Vanity Fair: How New Orleans Drowned (The birds were smarter than *)

[pnwmom]

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060529roco02

This isn't a rehash.

SNIP

"As Katrina approached, the most respected broadcasting voice in Louisiana was that of radio announcer Garland Robinette, of WWL, 870 on the AM dial. Nobody knew why he had such a clear, deep, comforting lilt, but he did. Reared in a shack behind a Humble Oil swamp camp, near the small Cajun community of Des Allemands, Robinette understood rank poverty. Feisty and independent-minded, he had gotten kicked out of Nicholls State University for punching the golf coach. After flunking out of L.S.U., he shoved off to Vietnam, serving as a Swift Boat officer and eventually receiving two Purple Hearts. In the Mekong Delta, he learned about the horrors of combat, death, and destruction. He also learned never to fully trust the U.S. government.

"As he headed over to the fifth-floor studio of WWL, Robinette, 62, had a flashback. "I got goose bumps," he said, reminded of how animals in the jungles of Southeast Asia had seemed to instinctively disappear before a firefight. "It was Vietnam all over again. I looked up. There were no green parrots in the palm trees. I looked down the street, not a stray cat." That evening, Robinette settled in front of the microphone and didn't mince words: "I know the powers that be say not to panic. I'm telling you: Panic, worry, run. The birds are gone. Get out of town! Now! Don't stay! Leave! Save yourself while you can. Go … go … go."

"MONDAY. The eye of Katrina, a strong Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 125 m.p.h., struck the shore at 6:10 a.m. It hit just to the south of the hamlet of Buras, about 63 miles southeast of New Orleans. Virtually all of the fishing village's 1,146 households were flattened. Livestock and wildlife drowned en masse; the residents, fortunately, had fled.

"Robinette took listeners' phone calls. Desperate pleas were coming in from Tremé and Chalmette, Slidell and Metairie. A woman screamed, "We have a two-year-old—I think we're going to drown." All the while, the radio station's high-rise building shook like a struck tuning fork. Then the studio's plate-glass window blew outward. An airstream, like that of a jet engine, almost sucked Robinette through the opening. Everything around him—papers, books, furniture, tapes—went flying into the morning sky. Even so, Robinette kept on broadcasting, shifting his operations to the closet. He told his listeners that, while wind damage would be extensive, Katrina seemed to be sidestepping the city, aiming its fury farther east."

SNIP

[musette_sf]

1. love Garland from the "Garland & Angela" days

and hearing parts of his radio broadcasts during Katrina (some of them were on national TV and streamed online) bore testament to just how good he is.

[drthais]

2. WWL is the only place to be during a storm

and that station was ouronly lifeline for almost two weeks
they were on the air 24/7, even when they moved to Baton Rouge

[Feron]

3. Great article

Thank you for the link. :)

[pnwmom]

4. You're welcome. (I wonder how they can sell any magazines, with

so much good stuff on the web.)