Echo Chamber in the Superdome

A Louisiana National Guardsman explains how he dealt with false rumors being piped into Ground Zero of Hurricane Katrina.

Matt Welch | October 4, 2005

(Page 2 of 4)

"No, I heard."

"Well, what bathroom?"

"Well, I don't know; one of those over there."

Everything was some other place, and "I heard it"...and none of it was true.

Reason: So, did you fear that they were true? Did you try to track down and confirm all or most of these yourself, or...

Bush: Well, I worked hand-in-hand with, and got to know very well, Major David Baldwin, who was the commander of our special reaction team, [and]...certainly a principal player in keeping the security of the Dome. I mean his guys patrolled every inch of it, 24 hours a day. We constantly had moving patrols—outside, inside, through, on the field, in the bathrooms. And I said, "You know I'm hearing all this crap about bodies in the bathroom, and this and that. Are you finding any bodies?" And he said "No."

He said, "You've got to help us; people are scared to death."

Reason: And how was your physical communication at the time? I mean you guys had functional walkie-talkies at least, right?

Bush: Right. Our guys, we all had radios, internal Dome radios. For example if I saw someone come to me and he said, "Somebody's having a seizure," I could get on and call for medics and say, "I'm on the terrace of Gate C, I need medics, I'm here now," and then a couple of security guys would show up, and the medical team would show up, and security guys would clear the crowd, and most of the time some other folks would jump in and help us, and we'd either carry the person, or put him on a cart, or do something and move out.

Or, you know, we would have a fight break out, and I'd call for security or someone would call for security, and "We've got a fight, possible altercation going on here." And guys would come in, and a couple minutes later it'd be done.

Reason: So you guys had presence the entire time? Through the storm there was always at least some Louisiana National Guard in the building?

Bush: Always. There was hundreds of Louisiana Guard guys there, yeah.

Reason: Wow, I'm sitting here in Los Angeles, California, so what the hell do I know, of course, but there was just the assumption that, you know, this was Lord of the Flies for at least two or three days there.

Bush: Yeah, and you know what? I need your help. I just got off the phone with a Washington Post guy....Brian Thevenot, the Times-Picayune reporter, was on CNN and was interviewed on Fox, and now we're getting all these inquiries again, coming back around, because I think a lot of folks are feeling a little bit guilty because they passed along the same old shit.

Reason: Which gets me back to the specific helicopter thing. That report came out on September 1 or so; it was, you know, "Evacuation Halted at Superdome Because of Shots Fired at Military Helicopter."

Comments

Paul Harris|11.13.09 @ 5:49AM|#

Thank you for helping to clarify what really happened. I was a San Diego tourist trapped in the Superdome and to the best of my knowledge I never saw a dead body, never heard a gunshot at any helicopter, but knew that fear was taking over our minds so we did believe the rapes and murders. My 2008 memoir, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina" discusses these issues further.

Paul Harris

http://diaryfromthedome.webs.com