Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
John Mounts filling in for JT. Today marks the twenty
year anniversary of Katrina, the hurricane that pretty much destroyed
And it wasn't really the hurricane by itself, it was
the water from the hurricane, the levees breaking. Let's get
more on this from our own resident hurricane expert, Evan
Brown in Miami, because you've seen a few hurricanes yourself, Evan.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Certainly, And I was in the Mississippi Gulf coast for
a good month after Katrina, so it was very much
part of my experience.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, the stories that came out of that, because I
remember that so well. It was twenty years ago but
almost feels like yesterday. And I remember when they took
the initial hit. It was at the time it was
a Cat four or Cat three when it actually made landfall.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
When it actually I remember this landfall is when the
center of the storm reaches land. Right, Katrina was eight
hundred miles across, So by the time the eye reached
his land, four hundred miles worth of storm has already struck.
In terms of the wind field. Okay, categories have to
(01:08):
do with wind, so yes, it had weakened to Category
three by the time the eye reached land, but through
much of that approach through the northern Gulf Coast it
had been a category five, So the wind was that fast.
But what the real destructive part of Katrina was was
not really the wind. It was the storm surge. And
(01:28):
this storm was deadly and destructive for both New Orleans
and the Mississippi Gulf Coast due to storm surge matters.
And if anything, Katrina changed the discussion. Finally got people
to really wake up and understand that storm surge is
a concern and that evacuation orders need to be given
(01:51):
and need to be listened to. And that's because, yeah,
we had an incredible amount of lack of preparedness leading
up to.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This, and that was one of the things I think
that we saw was a Mayor Ray Nagan. He prepared
a little, but he didn't prepare enough of some of
the preparation was useless, Like they gathered all those buses
and they put him in a place where the buses flooded.
But I think no one expected they should have expected,
but no one expected for the infrastructure failure because of
course New Orleans being a city below sea level. You know,
(02:21):
I remember the night after the hurricane hit. Everyone kind
of said, who they dodged a bullet everything. You know,
they're drying off. You know, it wasn't too bad. But
then the levees, the levees broke, and all of a sudden,
the whole city flooded. And that was really where things
took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Not the whole city flooded, but a couple of the
ninth Wards, the lower ninth Ward, which is the historic
Black impoverished neighborhood. Because of the storm surge, a barge
got loose on the river and struck the levee, causing
it to break, causing the breach causing the flooding. Now,
it might have been a better idea to not more
(02:58):
the barge where they did, right, Maybe should have moved
that way the heck out of the way, and maybe
that levee wouldn't have failed. However, it did, and it
failed in an area and caused the flooding in a
neighborhood that generational families living in generational homes that were
a century old and underinsured. And yes, there were people
(03:20):
who died in that flooding, a lot of people, old people,
young people. It was really awful. On the other side
of town, the Seventeenth Street Canal bordering a very much
more upper crust neighborhood that levee failed and flooded out.
Didn't get a lot of attension, but it did. It
caused a lot of economic hardship, but seriously not as
(03:42):
much as a humanitarian hardship the way the Lower ninth
Ward did, mostly because people by the seventeenth Street Canal
were of means and had the ability to either evacuate
in advance thinking I just don't want to deal with this,
let me get out of here, and had the ability
to rebuild afterwards in shorter order, not necessarily in short order,
(04:04):
but certainly in a much easier fashion than what happened
in the Lower ninth Ward, which required a lot of
government and a lot of charity. Brad Pitt, who's from
New Orleans, he organized a major effort to charitable effort
to build new, better homes in the Lower ninth Ward,
And if you were to drive through there today, you
(04:26):
will see a lot of them. They're they're very pretty looking,
very colorful. They're they're of newer technology and design, and
their energy efficient and this and that, and they're they're
really neat. But that took a lot of effort to
get done and a lot of charity. So what we had,
though was a failure of imagination and a failure of
people to take responsibility in making sure people got out
(04:48):
of the way and understanding what that threat was going
to be. And the idea of just throwing tens of
thousands of people into the Superdome at the last moment
was that bad, bad.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Bad bad solution and took things made him much worse.
Evan Brown Live from Miami, thank you so much for
joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News. I remember
one of the things I remember following Katrina was, do
you remember there was a con There's a concert fundraiser's
sort of like along the same lie along the seam
lines as Live Aid or We Are the World, any
of that kind of stuff. They had this big event
(05:19):
to try and raise awareness and raise money, and do
you remember this moment? I never forget because I remember
watching it live when on stage stood Mike Myers side
by side with Kanye West and they were going back
and forth making please for the people who have been
displaced by Katrina. And I'm just gonna play this clip
(05:39):
and see if this, if it all comes rushing back.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The distruction of the spirit of the people of southern
Louisiana and Mississippi made up being the most tragic loss
of all.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
George Bush doesn't care about black people.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
And I remember when when I saw that, and the
look as Kanye said that, in the look of Mike
Meyers face, you can see it. He was like, this
is not on the prompter. He is, Well, I don't
know where we're going with this thing, but that's unfortunately.
