.Wednesday, Aug. 31

Morning: Gov. Blanco appears on several morning news shows to say that the most pressing matter for New Orleans is to find a way to move 20,000 people from the Superdome out of the city. Conditions at the Superdome have become, by this time, deplorable. The New York Times will report, "By Wednesday the stink was staggering. Heaps of rotting garbage in bulging white plastic bags baked under a blazing Louisiana sun on the main entry plaza, choking new arrivals as they made their way into the stadium after being plucked off rooftops and balconies. The odor billowing from toilets was even fouler. Trash spilled across corridors and aisles, slippery with smelly mud and scraps of food." The Los Angeles Times will note of conditions there: "At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for."

Blanco issues an emergency proclamation allowing the state to commandeer school buses to evacuate people (PDF). On CNN, she says state and federal officials are looking into various ways to clear the Dome -- the government may use buses, boats or helicopters. Blanco says she does not know where the evacuees will be moved to. One idea is to house people on cruise ships docked around the Gulf. Another is to look for small shelters throughout the region. "This is something we have to work with FEMA on," she says. "You know, we don't have any answers right now on what we will do with folks once we stabilize the situation. We're in a crisis mode. And we simply have to move people and get them to safe ground. I think that's what we have to do right now."

The Bush administration dispatches four Navy ships to the Gulf. The ships, which are docked in Virginia, are expected to arrive in the affected region by the weekend. The administration also decides to release oil from the strategic reserve in order to keep down gasoline prices.

On his way back from Crawford, Bush surveys hurricane damage from the window of Air Force One. When he gets back to Washington, Blanco calls him and asks for more help: She wants 40,000 troops. The request sparks a discussion in the administration over the question of federalizing the effort. By law, active-duty troops aren't allowed to perform domestic law-and-order functions; they can only do so if Blanco signs over control of the effort to the federal government, or if Bush usurps her power by invoking the Insurrection Act.

In Washington, Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard, looks into ways to bring more Guard into the region. He holds a videoconference with Guard generals across the devastated region, and arranges for 3,000 troops to come into New Orleans over the next 24 hours, according to the Washington Post.

8 a.m. Emergency generators at two New Orleans hospitals -- Charity Hospital and University Hospital -- run out of fuel. About 350 patients and 1,000 staff and others are holed up in the hospitals; it's unclear how or when they will leave the city, doctors say.

10 a.m. FEMA and Blanco announce an evacuation plan for New Orleans. People at the Superdome and other shelters in the city will be bused in convoys to Houston's Astrodome, they say. About 475 buses have been secured for the evacuation. Officials give no indication of when the buses will arrive, but they estimate that the operation will take two days or less.

Midday: Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the Corps of Engineers tells the Times-Picayune that water levels in the city and Lake Pontchartrain have equalized, causing floodwaters to level off in the city. New Orleans has essentially become a part of the lake. Water levels in the city will rise and fall with the tides, he says. The Corps is attempting to fix the 17th Street Canal levee by filling the breach with sandbags, but the Corps does not have enough slings -- which hold sandbags in place while they're being transported by helicopters -- to finish the job. At this point, though, the efforts aren't very urgent; even if the levees are fixed, officials are estimating that it will take months to pump the city free of water.

4:11 p.m. After meeting with members of his Cabinet, President Bush makes his first public statement acknowledging the scale of the disaster. "The vast majority of New Orleans, Louisiana, is under water," he says. "Tens of thousands of homes and businesses are beyond repair. A lot of the Mississippi Gulf Coast has been completely destroyed. Mobile is flooded. We are dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in our nation's history." Bush says that buses are moving in to evacuate people from the Superdome. He spends a great deal of the speech listing resources the federal government has provided, including "400 trucks to move 1,000 truckloads containing 5.4 million meals ready to eat, or MREs, 13.4 million liters of water, 10,400 tarps, 3.4 million pounds of ice, 144 generators, 20 containers of pre-positioned disaster supplies, 135,000 blankets and 11,000 cots." Bush adds: "And we're just starting." It is unclear how many of these provisions are making it into affected areas.

