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16 September 2005

This is an evolving timeline of of events leading up to and following Hurricane Katrina's landfall on the Gulf Coast of the US in August 2005. Focus is on government actions and political decisions.
If you have additions or corrections to this Hurricane Katrina Timeline, please send e-mail to uspolitics.guide@about.com. Include the word 'timeline' in the subject and please provide substantiating links to news or government reports which confirm details.
The timeline is divided into these parts:

The First Week:
Tuesday 30 August - Saturday 3 September



Tuesday 30 August 2005 - 1 day after
    5.00 AM CDT: President Briefed on Levee Failure
    In San Diego, President Bush is told the 17th Street Canal had been breached and decides to cut his vacation short.

    10:53 AM CDT: Nagin OKs Forced Evacuation
    New Orleans Mayor Nagin has authorized law enforcement officers and military personnel to force the evacuation if residents refuse the order to leave.

    11:04 AM CDT: Bush Gives V-J Day Speech
    President Bush gives a speech on Iraq at the Naval Base Coronado.

    Mid-Day: DHS Chertoff Learns the Levee Has Failed
    On Meet the Press (4 September), Chertoff says: "... I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, "New Orleans Dodged The Bullet," because if you recall the storm moved to the east and then continued on and appeared to pass with considerable damage but nothing worse."

    "It was on Tuesday that the levee--may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday--that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.... what happened is the storm passed and passed without the levees breaking on Monday."

    3.30 PM CDT: Waters "Not Rising" nor Filling the Bowl
    US Sen. David Vitter, to the press, on flood waters: "In the metropolitan area in general, in the huge majority of areas, it's not rising at all. It's the same or it may be lowering slightly. In some parts of New Orleans, because of the 17th Street breach, it may be rising and that seemed to be the case in parts of downtown. I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That's just not happening."

    7 PM CDT: "Incident of National Significance"
    This never-before-used designation was established post-9-11 and is required to mobilize federal forces. Homeland Security waits 36 hours after Katrina struck to make this declaration, sometime this evening, but there is no public announcement made until Wednesday.
      Reports two weeks later show that there was no need to declare this an "incident of national significance." The National Response Plan (NRP) made that designation automatic when the President declared a state of emergency on Saturday. Reports also note that the NRP puts Department of Homeland Security in charge, not FEMA. (Knight-Ridder)


    Evening: Nagin Blasts Failed Sandbagging Efforts
    New Orleans Mayor Nagin told WAPT-TV (Jackson, MS) that plans earlier in the day to plug the breach in the 17th Street Canal were scuttled. He said that Black Hawk helicopters were scheduled to drop 3,000-pound sandbags in breach, but they were diverted to rescue missions.

    Government Actions:
    • FEMA makes its first request for military help -- asking for two helicopters for fly-overs. (Seattle Times)
    • The USS Bataan, designed to dispatch Marines, sits offshore, relatively unused. It rode out the storm and followed it to shore, expecting relief orders. The ship has 1,200 sailors, hospital facilities, helicopters, doctors, food and water. And it can desalinate water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. The ship is never fully deployed. (Chicago Tribune)
    • Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says Katrina has inflicted more damage than Hurricane Camille. Katrina pushed water from Mobile Bay into downtown Mobile, AL, submerging parts of the city. (CNN)


    Wednesday 31 August 2005 - 2 days after
      Early Morning: Bush Does a Fly Over
      CNN reports that President Bush may visit the striken area later in the week. He "cut short his working vacation in Texas by two days -- even though aides have long contended that his duties are uninterrupted when he spends time at his ranch in nearby Crawford, which has White House-level communications capability."

      Early Morning: Blanco Calls Bush Again
      Governor Blanco tries to call the President and gets the run-around. She calls back several hours later and again says she needs help, "whatever you have," and asks for 40,000 troops. "I just pulled a number out of the sky," she says.

      12:05 PM CDT: Out of Water
      Jefferson Parish Emergency Services Direcotr Maestri says "We have no water for evacuees ... FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed."

      4.00 PM CDT: Bush Gives Katrina Speech
      The New York Times criticizes this speech; the White House has no copy of the speech, only a fact sheet.

      Evening: Stranded at the Convention Center
      There are 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Some have been there since Tuesday morning, but have received no food, water or instructions.

      Government Actions:
      • Post 9-11, FEMA intervenes in diasters only if they exceed state and local capability. According to CNN, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke noted that although "state and local officials have not formally declared that they can no longer manage the disaster on their own, that is the case." White House spokesman McClellan reports that the federal government will declare Katrina an "incident of national significance," part of a national emergency response plan finalized in January. (CNN)
      • New Orleans under curfew; police ordered to abandon search-and-rescue and concentrate on minimizing lawlessness.
      • Military Task Force Activated. Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, 1st U.S. Army commander, leads the task force to coordinate Department of Defense active-duty support for disaster relief. The number of National Guardsmen on duty in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi rose to almost 8,300. (also DoD)
      • National Guard Troops Arrive
      • Public Health Emergency Declared for the Gulf


    Thursday 1 September 2005 - 3 days after
      7.00 AM CDT: Bush: No One Expected Levee Breach
      On ABC's Good Morning America with Diane Sawyer: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded."