That's one of the memories I definitely have from Katrina
twenty years ago. And I know a lot of people
here in Birmingham were down there in New Orleans. A
(06:11):
lot of people from New Orleans never came back. Before
the break, we were talking about Katrina and Frank in
Trustfille wants to weigh in. Frank, what did you have
to say?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I just one I got to say there, good morning,
how you doing?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But I'm doing great? Frank? So what do you you
contain it?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Will right?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Oh yes, oh yes, I remember Ray Nagan went to jail.
Ray Meagan said there's gonna be a chocolate city in
a Wow. Look what happened to him, and also remembered
there was a fine young man that saw those school
buses and said, hey, they're gonna get drowned. I'm gonna
go get people out. And he went and got him
and they tried to put him in jail for mm hm.
Because here's what I want to bring out. Yeah, here's
(06:48):
what I want to bring out. You take a picture
on the right side, you put the Lake Ponset train
with the level up high, and you take a picture.
In that picture, put New Orleans down below it. Stupidity
of you, Manite is why the greatest part happened to
New Orleans. Because they built below water level. And even
when they had the dykes up the Derek's up that
(07:10):
the Army Corps of Engineer is supposed to keep up,
they knew that they were living in a place that
was gonna get flooded, but they did nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think that's the thing that we all have to remember,
is that, yes, the city is below sea level. Let
that be a lesson to you. When you build a city,
you're gonna have to, you know, try and remember. Of course,
I don't plan to build any cities anytime soon. When
you pick a sea to live in You're gonna have
to remember, you know, if it has a vulnerability like this,
that is the risk you make the same thing, you know.
I think the beach is great. I'd love to live
at the beach someday. I lived near a beach one time,
(07:41):
a long time ago. But the beach is great. I
wouldn't want to live on the beach because that's the
kind of thing that can happen to your home. Great
place to visit, wouldn't want to make it my home.
John Mounts filling in for JT. Today marks the twenty
year anniversary of Katrina, the hurricane that pretty much destroyed
And it wasn't really the hurricane by itself, it was
the water from the hurricane, the levees breaking. Let's get
more on this from our own resident hurricane expert, Evan
Brown in Miami, because you've seen a few hurricanes yourself, Evan.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Certainly, And I was in the Mississippi Gulf coast for
a good month after Katrina, so it was very much
part of my experience.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, the stories that came out of that, because I
remember that so well. It was twenty years ago but
almost feels like yesterday. And I remember when they took
the initial hit. It was at the time it was
a Cat four or Cat three when it actually made landfall.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
When it actually I remember this landfall is when the
center of the storm reaches land. Right, Katrina was eight
hundred miles across, So by the time the eye reached
his land, four hundred miles worth of storm has already struck.
In terms of the wind field. Okay, categories have to
(01:08):
do with wind, so yes, it had weakened to Category
three by the time the eye reached land, but through
much of that approach through the northern Gulf Coast it
had been a category five, So the wind was that fast.
But what the real destructive part of Katrina was was
not really the wind. It was the storm surge. And
(01:28):
this storm was deadly and destructive for both New Orleans
and the Mississippi Gulf Coast due to storm surge matters.
And if anything, Katrina changed the discussion. Finally got people
to really wake up and understand that storm surge is
a concern and that evacuation orders need to be given
(01:51):
and need to be listened to. And that's because, yeah,
we had an incredible amount of lack of preparedness leading
up to.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
This, and that was one of the things I think
that we saw was a Mayor Ray Nagan. He prepared
a little, but he didn't prepare enough of some of
the preparation was useless, Like they gathered all those buses
and they put him in a place where the buses flooded.
But I think no one expected they should have expected,
but no one expected for the infrastructure failure because of
course New Orleans being a city below sea level. You know,
(02:21):
I remember the night after the hurricane hit. Everyone kind
of said, who they dodged a bullet everything. You know,
they're drying off. You know, it wasn't too bad. But
then the levees, the levees broke, and all of a sudden,
the whole city flooded. And that was really where things
took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Not the whole city flooded, but a couple of the
ninth Wards, the lower ninth Ward, which is the historic
Black impoverished neighborhood. Because of the storm surge, a barge
got loose on the river and struck the levee, causing
it to break, causing the breach causing the flooding. Now,
it might have been a better idea to not more
(02:58):
the barge where they did, right, Maybe should have moved
that way the heck out of the way, and maybe
that levee wouldn't have failed. However, it did, and it
failed in an area and caused the flooding in a
neighborhood that generational families living in generational homes that were
a century old and underinsured. And yes, there were people
(03:20):
who died in that flooding, a lot of people, old people,
young people. It was really awful. On the other side
of town, the Seventeenth Street Canal bordering a very much
more upper crust neighborhood that levee failed and flooded out.
