Decision Points

by George W. Bush

  By the time the damage had been tallied, Hurricane Katrina ranked as the costliest natural disaster in American history. In truth, it was not a single disaster, but three—a storm that wiped away miles of the Gulf Coast, a flood caused by breaches in the New Orleans levees, and an outbreak of violence and lawlessness in the city.

  On one level, the tragedy showed the helplessness of man against the fury of nature. Katrina was an enormously powerful hurricane that struck a part of the country that lies largely below sea level. Even a flawless response would not have prevented catastrophic damage.

  The response was not only flawed but, as I said at the time, unacceptable. While there were inspiring acts of selflessness and heroism during and after the storm, Katrina conjures impressions of disorder, incompetence, and the sense that government let down its citizens. Serious mistakes came at all levels, from the failure to order a timely evacuation of New Orleans to the disintegration of local security forces to the dreadful communications and coordination. As the leader of the federal government, I should have recognized the deficiencies sooner and intervened faster. I prided myself on my ability to make crisp and effective decisions. Yet in the days after Katrina, that didn’t happen. The problem was not that I made the wrong decisions. It was that I took too long to decide.

  I made an additional mistake by failing to adequately communicate my concern for the victims of Katrina. This was a problem of perception, not reality. My heart broke at the sight of helpless people trapped on their rooftops waiting to be rescued. I was outraged by the fact that the most powerful country in the world could not deliver water to mothers holding their dehydrated babies under the baking sun. In my thirteen visits to New Orleans after the storm, I conveyed my sincere sympathy for the suffering and my determination to help residents rebuild. Yet many of our citizens, particularly in the African American community, came away convinced their president didn’t care about them.

  Just as Katrina was more than a hurricane, its impact was more than physical destruction. It eroded citizens’ trust in their government. It exacerbated divisions in our society and politics. And it cast a cloud over my second term.

  Soon after the storm, many made up their minds about what had happened and who was responsible. Now that time has passed and passions have cooled, our country can make a sober assessment of the causes of the devastation, the successes and failures of the response, and, most important, the lessons to be learned.

  I replayed the scene in my mind: The storm damage was extensive. The governor bashed Washington for being slow and bureaucratic. The media fixed blame on the White House. Politicians claimed the federal government was out of touch.

  The year was 1992, and I watched as Dad endured our family’s first bout with natural disaster politics. With the presidential election approaching, Hurricane Andrew had pounded the Florida coast. Governor Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, and Bill Clinton’s campaign exploited the devastation to claim the federal government had not performed. Their criticism was unfair. Dad had ordered a swift response to the storm. He sent Andy Card, then transportation secretary, to live in Florida to oversee the recovery. But once the public had formed a perception that Dad was disengaged, it was hard to reverse it.

  As governor of Texas, I managed numerous natural disasters, from fires in Parker County to floods in the Hill Country and Houston to a tornado that tore through the small city of Jarrell. There was never any doubt about the division of labor. Under the Stafford Act, passed by Congress in 1988, state and local officials were responsible for leading the initial response. The federal government arrived later, at the state’s request. As a governor, that was exactly the way I wanted it.

  As president, I became responsible for the other side of the state-federal partnership. I appointed Joe Allbaugh, my chief of staff in the governor’s office, to lead FEMA. After 9/11, he sent twenty-five search-and-rescue teams to New York and the Pentagon, the largest such deployment in history. Joe worked effectively with Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki to remove debris, support local fire and police, and deliver billions of dollars to help New York recover.

  When I worked with Congress to reorganize the government in 2002, FEMA, an independent agency since 1979, became part of the new Department of Homeland Security. I thought it was logical for officials tasked with preventing a terrorist attack to work alongside those preparing to respond. But the move meant a loss of autonomy for FEMA. I don’t know if it was the reorganization or his desire to move to the private sector, but Joe Allbaugh decided to leave. He recommended his deputy, Michael Brown, to succeed him. I took his advice.

  The first major test of the new emergency response structure came during the 2004 hurricane season. In the space of six weeks, four major hurricanes—Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne—battered Florida. It was the first time in almost 120 years that one state had faced that many storms. I made four trips to the state, where I visited residents who had lost their homes in Pensacola, citrus growers in Lake Wales whose crops had been wiped out, and relief workers delivering supplies in Port St. Lucie.

  Overall, the four hurricanes caused more than $20 billion in damages, knocked out power to more than 2.3 million residents, and took 128 lives. The toll was immense, yet the loss of life could have been far worse. Florida’s governor was a strong chief executive who understood the need for state and local officials to take the lead in disaster response. My brother Jeb declared a state of emergency, established clear lines of communication, and made specific requests to the federal government.

  FEMA responded by deploying 11,000 workers across Florida and other affected states, the largest operation in its history. In Florida, FEMA sent 14 million meals, 10.8 million gallons of water, and nearly 163 million pounds of ice. The agency then helped deliver $13.6 billion in emergency relief to suffering people. Mike Brown earned my trust with his performance, and I wasn’t the only one. A tough critic, Jeb later told me Mike had done a fine job.

