Myths of Hurricane Katrina

MYTH: “The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history.”–Aaron Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 4, 2005

MYTH: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime event.”–New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, press conference, Aug. 28, 2005

MYTH: “Perhaps not just human error was involved [in floodwall failures]. There may have been some malfeasance.”–Raymond Seed, civil engineering professor, UC, Berkeley, testifying before a Senate committee, Nov. 2, 2005

MYTH: “They have people … been in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.”–New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Sept. 6, 2005

MYTH: “The failure to evacuate was the tipping point for all the other things that … went wrong.”–Michael Brown, former FEMA director, Sept. 27, 2005

MYTH: “We will rebuild [the Gulf Coast] bigger and better than ever.” –Haley Barbour, Miss. Gov., The Associated press, Sept. 3, 2005

MYTH: “You have a major energy network that is down … We could run out of gasoline or diesel or jet fuel in the next two weeks here.”–Roger Diwan, managing director, Oil Markets Group, PFC Energy, Business Week, Sept. 1, 2005

It’s still one of the 10 Worst Disasters of the Last 101 Years.

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