thick.

Al Naomi is the man who manages them for the Army Corps of Engineers. He was probably the first to understand what was about to happen to New Orleans.

"Flood walls are unforgiving. They're either there or they're not," Naomi says.

The walls were designed in 1965 to withstand a Category 3 storm. Category 4 Katrina pushed her surge over the top.

"It just was overtopped and the water started pouring over the support for the flood wall, failed and it just pushed out and toppled over and that was it," Naomi explains.

Naomi was at a loss when asked how this engineering disaster could have been prevented.

"You see there was not sufficient money or time to do anything about this," Naomi says. "If someone had said, 'O.K. here is a billion dollars, stop this failure from happening for a Category 4,' it couldn't have been done in time. I'd of had to start 20 years ago to where I feel today I would've been safe from a Category 4 storm like Katrina.

"Sure it should have been done 20 years ago but what can we do about that? You have to recognize before we had Category 3 protection we didn't have anything."

On Friday President Bush came to see for himself and ran into Hurricane Nagin. The president offered the mayor the first water he was happy to see in five days - a shower aboard Air Force One.

Pelley asks Nagin if he unloaded the anger he expressed on the radio program toward Mr. Bush.

"No, I didn't, but he was well aware of it," Nagin says. "And I pulled him on aside with the governor. I said, 'Look. That was uncharacteristic for me. But consider being in my shoes. What would you have done? And if I said anything disrespectable, disrespectful to the office of the president or the governor, I apologize. But tell me, what we gonna do now.'"

Nagin adds, "The president basically said, 'Mr. Mayor, I know we could've done a better job, and I, we're gonna fix it.'"

Nagins says Mr. Bush asked him to be honest. "He said to me, he said, "Look. I think I've been hearing a lotta stuff that's, may not be true. I wanna hear from you. Tell me the truth, and I will help you.'

"And I looked in his eyes, and he meant it," Nagin says of Mr. Bush. "And when he meant it, I told him the truth."

The truth about New Orleans is incredibly that the worst is yet to come. Once the flood walls are plugged, the city's network of pumping stations will start to drain the city. That will take weeks. Before they can even begin to make the city livable, they will have to deal with the dead.

Honore says, "Every house that's flooded right now we have to go in and see if there's anybody in it and God forbid take those who didn't make it. Every building, every room."

"I think we're gonna find a lotta people," Honore adds.

Asked what he thought the casualty rate would be, Nagin was far from optimistic.

"Well, let, let me put it to you this way. We think we evacuated 80 percent of the people in the city as it relates to this particular event," Nagin says.

"Do the math. That's 100,000 left. We've evacuated 35,000 people so far. Let's say there's another 15,000. That's 50,000 people unaccounted for.

"What, which number you wanna pick, 5 percent? Ten percent? Fifteen percent? I don't know, but I think it's gonna be significant."