Late afternoon: Mayor Ray Nagin orders 1,500 city policemen -- the bulk of the force -- to abandon search-and-rescue efforts and instead fight the increasing lawlessness in the city. Looting in the city is widespread. At one Rite-Aid drugstore, a group uses a forklift to break open the place, allowing in "a steady stream of looters, many wheeling shopping carts, to stock up, primarily with food, candy, any soft drink or water or alcohol, and cigarettes," a Times-Picayune reporter writes. Such incidents are reported all over the city.

The city's descent into disorder is epitomized by the scene at the convention center, which the news media begins reporting on late in the day. Reporters on scene estimate that more than 3,000 people are there, but more are coming in all the time, as officials around the city are telling people that the convention center has food and, importantly, buses to evacuate people.

In fact, people at the center are stranded, starving, and seemingly forgotten about by the authorities. There is a dead body in a lawn chair outside the center -- the body of Booker Harris, a 91-year-old man who was dropped off there with his wife Allie, 93.

Booker's body is visible to all, including TV news correspondents, who flock to the place. "I mean, this convention center is right in the heart of downtown. I mean, picture any downtown where -- any city you live, Main Street, wherever. The main building, there's a dead body that has been sitting out there for two days. They put a blanket over him," CNN correspondent Chris Lawrence reports. Lawrence also says, "These people are hungry. They're tired. They've got nowhere to go. They've got no answers, and they've got no communication whatsoever. And the officer said, when night comes -- I'm watching the sun dip behind the buildings right now, he was very afraid -- he said, 'I don't know which night it's going to break, but these people have a breaking point. And I'm scared to see what happens when they reach that point.'"

Despite the televised scenes, there is no public response -- from state, local or federal authorities -- to the disaster there.

7 p.m. After a day of shopping for pricey shoes, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attends a performance of the Monty Python musical "Spamalot!" She is reportedly booed by some in the audience.

Evening: FEMA director Michael Brown appears on a slate of news shows, declaring that contrary to what people have been seeing on TV, storm victims are being helped in New Orleans. Larry King asks Brown, "All of our correspondents, other people telling our correspondents that they're frustrated, they're angry, they're mad at the government, state, federal. They're not getting enough. And they're saying where is the help. So where is the help?"

"Larry, the help is right there," Brown says. "And it's going to be moving in very, very rapidly. I'm going to ask the country to be patient ... And I must say this storm is much, much bigger than anyone expected." Moments later Brown appears to contradict himself when he says that his agency has long anticipated that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be one of the worst possible disasters. "We planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."

Brown promises that relief will arrive tomorrow. "That help is there. We have an agreement with [Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld. the president has stepped in. We're going to have air-lifting commodities in. We're going to have those caravans moving tonight. So tomorrow you're going to see that relief." The claim will prove largely false.

.Thursday, Sept. 1

7 a.m. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, President Bush says that the federal government's evacuation effort is well under way, and that a "major transportation lift" is already getting people out of the Superdome. He does not mention -- nor is he asked about -- evacuation plans for the New Orleans convention center, where more than 20,000 people are now stranded without food, water, medical attention or security.

The New York Times will later report that Bush only learns that there are people at the convention center around the time of his interview with Sawyer. Bush finds out about the convention center in an unusual way -- from a wire service news report that an aide hands to him. Aides will tell the Times that the report angers Bush, because Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, had not mentioned the convention center in a morning briefing to Bush. Neither Chertoff nor his subordinate, FEMA director Michael Brown, are aware of the situation there. Brown, responsible for all federal disaster relief, will later say that he does not learn that the convention center is being used as a shelter until sometime on Thursday, two days after the city first opened the center for evacuees, and a day after scenes from the convention center dominated TV news.

In his chat with Sawyer, Bush suggests that federal government was surprised by the scope of the storm damage. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees," he says. "They did anticipate a serious storm. These levees got breached, and as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will." In fact, long before the hurricane struck land, many experts and officials -- including the Hurricane Center's Mayfield and Mayor Nagin -- warned that the levees were vulnerable.

Morning: Authorities suspend evacuations at the Superdome -- evacuations that had only just begun -- due to what they call increasing unrest outside the arena, including reports of weapons fire at rescue helicopters and fires deliberately set in the path of buses. Lawlessness in the city is hampering rescue efforts all over, officials say. More than 28,000 National Guard troops have been called up to the city, but there are far fewer actually in the area -- between 8,000 and 13,000. Only a few hundred Guardsmen are present at the Superdome.