  The effective management of the 2004 hurricanes saved lives and helped victims to rebuild. Having tested our model against four consecutive major hurricanes, we were convinced we could handle anything.

  On Tuesday, August 23, 2005, the National Weather Service detected a storm forming over the Bahamas. Initially dubbed Tropical Depression Twelve, it strengthened into a tropical storm and earned a name, Katrina. By August 25, Katrina was a Category One hurricane headed toward South Florida. At 6:30 p.m., Katrina ripped off rooftops with eighty-mile-per-hour winds and dropped more than a foot of rain. Despite orders to evacuate, some people unwisely chose to ride out the storm. Fourteen people lost their lives.

  I received regular updates in Crawford, where Laura and I spent much of August. The press called my time away from Washington a vacation. Not exactly. I received my daily intelligence briefings at the secure trailer across the street, checked in regularly with advisers, and used the ranch as a base for meetings and travel. The responsibilities of the presidency followed me wherever I went. We had just moved the West Wing twelve hundred miles farther west.

  After pummeling South Florida, Katrina charged across the Gulf of Mexico toward Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. My senior aide in Crawford, Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, kept me updated on the developments. By Saturday, August 27, Katrina was a Category Three. On Sunday, it strengthened into a Category Four and then a Category Five, the most dangerous rating. The National Hurricane Center had also revised its projection of the storm’s direction. As of Saturday morning, Katrina was headed for New Orleans.

  With Joe Hagin. White House/Susan Sterner

  I knew the city well. New Orleans was about a six-hour drive from Houston, and I had made the trek often in my younger days. I loved the food, culture, and vibrant people of The Big Easy. I was also aware of the city’s lurking fear. The locals called it The Big One, the pray-it-never-happens storm that could drown their city.

  Anyone who has visited New Orleans can understand their anxiety. The low-lying city is shaped like
a crescent bowl. A system of levees and canals—the rim of the bowl—provides the city’s primary flood protection. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the levees had a troubled history. When I was governor, I read John Barry’s fascinating book Rising Tide, about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. After huge rains drove up the height of the river, New Orleans officials persuaded the Louisiana governor to dynamite a levee to the south in hopes of sparing the city. The move devastated two rural parishes, Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Over time, the levees were strengthened, especially after Hurricane Betsy hit in 1965. They held through seven hurricanes over the next forty years.

  One lesson of the 2004 Florida hurricanes was that solid preparation before a storm is essential to a successful response. When we learned that Katrina was headed for New Orleans, I put FEMA on its highest level of alert. The government prestaged more than 3.7 million liters of water, 4.6 million pounds of ice, 1.86 million meals ready to eat, and 33 medical teams. Taken together, this marked the largest prepositioning of relief supplies in FEMA’s history.

  The military moved assets into place as well. Admiral Tim Keating—the head of the new Northern Command, which we created after 9/11 to protect the homeland—deployed disaster-response teams to the Gulf Coast. The Coast Guard put its choppers on alert. More than five thousand National Guard personnel in the affected states stood ready. Guard forces from other states were prepared to answer calls for assistance. Contrary to later claims, there was never a shortage of Guardsmen available, either because of Iraq or any other reason.

  All of this federal activity was intended to support state and local officials. My team, led by Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff—a brilliant lawyer and decent man who had resigned his lifetime appointment as a federal judge to take the job—stayed in close touch with the governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Governor Blanco requested an emergency declaration allowing Louisiana to use federal resources to pay for and support her state’s disaster-response preparations. Only once in recent history—before Hurricane Floyd in 1999—had a president issued an emergency declaration before a storm made landfall. I signed it Saturday night, along with similar declarations for Mississippi and Alabama the next day.

  At a briefing with Mike Chertoff. White House/Eric Draper

  On Sunday morning, the National Hurricane Center described Katrina as “not only extremely intense but also exceptionally large.” Mayor Nagin had given instructions for a voluntary evacuation. I knew New Orleans well enough to understand that wouldn’t work. People had heard apocalyptic storm warnings for years. Some used them as an excuse to party on Bourbon Street in defiance of the hurricane gods. Others didn’t have the means to evacuate. The evacuation needed to be mandatory, with special arrangements for people who needed help, such as buses to transport those without cars—a step the city never took, leading to the heartbreaking scene of empty New Orleans school buses submerged in an abandoned parking lot.

  I called Governor Blanco at 9:14 a.m.

  “What’s going on in New Orleans?” I asked. “Has Nagin given the mandatory order?”

  She said he had not, despite the dire warnings they had received the previous night from Max Mayfield, the director of the National Hurricane Center. Max later said it was only the second time in his thirty-six-year career he had been anxious enough to call elected officials personally.

  “The mayor’s got to order people to leave. That’s the only way they’ll listen,” I told Governor Blanco. “Call him and tell him. My people tell me this is going to be a terrible storm.”

  “They’re not going to be able to get everyone out in time,” she said. Unfortunately, I knew she was right. But it was better to start now than wait any longer.

  “What else do you need from the federal government?” I asked the governor.

