01x02 - Worst Case Scenario

[bunniefuu]

[heavy rain]

[♪ eerie music playing]

[wind and rain]

[officer] What's up?

-How you doing, man?

I had to leave out
of my house, man.

This stuff's not, I
don't know whether that water's

coming over
that levee or what.

[officer] I don't, the
last I heard, it's not.

[survivor] So you haven't
heard about that water coming

over that levee from the lake?

[officer] No,
I'll check it out.

[survivor] Because the
water started rising so high on

my two-story apartment,
I had to get out, man.

[officer] Where's that at?

[survivor] Right on, right
across the North Robinson,

um, Overpass.

[officer] Okay. I'm gonna go
down and check it out, though.

Any, any word on the levee?

Do you know
anything about the levee?

Is it gone?
Is it good, is it?

Some dude just came
up to me and said like,

water's up to his, his
apartment on the second story.

I'm gonna go check it out.

[hard rain]

[dispatch] 911.
What is your emergency?

SUB [caller] The
water is coming up, um...

[dispatch] Are
they trapped in the house?

[caller] Yes, they are.
They're trapped in.

Oh, God.

She's trying to get on
the table and can't.

Hop. Hop.

[caller] We're, like,
under nine feet of water here,

and we're trying to get out.

We have a baby.
There's five of us.

We're very frightened.

[caller] Oh God,
please let it stop.

[caller]
Pray for me, hear?

[dispatch] Oh, yeah,
we are praying.

We have to pray for everybody.
Even myself.

[♪ theme music playing]

[hard rain]

[thunder and lightning]

-That morning after Katrina,

everything, everything
changed that day.

My house was in
the Eighth Ward,

almost the beginning
of the Ninth Ward.

We were right on the
railroad tracks across

from the canal.

And we're like
right on the levee.

My place was on
the second floor.

My daughter, my niece,
my uncle, his wife, their

two-year-old daughter
that we affectionately

call "Bump-Bump,"
they all stayed with me.

We had rain and
we had thunder.

We had all the things
that make up a storm,

but we heard something
that sounded like an expl*si*n.

I guess that was the
levees breaking at that time.

That's when the water
went from the tire of the car,

and I mean the bottom
of the tire of the car,

to the second floor within,
like, 20 minutes.

-The water was
steady rising and rising.

I look outside and
notice that it was flooding.

Well, you know, we
know the drainage systems is bad

down here,
so I started getting worried.

-The water started
coming in different.

The water started
changing colors.

Actually, we even saw
fish in the water when it

first started coming,

but the water got
higher and higher.

[bystander] We
got up this morning...

It was just wind and rain,
and then all of a sudden,

the water just started rising.

-The water started
rising faster and faster.

We went back in the command
post and said this thing's

a lot worse than we thought.

And at the time
when this was happening,

we didn't really know the cause.

[bystander]
The water came up.

In three minutes it went
from the ground to the roof.

[Eddie Compass] I said,
where's this water coming from?

We realized this is not a
normal hurricane aftermath.

Something's wrong.
Something's wrong.

-It came in like
a, a tidal wave.

Car lights started popping on
as the water got high, y'know.

We were wondering
when it was gonna stop.

-When I looked out the window
and I saw the cars starting to

be swallowed, I said, oh
well, I've lost everything.

Once the water came
into the house, you know,

there was nothing else
that could be done.

The water was just
inching up higher and

higher and higher.

It reached a good six
feet inside of the house.

[bystander]
It's a disaster.

The houses down
here are destroyed.

I never seen
nothing like this before.

[caller] My
mother's 83 years old,

so I don't know how,
how well she made out.

[dispatch] The
water is in their house?

[caller] Yes, in
the Lower Ninth Ward.

-The calls started coming in.

It was almost at one burst,

and you could
hear the emergency,

because all
of the phones started going off

at the same time.

Folks from St. Bernard
Parish and Plaquemines Parish.

And then we started getting
the calls from folks in the

Lower Ninth Ward.