Observing the situation at the Superdome, Terry Ebbert, who heads New Orleans' emergency operations, tells the Associated Press: "This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans. We have got a mayor who has been pushing and asking, but we're not getting supplies."

Midday: President Bush has lunch with Federal Reserve chairman Alan Grenspan to discuss the economic impact of the storm. Later, he holds a press conference with two former presidents, his father and Bill Clinton, whom he has asked to lead an effort to raise private money for hurricane relief. At a press briefing, spokesman Scott McClellan is asked if Bush is satisfied with the government's response to the hurricane. "This is not a time to get into any finger pointing or politics or anything of that nature," McClellan says. "This is a time to make sure all our resources available are focused where they need to be, and that is on the people who have been displaced or the people who have been otherwise affected by this natural disaster. And that's exactly what we're doing."

At a press conference, Homeland Security secretary Chertoff insists that his department has the situation in New Orleans under control. "The fact of the matter is, the Superdome is secure," he says. "Understandably, there are crowd-control issues. People are anxious, they're impatient, they're hot, they're tired, they want to get someplace else. That is more than understandable." Chertoff says people there are safe and their evacuation is imminent. In fact, conditions at the Superdome are described as chaotic and dangerous. Chertoff does not mention the convention center.

At almost exactly the same time, Mayor Ray Nagin sends out "a desperate SOS" on CNN. "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses," Nagin says. "We need buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running out of supplies."

The network runs a montage of graphic scenes from the convention center, including pictures of several dead bodies. Chris Lawrence, a CNN correspondent, reports, "We spent the last few hours at the convention center, where there are thousands of people just laying in the street. They have nowhere to go. These are mothers. We saw mothers. We talked to mothers holding babies. I mean, some of these babies, 3, 4, 5 months old, living in these horrible conditions. Putrid food on the ground, sewage, their feet sitting in sewage. We saw feces on the ground. It is -- these people are being forced to live like animals." People at the convention center tell Lawrence that National Guard troops have driven by and tossed small amounts of food to them. But most people are hungry and thirsty. " Lawrence says: "What these people are saying basically is, 'Give us some water, give us some food. Don't leave us here to die. Or get us out of here.' They're saying, "We're stuck here. We can't leave. They don't send the buses. They won't take us out of here. And yet they won't come in with truckloads of water and food to feed us.'"

The American Red Cross will later explain to Salon that the convention center is not being serviced by the agency because, sometime during the week, the Louisiana Homeland Security Department -- that is, the office under Gov. Blanco -- tells the agency not to "come back into New Orleans following the hurricane." Louisana officials have not responded to Salon's request for an explanation of this order. According to the Red Cross, the Homeland Security Department had been worried that a Red Cross presence in the city would "keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city."

Evening: On NPR, anchor Robert Siegel asks secretary Chertoff several times about reports that tens of thousands of people are starving at the convention center. Chertoff dismisses such reports. He says, "You know, the one thing about an episode like this is if you talk to someone and you get a rumor or you get someone's anecdotal version of something, I think it's dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place." Siegel insists that reporters from NPR and other organizations have personally witnessed the horrors at the convention center. But Chertoff refuses to believe Siegel.

On NBC, Brian Williams asks FEMA director Michael Brown why FEMA isn't doing an airdrop of food and water to the convention center. " Brian, it's an absolutely fair question," Brown says. "The federal government just learned about those people today. And I've got to tell you, we are moving heaven and earth to get pallets of food and water to those people."

Later on "Nightline," when Brown again says that the federal government only learned of the convention center on Thursday, Ted Koppel asks, "Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting about it for more than just today." Brown says, "We learned about it factually today that that's what existed."

At a press conference, Gov. Blanco criticizes House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who earlier in the day said it might not make sense to rebuild New Orleans. It's "unthinkable," Blanco says, that Hastert would "kick us when we're down." Blanco also warns "hoodlums" in New Orleans: National Guard troops in the city, she says, "have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot to kill ... and I expect they will."

Late Thursday night, in an interview with WWL-AM radio in New Orleans, Mayor Nagin sharply criticizes how state and federal officials have handled the hurricane response. Referring to Gov. Blanco's earlier press conference -- in which the governor said 40,000 National Guard troops were heading in to help Louisiana -- Nagin said: "I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."

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