The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was marked by widespread devastation and a complex, often criticized, response from local, state, and federal authorities. Amidst the chaos, declarations of "martial law," concerns about looting, and the spread of misinformation created further challenges for rescue and recovery efforts.
Damage from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Image: Wikimedia Commons
Initial Response and the Declaration of "Martial Law"
Furious at a rising tide of lawlessness in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reassigned 1,500 New Orleans police from search-and-rescue missions to halt widespread looting in the battered and flooded city. Declaring "martial law" in a dramatic invocation of his civic emergency powers, he directed officers to do "whatever it takes" to restore order, saying they could stop looters without regard to their civil rights and Miranda rights.
Earlier Wednesday, a Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness spokesman said that contrary to earlier local reports and some statements by officials, martial law - technically, emergency government by military authority - was not in effect anywhere in the state. The Louisiana Attorney General's office insisted late Tuesday that martial law is not recognized in Louisiana state law, although state statutes and declarations of emergency give civic officials - the governor, heads of parishes and mayors - broad powers to restore order after disasters.
Many took her words as a declaration of martial law, although Blanco told the Guardian that was never the intent. “I did not declare martial law. It was not legal,” she said.
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Misinformation and its Impact
Misinformation during Hurricane Katrina over how lawless New Orleans had become made the situation far worse, according to both the man who was in charge of the troops on the ground during the disaster and the state governor. Lieutenant General Russel Honoré coordinated around 300 national guardsmen sent in to keep order in the aftermath of the hurricane which devastated the region 10 years ago this month.
Honoré says once the military took hold of the city, he had to deal with “a constant reaction to misinformation … Some of the [media] were giving information that wasn’t correct … Much of it was uncorroborated information probably given with the best of intentions.” One such story came from within the ranks: Chris Kyle, the late Navy Seal portrayed in the Clint Eastwood film American Sniper, claimed he sat atop the Superdome and picked off 30 looters.
Honoré describe claims by Kyle as “war story bullshit”. “I was at the Superdome and would know if there was a rifle up there shooting. I can tell you there were no Navy Seals operating as snipers in New Orleans.”
Blanco said the media amplified stories of widespread violence it could not verify, which impacted rescue operations. For example, she said school bus drivers refused to drive their vehicles into New Orleans to help in the evacuation because of the dangerous situation they heard about on television. Blanco enlisted the national guard to drive the buses instead.
In a midweek press conference, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco warned looters that local troops “have M16s and they’re locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will.” Honoré said he disagreed with Blanco about the statement, telling her: “I don’t think you want to put that out. Because while the local press may make you perceive you have civil disorder, you don’t. Just because a reporter sees some dude in waist-deep water with a TV on his back is not a reason to shoot.” Blanco said her statement was intended to “stop the noise” and send the message, not just to looters but to everyone else, that things were under control.
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Hyped stories were difficult to verify because of circumstance. Since the flooding confined the media largely to one area downtown, journalists could not report with depth what was happening in the neighborhoods, which created an information vacuum. Gunshots fired in the air, for example, intended to attract attention from rescuers were often translated as attacks on helicopters.
“We knew there would certainly be some criminal element, but this rampant violence that was reported was definitely out of proportion to the reality. But in those moments, when we had so much work to do, the reports were frightening the rescuers. It just became very unnerving.”
National guard trucks haul residents through floodwaters to the Superdome. Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Reality of Looting
While television images did capture people grabbing electronics and other valuable goods from local retail outlets, the majority of looters were hunting for bare essentials such as food, water, diapers and medicine, he said. People confused looting with people going into survival mode. It’ll happen to you and I if we were just as isolated.
The Role of the National Guard
Nearly 2,000 national guardsmen were sent from different states to engage in search-and-rescue missions that were performed door-to-door. The guardsmen set up base in a middle school in the city’s Uptown neighborhood, where they searched houses for survivors by foot and by boat, using a platoon of boats they would find in backyards and garages.
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Mike Kelly, 60, a former sniper in Iraq who was shipped to New Orleans with the national guard, said people they encountered were often afraid of being forced to leave their houses. “I would tell them: ‘All you have to do is show me you have food and water and your animals have food and water and you can stay,’” he said. His battalion cleared 1,034 homes.
The most dangerous element in the early days of the flood consisted of drug addicts who were unpredictable, especially if armed, he said. They represented the majority of looters who were stealing in order to stock up on goods to pay for their habits. The guardsmen often found stash houses filled with electronic goods intended for future sale.