There were so many people
with the same issues, trapped,

and the lines were
furiously busy.

[caller] Please,
please, I'm begging you.

We can't stay here.

I can't breathe, my daughter
can't breathe up here.

[Angela Chalk] We were asking
folks what their addresses were.

And then finding out,
it didn't matter what your

address was because
the force of the water had

moved homes off of
their foundations.

-It was so much water,
you know,

it was just like
opening a faucet,

and it's just pouring in,
and the house was knocked off

of its foundation.

So the house was teetering.

So we're all
signaling to each other,

you know, wait, wait, wait,
don't move, don't move.

You stay on this side,
you stay right there,

we're level right now.

Then as the water
would move the house,

we had to adjust.

We were like, okay,
you go by the front door,

you go there,
you stay here.

Everybody had their own
portion of something to this

recipe of survival.

And then we started hearing
barrels from off the railroad

track or wherever
they came from,

and they're
hitting the stairs.

And we thought the neighbors
were dead or dying downstairs.

-The water, it's
moving at such a fast rate.

I could see the water running
in through the baseboards,

under the door.

You're looking at your life,

the life that your
parents provided for you,

your belongings being ruined.

Your mother's furniture
that she prided is being

thrown against the wall.

Your icebox or
refrigerator is floating.

You move things
to a higher level,

you get as much in the
attic as you possibly can.

But when you go towards
the front of the house and

you realize that that water
is at least that high in

the street or higher,

then you're worried
about an exit plan.

You got to get out.

[wind and rain]

-No it's safe to say
that house is history.

It's gonna burn
down to the waterline.

I have a hard time picking
that one up on the camera.

Okay, I see it
behind the trees.

-We were at the
Lake Marina Tower

just right on the other
side of 17th Street Canal.

And me and firefighter Gabe King
and captain Paul Hellmers

were watching the
winds on the south side of

Lake Marina Tower.

-I'm 18 stories in
the air right now.

Well, I brought my camera with
me for obvious reason that,

it's very likely you will
have things that you want

to film in a
Category 5 hurricane.

Oh, wow, the water's
getting pretty deep down there.

I'm gonna have to keep
an eye on the water and

see what it looks like in
another 30 minutes.

When you see water
coming up that much,

at six inches every 15 minutes,
that's two feet an hour.

You're just talking an
incredible flow of water.

So, yeah, when I, when I
spotted the 200-foot area of

water coming through,
I was 100% certain of

what I was looking at.

It looks like there's a
possible levee breach on the

the angle behind

that burning house.

I don't see any
levee existing there.

Looks like it's at, at
least three feet higher

on the outside.

Hey, you want to
see it better, Joe?

Let me focus in with this.

[Joe Fincher] I was hesitant
to make the report because we

didn't have a confirmation.

But Captain Hellmers, he
zoomed in on that breach.

[Paul Hellmers] Here.
You want to see it better?

Watch right here, Joe. Look.

And you can see that
six-foot wall is gone.

You can see the
water pouring through.

-My heart just sank.

So I radioed it in.

We have a breach in a levee.

I think I reported it
from four to ten feet wide

at the time.

I didn't want there to be
any confusion on the other

end at all.

Everybody knows
the implications of

a broken levee.

The entire city flooding,

possibly thousands
of people dying,

could be the
end of the city.

-It was, it was apocalyptic.

-We all knew exactly
what we needed to do.

We knew that we
needed to get boats.

We needed to get
as many people as we

could as fast as we could,

and we knew that
there was just a, you know,

certain amount of time that,
that the people had.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[hard rain]

-I ran into our fire chief,
Charles Parent.

He said that he had two or
three firemen reporting a very

large break in the levee.

And I questioned him
and I said, are you sure?

What do you mean a break?

And he said, that's
what I said to them.

-I was in the
communication room in the

emergency operation center,

and I heard a report
come in that the levee at the


and that heavy flows of water
were flowing into the city.

From that moment on,
I knew that Katrina was

gonna be something different.

