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 4 of 4)

Reason: I had heard that when the National Guard came into the Convention Center...they came in with basically overwhelming force, and were surprised to see that everyone was just happy that they were there.

Bush: Yeah. One of my good friends, Col. Jacques Thibideaux, led that security effort; that's his guys. He is an MP and he's a cop. That was his baby, and they said "Jacques, you gotta get down here and sweep this thing." And he said he was braced for anything. And he encountered nothing. Other than a whole lot of people clapping and cheering and so glad that they were here.

Reason: But even in that case, I guess, you can't help—despite whatever communications you have internally or within your unit—you can't help but be influenced by the reports that are flying around the ether as well, right?

Bush: Sure. I mean to some degree I guess you doubt yourself a little bit. Because we've all been in situations where you think you're in the know, but maybe you're not. Maybe just somebody forgot to tell you....

We would hear stuff from the Convention Center, too, and we were like, "Ah jeez, it must be really really bad down there, because it's not like that here. I mean it sucks here, but there's certainly not babies being raped...."

I mean, can I unequivocally say that no woman got felt up by some other man in the Superdome? No. I think it's reasonable to think that if you cram that many people off the street together, someone's going to push the envelope, someone's going to cross the line. And I'm sure that there were rapists and child molesters in that group of people.... Anytime you're going to bring in everybody off the street you're going to bring some pretty unseasonable characters. But in all the screening we did of everybody coming through, I think they only confiscated like forty-some weapons. Which is I don't think anywhere near what you'd expect....

But for the most part this was 19,900 people who were just devastated, and desperate, and tired, and scared, because they probably had lost family or didn't know where some family was, and faced with the unknown of not knowing what tomorrow's going to bring. All they knew was that the New Orleans Superdome was a horrible place to live. But they also kind of knew it was the best place around, at least right now. And they knew that they just kind of had to suck it up and endure it with us. I told them every day, you know, "We're still here folks. You saw us here on Sunday, and we're not leaving until y'all are out of here." And they kind of believed it, they hung on.

But New Orleans, I guess my last point is, I kind of feel upset. Because I have some pictures of a Dad reading stories to his kid. I have a picture of a lady who—I don't know what the hell she was thinking when she brought it—but she brought her clown suit, and make-up, and she's in full clown garb, and she's got a wig on, and a nose and everything, and she sat there for days and painted kids' faces all day long. I have 20 amazing stories of people taking care of each other for every one incident of someone stealing, or someone taking somebody's stuff, or someone trying to get into somebody else's business, or someone laying their hands on somebody.

New Orleanians have been kind of cheated, because now everybody thinks that they just turned to animals, and that there was complete lawlessness and utter abandon, when that wasn't the case. Because if there was, we would have completely lost control of the Dome. And we never did. People just kind of hung on, through the heat and through everything, until they got on a bus and left.

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