      This assertion flies in the face of repeated warnings from the National Hurricane Center about flood surge and local flooding of up to 28 feet. And levees designed only for Cateogry 1-2 and fast-moving Category 3 hurricanes - when Katrina was a "strong" Category 4. There there was report after report about the danger of breaches and floods.

      Morning: Wal-Mart Trucks to the Rescue
      Although the federal government has yet to deploy en masse, Times-Picayune staff saw "13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city."

      Government Actions:
      • Three days after FEMA arrived, there still is no "command and control" according to Terry Ebert, head of New Orleans emergency operations. "This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace... We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans." (FOX)
      • The Navy hires Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three Mississippi facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. KBR won a competitive "construction capabilities" contract in 2004. (Houston Chronicle)
      • About 30,000 National Guard troops are promised to the Gulf area; reportedly 7,000 are on the ground Thursday and 24,000 are expected to be on the ground in three days. (Pittsburgh Press)


      NGO / Private Actions:
      • American Red Cross asks the state to begin relief operations and is rebuked by the state. (CNN)


    Friday 2 September 2005 - 4 days after
      On Air Force One, AM: Bush Views DVD of Disaster
      "Some White House staffers were watching the evening news [on Thursday night] and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One."

      10:35 AM CDT: Bush Praises FEMA Chief Brown
      "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

      Noon: "A convoy of military trucks drives through floodwaters to the convention center, the first supplies of water and food to reach victims who have waited for days. Thousands of armed National Guardsmen carrying weapons stream into the city to help restore order. Commanding is Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, a cigar-chomping Louisiana native who soon wins praise for his decisive style of action."

      On Air Force One, PM: President Meets with Congressmen and State, Local Officials
      According to Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-New Orleans), "almost everybody" at the meeting had a tale of woe that illustrated how federal response "just wasn't working.... the president just shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing."

      Government Actions:
      • FEMA has 1,000 fire fighters from around the country in Atlanta undergoing sexual harrassment training as part of their preparation for deployment in the Gulf as community-relations officers of FEMA, not as first responders. The Agency sent 50 fire fighters to New Orleans to "stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas." See Reuters photo. (Salt Lake Tribune)
      • Bush Signs $10.5 Billion Relief Package
      • Homeland Security Chief Chertoff says that "the government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen" to New Orleans. (FOX)
      • The Gulf Coast experiences the largest domestic military deployment since the Civil War: 58,000 National Guard troops plus 17,000 members of active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. (Boston Globe)


      NGO / Private Actions:
      • Local chapter of American Red Cross asks the state to begin relief operations and is rebuked by the state again. Col. Jay Mayeaux, deputy director, Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness: "To set up a feeding station to feed a large number of people, you need space. You need to escort the personnel into position. ... And we asked Mr. Howell, and he concurred, to wait 24 hours to go to set that in." (CNN)


    Saturday 3 September 2005 - 5 days after
      9:06 AM CDT: President on Katrina
      Remarks focus first on "law and order" and secondarily on relief efforts; active duty troops ordered into the region.
        Right now there are more than 21,000 National Guard troops operating in Louisiana and Mississippi, and more are on the way. More than 13,000 of these troops are in Louisiana. The main priority is to restore and maintain law and order, and assist in recovery and evacuation efforts... Today I ordered the Department of Defense to deploy additional active duty forces to the region. Over the next 24 to 72 hours, more than 7,000 additional troops... We will not let criminals prey on the vulnerable, and we will not allow bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives.


      Government Actions:
      • A Senior Bush Administration official told the Washignton Post that Governor Blanco had never declared a state of emergency. She did so on 26 August. (Washington Post)
      • President Bush told the nation that he had deployed more than 7,000 active duty military to the Gulf. (Washington Post)
      • The President implies that the problems with relief efforts in the Gulf lie with state and local government (Washington Post) :
          "Yet, despite their best efforts, the magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."


Hurricane Katrina Timeline
The First Week
 More of this Feature
•  Before Landfall
•  Landfall
•  Ongoing Aftermath
 
 Related Resources
• Should We Rebuild New Orleans?
• Top Cities Hit by Hurricanes
• Katrina News Archive
 
 From Other Guides
• Hurricane Factoids (Miami)
• Stupid Quotes About Katrina (Political Humor)
•  New Orleans Guide
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