A levee busting in New Orleans
was a worst-case scenario,

so I immediately called
back to FEMA headquarters

to alert them that
there are reports that a

levee had broken.

I can't confirm it,
that's just what I had heard.

My tone at the time was,
I think, real concern.

I know that that
information then was passed

along to others so
that they would know.

Now whether they
believed it or not,

I had no control over.

I could only tell
them what I had heard,

but I hadn't seen any of it yet.

-Aw that's some water,
man, pushing through there.

That's coming
through there, bruh.

-Yeah, man.

The mood was kind of
easy in the beginning.

At least we did
have some shelter,

but things start
deteriorating real fast.

[Shelton Alexander] The storm's
coming through the dome.

Boy, that water's trying
to get in here for real.

-The only light we really
had if you went inside the

Superdome was from the
four holes in the rooftop.

[reporter] Of course, they
have emergency generators,

but no air conditioning.

So that's gonna be obviously
an interesting situation as

the morning progresses.

[Shelton Alexander] It started
getting more muggier in there.

It was really, really hot.

Steamy.

[reporter] It's
getting hot in there.

The toilets are overflowing.

-All the bathrooms
got flooding everywhere

to the top.

Man, it's nasty already.

The smell was getting worse.

People was kind of like closed
in and it just wasn't good.

So we went on the outside
where we could congregate and

where people had radios.

[reporter] Hurricane Katrina
hitting the Big Easy

very hard today.

[Shelton Alexander] And
as the day was going on,

they was having
more and more reports.

[reporter] Police and fire
said there was a breach at the

17th Street Canal.

[reporter] All you see
is water pretty much and

the tops of roofs.

[reporter] A significant part
of the city is underwater.

A significant part of
the city is damaged.

[reporter] What you hear are
people screaming for help.

[reporter] Oh.

[reporter] They have confirmed
reports of bodies floating.

[Shelton Alexander]
We didn't see water yet,

so we just hearing all
of these horror stories and

caller after caller,
caller after caller,

caller after caller, they
couldn't get to the people.

You just, you just really
don't know what's going on.

[Lucrece Phillips] The
water was coming up more,

and we had
three non-swimmers,

and then we had the swimmers,

myself who's injured, and
my daughter and my niece.

They were saying,
we'll get help.

I was like, no,
we can't separate.

And I can't help you if
you go off somewhere.

They stayed.
I convinced them to stay.

And my uncle and I
went on the porch and the

Mississippi River and
Lake Pontchartrain look like

everything had merged.

There were trains floating.

My neighbors are gone.

I've never felt so isolated to
where I, I, I just thought the

world has ended and we're the
only few people that are left.

So now we got water to our
ankles on the second floor of

an extremely tall house.

So now we have to
move to the attic.

Now mind you, I have a broken
neck and a broken back and I'm

in a cast and I have
a brace on my neck.

So before we went into the
attic my daughter started

writing our names and our
date of births on the wall.

She was like, I'm writing our
names and our date of births

so when they come inside
the house and find us.

I said, find us?

She said yeah, you know,
because, you know, Mom,

we're probably not gonna
make it through this.

It's, you know, too much.

So I erased it off the wall,
I was like girl,

we're gonna live.

And we're gonna
make it through this.

I felt hopeless during
that time when she was

writing that on the wall,

but something inside me
told me, this isn't it.

You got to convince
them that this isn't it,

because they're giving up.

We keep our heads
together, we're gonna live.

We're gonna be okay.

[Paul Hellmers] It's
almost 1:00 p.m., now.

Storm's dying
down pretty good.

Gonna go out pretty soon
and try to get a boat.

One thing about firemen,
firemen are gonna find a way

to do what they need to do.

And it's obvious that our
job at that moment is to help

people who are
stuck in the floodwaters

and possibly drowning.

There's, there's not a lot
of water in that big boat.

-No.

[Paul Hellmers] We were
looking around for boats, and

we did spot two on the street.

We swam to that building
and we, we got that boat.