Didn't get a lot of attension, but it did. It
caused a lot of economic hardship, but seriously not as
(03:42):
much as a humanitarian hardship the way the Lower ninth
Ward did, mostly because people by the seventeenth Street Canal
were of means and had the ability to either evacuate
in advance thinking I just don't want to deal with this,
let me get out of here, and had the ability
to rebuild afterwards in shorter order, not necessarily in short order,
(04:04):
but certainly in a much easier fashion than what happened
in the Lower ninth Ward, which required a lot of
government and a lot of charity. Brad Pitt, who's from
New Orleans, he organized a major effort to charitable effort
to build new, better homes in the Lower ninth Ward,
And if you were to drive through there today, you
(04:26):
will see a lot of them. They're they're very pretty looking,
very colorful. They're they're of newer technology and design, and
their energy efficient and this and that, and they're they're
really neat. But that took a lot of effort to
get done and a lot of charity. So what we had,
though was a failure of imagination and a failure of
people to take responsibility in making sure people got out
(04:48):
of the way and understanding what that threat was going
to be. And the idea of just throwing tens of
thousands of people into the Superdome at the last moment
was that bad, bad.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Bad bad solution and took things made him much worse.
Evan Brown Live from Miami, thank you so much for
joining us this morning on Alabama's Morning News. I remember
one of the things I remember following Katrina was, do
you remember there was a con There's a concert fundraiser's
sort of like along the same lie along the seam
lines as Live Aid or We Are the World, any
of that kind of stuff. They had this big event
(05:19):
to try and raise awareness and raise money, and do
you remember this moment? I never forget because I remember
watching it live when on stage stood Mike Myers side
by side with Kanye West and they were going back
and forth making please for the people who have been
displaced by Katrina. And I'm just gonna play this clip
(05:39):
and see if this, if it all comes rushing back.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
The distruction of the spirit of the people of southern
Louisiana and Mississippi made up being the most tragic loss
of all.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
George Bush doesn't care about black people.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
And I remember when when I saw that, and the
look as Kanye said that, in the look of Mike
Meyers face, you can see it. He was like, this
is not on the prompter. He is, Well, I don't
know where we're going with this thing, but that's unfortunately.
That's one of the memories I definitely have from Katrina
twenty years ago. And I know a lot of people
here in Birmingham were down there in New Orleans. A
(06:11):
lot of people from New Orleans never came back. Before
the break, we were talking about Katrina and Frank in
Trustfille wants to weigh in. Frank, what did you have
to say?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I just one I got to say there, good morning,
how you doing?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
But I'm doing great? Frank? So what do you you
contain it?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Will right?
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Oh yes, oh yes, I remember Ray Nagan went to jail.
Ray Meagan said there's gonna be a chocolate city in
a Wow. Look what happened to him, and also remembered
there was a fine young man that saw those school
buses and said, hey, they're gonna get drowned. I'm gonna
go get people out. And he went and got him
and they tried to put him in jail for mm hm.
Because here's what I want to bring out. Yeah, here's
(06:48):
what I want to bring out. You take a picture
on the right side, you put the Lake Ponset train
with the level up high, and you take a picture.
In that picture, put New Orleans down below it. Stupidity
of you, Manite is why the greatest part happened to
New Orleans. Because they built below water level. And even
when they had the dykes up the Derek's up that
(07:10):
the Army Corps of Engineer is supposed to keep up,
they knew that they were living in a place that
was gonna get flooded, but they did nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think that's the thing that we all have to remember,
is that, yes, the city is below sea level. Let
that be a lesson to you. When you build a city,
you're gonna have to, you know, try and remember. Of course,
I don't plan to build any cities anytime soon. When
you pick a sea to live in You're gonna have
to remember, you know, if it has a vulnerability like this,
that is the risk you make the same thing, you know.
I think the beach is great. I'd love to live
at the beach someday. I lived near a beach one time,
(07:41):
a long time ago. But the beach is great. I
wouldn't want to live on the beach because that's the
kind of thing that can happen to your home. Great
place to visit, wouldn't want to make it my home.
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