  She assured me she had been working closely with my team and had what she needed.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yes, Mr. President, we’ve got it under control,” she said.

  “Okay, hang in there,” I said, “and call Ray and get him to evacuate, now.”

  An hour later, Mayor Nagin announced the first mandatory evacuation in New Orleans history. “This is a threat that we’ve never faced before,” he said. Katrina’s landfall was less than twenty-four hours away.

  I also called Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, and my brother Jeb in Florida. I told them they could count on strong support from the federal government.

  A little before 11:00 a.m., I joined a FEMA videoconference with officials from the states in Katrina’s projected path. It was rare for a president to attend a staff-level briefing like this. I saw some surprised looks on the screen when my face appeared. But I wanted to convey to the entire government how seriously I took this storm.

  There was a discussion of potential flooding along the coastline and the possibility that water might spill over the top of the New Orleans levees. But no one predicted the levees would break—a different and much more severe problem than overtopping.

  “The current track and forecast we have now suggests that there will be minimal flooding in the city of New Orleans itself,” Max Mayfield said. “But we’ve always said that the storm surge model is only accurate within about twenty percent.”

  A few minutes later, I stepped out in front of the cameras. “Hurricane Katrina is now designated a Category Five hurricane,” I said. “We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities. I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground. Please listen carefully to instructions provided by state and local officials.”

  At 6:10 a.m. Central Time on Monday, August 29, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. The eye of the storm passed over Plaquemines Parish, at the far southeastern tip of the state, and plowed north across the Louisiana-Mississippi border, about forty miles east of New Orleans. “The worst weather in this system is indeed going to bypass downtown New Orleans and go to our east,” NBC News’s Brian Williams reported. He said New Orleans was experiencing “the best of the worst-case scenarios.” Several journalists on the scene said the city had “dodged a bullet.” Governor Blanco confirmed that while some water had spilled over the tops of the levees, they had detected no breaches. My staff and I went to bed thinking the levees had held.

  In Mississippi, there was no uncertainty about the damage. Eighty miles of coastline had been obliterated. Downtown Gulfport sat under ten feet of water. Casinos, barges, and bridges were ruined. US-90, a major highway running across southern Mississippi, was shut down. In the city of Waveland, 95 percent of structures were severely damaged or destroyed.

  Early Tuesday morning, Day Two of Katrina, I learned that the first reports were wrong. The levees in New Orleans had been breached. Water from Lake Pontchartrain began to pour into the city, filling the bowl. An estimated 80 to 90 percent of residents had evacuated, but tens of thousands had not, including many of the poor and vulnerable in low-lying areas like the Lower Ninth Ward.

  While it was important to get relief supplies into the city, our first priority had to be saving lives. Coast Guard helicopters took the lead in the effort. As pilots dodged power lines and trees, rescuers rappelled down dangling ropes in midair to pluck residents from rooftops. When I heard critics say the federal response to Katrina was slow, I thought about those brave Coast Guardsmen who mounted one of the most rapid and effective rescue operations in American history.

  “This morning our hearts and prayers are with our fellow citizens along the Gulf Coast who have suffered so much from Hurricane Katrina,” I said in San Diego, where I had come to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of America’s victory in the Pacific theater of World War II. “… The good folks in Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and other affected areas are going to need the help and compassion and prayers of our fellow citizens.”

  After the speech, I decided
to head back to Crawford, pack up for the capital, and return to Washington on Wednesday morning. Joe Hagin had reached out to Governors Blanco and Barbour to discuss the possibility of a visit. Both felt it was too early. A presidential arrival would have required dozens of law enforcement officials to provide security at the airport, an ambulance and medical personnel on standby, and numerous other resources. Neither governor wanted to divert rescue assets to prepare for my arrival. I agreed.

  Aboard Air Force One, I was told that our flight path would take us over some of the areas hit by Katrina. We could fly low over the Gulf Coast to give me a closer look. If I wasn’t going to land in the disaster zone, I figured the next best thing was to get a sense of the devastation from above.

  What I saw took my breath away. New Orleans was almost totally submerged. In some neighborhoods, all I could see were rooftops peeking out from the water. The Superdome roof had peeled off. The I-10 bridge connecting New Orleans with Slidell had collapsed into Lake Pontchartrain. Cars floated down rivers that used to be streets. The landscape looked like something out of a horror movie.

  The haunting view of New Orleans from Air Force One two days after Katrina. White House/Paul Morse

  The devastation in Mississippi was even more brutal. For miles and miles along the shore, every standing structure had been reduced to timber. Pine trees were strewn across the coast like matchsticks. Huge casinos that sat on barges in the Gulf were destroyed and washed ashore in pieces. The bridge over Bay St. Louis was gone. This must be what it looks like when a nuclear bomb explodes, I thought.

  Staring out the window, all I could think about was what the people on the ground were enduring. What goes through your mind when your entire community is destroyed? Do you take a mental inventory of everything you left behind? I worried most about the people stranded. I imagined the desperation they must be feeling as they scrambled to their rooftops to outrace the rising water. I said a silent prayer for their safety.