Kelly says he also had to chase away another unpredictable form of looter: New Orleans police officers found rummaging through the local Walmart. He says his team discovered several officers grabbing sporting goods and clothing from the store, which had its doors ripped off their hinges. After an initial confrontation, the officers left. “I own this town. You don’t. Now get the fuck out of here,” Kelly said he told them.
In 2006, four New Orleans police officers were cleared of allegations of looting by the department, but each was suspended for 10 days without pay.
Many of the guardsmen arrived in New Orleans fresh from yearlong tours in Iraq. What they encountered during Katrina was eerily similar. Alan Miranda, 43, a national guardsman from San Diego and a corporal in Iraq in 2004, says because of the power outage, nighttime Humvee patrols were conducted in complete darkness. “It was about as close to a police state as you could get,” he said.
When they arrived, they dealt with chasing looters and dodging potshots, but within a week, things had stabilized and the violence died down. However, encountering dead bodies in the water became common. Oftentimes, guardsmen were ordered to note the bodies’ location for later pick-up. If the water was moving fast, they would be forced to tie the body to a permanent object. Many of the bodies Miranda said he discovered had obvious gun wounds, suggesting they “did not die of natural causes”. “There were a lot of grudges settled at that time,” he said.
Kelly says most of the dead bodies he found had belonged to elderly people, including a man he found in a front yard whose right arm was apparently stuck in a hedge. “What bothered me is that someone ran out and left them,” he says. “It broke my heart.”
Racial Tensions and Vigilantism
At the time, fear of looting led to the formation of quasi-militia groups, primarily made up of white residents or local police, who guarded areas in and around New Orleans, leading to racially motivated violence that would take years to prosecute. One of the most serious cases involved members of the New Orleans police department who, six days after the hurricane hit, stormed a local canal bridge and fired upon a group of unarmed civilians, killing two men and wounding several others. Ronald Madison, one of the men killed, was mentally disabled. Court testimony show police shot him in the back with a shotgun and then stomped on him as he lay dying.
Other militia groups formed in and around Algiers Point, a primarily white enclave located across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans. Fear of looters led to the formations of barricades and guard posts in an effort to keep people seeking refuge at bay. Henry Glover, an unarmed black man, was shot and burned by local police officers, after he was discovered prowling a local strip mall looking for baby supplies.
Criticism of Government Response
The government response to Hurricane Katrina fell under heavy criticism during the aftermath in the United States in 2005. Local, state, and federal government were accused of failing to prepare and respond effectively to the natural disaster.
Adding to the criticism was Nagin's refusal to use a fleet of school buses pictured sitting idle in the city in an image syndicated by the Associated Press. Nagin cited a lack of insurance liability and a shortage of bus drivers for the decision to order residents to shelter in the Superdome, rather than use the available buses to assist in evacuations.
Due to the slow response to the hurricane, New Orleans's top emergency management official called the effort a "national disgrace" and questioned when reinforcements would actually reach the increasingly desperate city. New Orleans's emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert blamed the inadequate response on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is not a FEMA operation. I haven't seen a single FEMA guy", he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control.
In January 2007, the fired FEMA director Michael D. Brown charged that partisan politics had played a role in the White House's decision to federalize emergency response to the disaster in Louisiana only, rather than along the entire affected Gulf Coast region, which Brown said he had advocated.
Hurricane Katrina was arguably the first major test of the Department of Homeland Security after September 11. There have been questions on who was in charge of the disaster and who had jurisdictional authority.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was heavily criticized in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, primarily for its slow response and inability to coordinate its efforts with other federal agencies relief organizations.
For example, Michael D. FEMA also interfered in the Astor Hotel's plans to hire 10 buses to carry approximately 500 guests to higher ground. Federal officials commandeered the buses, and told the guests to join thousands of other evacuees at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. In other instances of FEMA asserting its authority to only ultimately make things worse, FEMA officials turned away three Walmart trailer trucks loaded with water, prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the Jefferson Parish emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA.
The New York Times reported that 91,000 tons of ice ordered by FEMA at a cost of over $100 million and intended for hospitals and food storage for relief efforts never made it to the disaster area. Federally contracted truck drivers instead received orders from FEMA to deliver the ice to government rented storage facilities around the country, as far north as Maine.
| Agency/Official | Criticism |
|---|---|
| New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin | Failure to implement flood plan, delayed evacuation order, refusal to use school buses for evacuation |
| FEMA | Slow response, inability to coordinate efforts, hindering of other organizations' relief efforts |
| Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco | Initial request for aid did not include all coastal parishes |
| White House | Partisan politics influencing emergency response decisions |
The events following Hurricane Katrina highlight the challenges of disaster response, the impact of misinformation, and the importance of addressing systemic issues such as poverty and racial inequality in emergency planning and recovery efforts.