Ex-FEMA head: U.S. didn’t tell all on Katrina

Video: Former mayor, FEMA chief look back on Katrina

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   >>> it was five years ago that this neighborhood and this city were brought to their knees by hurricane katrina as that storm roared ashore. and the historic city of new orleans took a body blow.

   >> this is just an unbelievable scene.

   >> thousands who didn't evacuate were forced to take shelter at the superdome and the convention center . there was not enough help. frustration and anger overflowed, and the catastrophic breach of the levees caused the worst damage, devastating the ninth ward. an estimated 1,800 people in louisiana and mississippi died in the aftermath of katrina . hundreds of thousands more were displaced for months or years. five years later some residents are still living in trailers. ray nagin was the mayor of new orleans during hurricane katrina . michael brown was the federal government 's point man as the head of fema. gentlemen, good morning. nice to see you both.

   >> good morning.

   >> the first time you've seen each other in quite a while.

   >> five years.

   >> if i ask you both quickly, when you hear the name katrina , ray, what is the most searing image? what's the most lasting memory that you have?

   >> there's a couple of things but the deception of katrina is one thing i'll never forget. superdome, convention center , just the general struggle of everything we had to go through to get people out.

   >> michael ?

   >> as the urban search and rescue teams were going through during their searches, they were giving me live feedbacks and i got a live feedback from a nursing home that had victims, deceased elderly on the floor in their diapers, deceased on the floor of this nursing home . it was youawful.

   >> this was a slow motion storm that strengthened over the weekend. we knew it was coming. you knew it was coming. when this storm approached landfall here in louisiana, did you think you were ready it at the city level, and did you think you were ready at the federal level ?

   >> well, we thought we had done a pretty good job of evacuation. normally we get about 60% to 70% of our citizens out. this time we had at least 80% to 85% out. that was our initial estimate. it wasn't until i got a call from max late saturday night --

   >> at the hurricane center .

   >> -- that we really knew this storm was heading for us. that's when i decided to order a mandatory evacuation, the first one ever, to get as many other people out as possible.

   >> michael , did you think the federal government was worried?

   >> no. in fact, i was worried about it. you may have seen me during the briefings in which i was concerned about the superdome. i was concerned about the evacuation. i was concerned about all of those things plus the placement of fema and dhs, i was afraid there had been a severing of the relationship.

   >> did you voice those concerns to mayor nagin and those at the state level?

   >> at that point it's too late. we're in the middle of the crisis at that point.

   >> would you have liked to have heard those concerns earlier?

   >> well, yes, but, you know, mr. brown, i think, was in the state at that time. we were hunkered down in new orleans trying to get ready for the storm .

   >> you talk about the evacuation, mayor nagin, you ordered. 20 hours before the storm hit, let's get everybody out of here. what we learned there were so many people who simply didn't have a place to go and didn't have the means to get out.

   >> well, keep in mind our evacuation process had a shelter of last resort, the superdome. we opened that up. we went into the communities to get people out, as many as possible. but the storm hadn't hit new orleans like that in about 40 years. so our culture is one of stay and ride it out. many people decided to stay in their homes.

   >> one of the things so frustrating, michael , we seem to be hearing two different stories or hearing one story and seeing another. representatives of the federal government were telling us this is going fairly well, this is going as planned. we're happy with this. i hate to bring it up, right up to that heck of a job, devastation and despair, no food and no water. why was there this disconnect?

   >> i think there was a disconnect because of the mentality in washington that says you put the best face on everything. i think politicians and government leaders need to understand the american public wants accurate information.

   >> so when you were saying some of the things you were saying to the immediamedia here and across the country, did you know it was inaccurate?

   >> not that it was inaccurate. it was factually correct in what we were telling people about what was going on, but we never put it in context about we're doing all of these things, but it's not enough or it's not working. and i think it's a huge failure of government to fail, to trust the american people with the actual facts of what's happening.

   >> i think, ray, one of the things that was uncovered by hurricane katrina as the waters came in and then moved away was this devastating poverty that a lot of people in this country either didn't know existed or didn't want to know existed. did that strike you?

   >> i think just the latter. most people know that there's poverty in america and it's concentrated in urban cities. that's what we deal with in new orleans on a regular basis. and, as a matter of fact, most of the people who stayed and didn't leave is because they either wouldn't leave or couldn't leave is because of the poverty issue.

   >> most important question i can ask both of you, what lessons were learned, are you convinced that enough has been said about katrina and it has been dissected enough and analyzed enough, the response to it, that if another katrina -like event were to strike new orleans or some other city, that the response would be more efficient and handled differently?

   >> i'm not convinced. maybe mr. brown is convinced. i don't see any major changes that we have done as a country. the fema has new people but it still operates pretty much the same. we have updated all of our evacuation processes.

   >> that's a horrible phrase.

   >> i am very concerned. the bp situation taught me something that we're not quite ready. the haiti situation, which is international, also said a lot about us.

   >> quickly, michael ?

   >> people find this shocking but i agree with the mayor. the studies have not truly been addressed and i think the second thing is the american population hasn't realized what their responsibility is in the midst of a crisis. a major -- look, we have a levee problem in california.

   >> do you think the new levees will hold if we have another major storm here? it.

   >> we spent $14 billion so i hope so. it looks better but it's been tested once with gustav. we'll see in the future.

   >> i appreciate you getting back together and looking back with us and hopefully looking forward . ray nagin and michael brown .

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