New video showing Blanco saying levees safe- AP news

[adarling]

Love how all these videos are getting released right now. Seems like someone is pissed!


BY LARA JAKES JORDAN and MARGARET EBRAHIM, Associated Press Writers
28 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast, Louisiana's governor hesitantly but mistakenly assured the Bush administration that New Orleans' protective levees were intact, according to a new video obtained by The Associated Press showing briefings that day with federal officials.
We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said shortly after noon on Aug. 29, according to the video that was obtained Thursday night. "We heard a report unconfirmed, I think, we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

In fact, the National Weather Service received a report of a levee breach and issued a flash-flood warning as early as 9:12 a.m. that day, according to the White House's formal recounting of events the day Katrina struck.

The timing of the levees breach has been a key issue in exhaustive reviews of failures to respond to Katrina and highlights miscommunication about the scope of the storm's damage at all levels of government.

The new video, which runs 45 minutes, details uncertainty and despair among state and local emergency response officials as they began chronicling the disaster that swept across 90 square miles in the Gulf Coast.

Blanco is not shown in the video but is heard as a disembodied voice speaking from an emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, La., to 11 people sitting around a table at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington. She sounds uncertain about the reliability of her information and cautioned that the situation "could change."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060303/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_video

[AtomicKitten]

1. Keith showed this tonight.

Blanco said she had heard no reports of a levee breech, when it was dicovered after the fact that one hour prior to her statement one report had been made to FEMA.

This is the best the Bush-enablers can come up with. Pathetic.

[adarling]

4. exactly

she seemed concerned in the video, wasn't like she ignored it completely like bush did. what a joke.

[rsmith6621]

2. Tit 4 Tat

[ProSense]

3. "In the hectic, confused hours after Hurricane Katrina"

So Bush tossed all the pre-hurricane warning, the solid data from the ACE, and blames his entire incompetent response on this statement?


Geez, what an idiot.

[madrchsod]

5. this will be over looked by the media-----

fema and other federal agencies should have had people on the ground before,during,and after the storm. they should have been there but they were not. the state and locals did not have the ability to communicate with each other and did not have the personal to co ordinate what information they did receive. the reliance on cell phone and other tower based communications failed..the federal government has the resources and solutions to overcome these problems.

[fob]

6. Bullshit Headline Appears on AP Story -FU nooze

WASHINGTON - It has been discovered that our payment from bush*co did arrive and hence we had to give a demo-bashing headline to a story that actually reports the OPPOSITE of the scary headlie(<---Typo that seems appropriate). Expect us to continue as long as the bush*co taxpayer funded graft continues to hit our bottom line...



The fucking story says nothing of the sort from what the headlie implies!

[sandnsea]

7. waters that are 8 to 10 feet deep, people swimming in there

She certainly knew she had a flood and needed help, because she asked for it. Nothing else really matters.

[Ignacio Upton]

10. Correct

Notice in the article she also said that she wasn't entirely sure on whether or not the information was had was correct. This story is a hatchet-job.

[thatsrightimirish]

8. there they go

Blaming local officials again :crazy:

[Ignacio Upton]

9. This makes as much sense as the "Abramoff gave money to Dems" meme

The MSM is trying to LOOK "fair and balanced" and come up with bullshit "Dems did it too!" stories that in no way compare to the scale of incompetence of the Republicans.

[roguevalley]

11. she said as far as she knew, at that time. interesting

isn't it that they release film they refused to give to committees. fuckers.

[Skittles]

12. they were intact for a time according to the media

I work nights and saw the coverage; the breeching occurred well after the hurricane struck as I recall -certainly the media did not know about it either

[zbdent]

13. Is there any point in the video where she says the levees were "safe"?

What was said in the subject line is that she said the levees were safe. Is that in the video?

The quote you have in the post says "we have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this time."

In the whole video, did she actually say "safe"? If so, then they have a case . . . if not, this is more believable that Bush's "I don't think I ever said that" when Kerry pointed out that Bush was unconcerned about Osama bin Laden 6 months after 9/11 . . .

[OneTwentyoNine]

14. She was just reporting that at THAT time the levee's hadn't been breeched.

That doesn't imply for a second that she told Bush to forget about it,we're all safe and sound. She was just reporting what was going on at the time. If she would have told Bush they were breeched then she would have been lying.

[Roland99]

15. WWL TV was reporting a breach by 9:30am >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

WWL TV reported on their website on 8/29 no later than 9:35am:

.. A LEVEE BREACH OCCURRED ALONG THE INDUSTRIAL CANAL AT TENNESSE STREET. 3 TO 8 FEET OF WATER IS EXPECTED DUE TO THE BREACH...LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO ARABI AND 9TH WARD OF NEW ORLEANS.

And a posting on one of the blogs (wunderground or nola.com)

Posted By: UFGATORDON at 3:01 PM GMT on August 29, 2005.
LA governor says water rising 1 ft per hour in NO. Major breeching of levees

This was just hours after landfall. HOURS.

And where was the Propagandist? Eating cake with McCain in AZ. And the next day, when the FLOODING was being SHOWN on LIVE TV where was the Propagandist? Playing guitar in CA.

[jumpoffdaplanet]

16. Hear her say "not at this moment of time"

The kind of thing you say when you know it could happen.

Which it did.