[Joe Fincher] We
had some other guys,

they could hot-wire boats.

There was a parking garage,

so we went and
actually siphoned a lot of

gas out of those cars.

And as soon as the wind
died down at two o'clock, we

launched operations.

-When we started, we probably
had four or five boats

that we had commandeered.

I told the guys, I said,
"Go find whatever boat

you can find.
Let's get to work."

Once comms went down,
it was chaotic.

You know, once
communication went down,

you know, it, you just,
you just went to work.

You know, we had that,
you got to have direction.

Who's gonna do what?

Who's gonna be
responsible for this?

Who's gonna be
responsible for that?

We never had any of that.

Never had access
to any of that.

[Sally Forman] We expected
FEMA to come in quickly and

that it would be something
that would allow the local

officials the reprieve needed
for that type of catastrophe.

It was obvious that we were
dealing with something bigger

than our capabilities.

-Means you were on your own.

But we figured
it out, you know.

We made it.

We, we went and did
what we had to do to get to,

to the neighborhoods that
we had to get into to try

to save people's lives.

We set up quadrants.

If you were a sergeant,
you had one quadrant.

You took your men,

put one officer on every boat.

You're assigned that quad,

and that's how
we broke it down.

I'm worrying about
saving people's lives.

That's my job, and
that's what the hell, that,

pardon my French,
that's what we did.

That's what we did.

-Now, you know, you're
hearing things on the radio,

but until you see it,
you just can't imagine it.

[dispatch] Find the location?

[officer] 23-32.

-It was kind of like a, a
moment that, you,

not in shock, but you're
almost like, oh my God.

I did not realize it was the,
even though you're hearing

things on the radio, you
don't realize it's that bad.

[Paul Hellmers] It was hot
as hell, and you could only

imagine how awful it would
be if you're stuck on a roof.

If you're not in
superior physical condition,

you probably
wouldn't survive that.

So, yeah, It was
really important to get

people off of roofs
as quickly as possible.

[Tim Bayard] The TAC
teams started doing

their methodical searches,

pulling out as many
people as we could.

To us, it was, you get there,

get the people on a boat.

If they want to go,
you take them.

If they don't want to go,
they're gonna stay there

because we're not
gonna fight with them and

and flip a boat.

[officer] How many
people you all got?

[victim] Just them
two right there.

[Bobby Norton] You know,
you get in a hasty mood.

So you're just out there
trying to pick up as many

people as you can wherever
you can until you're able

to get some solid intelligence.

[Paul Hellmers] Some areas,
water was 15,

maybe 16 feet deep.

We would shut off
the motor and holler.

[officer] Hey!

[Paul Hellmers]
Someone hollers back.

And obviously, if someone sees
you, we would go very slowly.

So, you know, people
would have a chance.

They'd hear our motor.

There was a family on a roof,
and we went to go rescue them.

And they said, no, not us.

The house right there.

We can hear a man screaming.

-Turns out that he was
standing on his tub, and the

water was up to his neck,
and he just,

he didn't have much longer.

-The water was halfway
up the bathroom window,

one of those
small bathroom windows,

and they got him,
they broke out the whole window,

and they were able to
drag him out the window.

And so, yeah, they got him
out of that house just in time.

-How long you think this water
gonna stay up here like this?

[Tim Bayard] You know
the dire position that these

people are in.

You got elderly,
you got young kids,

you got women with children,
pregnant women up there.

The numbers didn't even
come to my mind because

I knew people were in trouble.

Some people just feel
bad because you know they,

they never had
the means to get out.

And if they got
out of their houses,

got in their car,
or tried to run, the water

was gonna take them away.

There was no way in the world
they were gonna survive that.

It was absolutely horrific.

[distant siren]

[reporter] While we
were walking around,

we went up the
street a couple of blocks,

and I would say there's
nothing like the flooding

that we might have anticipated.

This was clearly
a horrific storm.

Clearly, it is going to
be a mess to clean up.

But, Wolf, they were
expecting Armageddon here.

Armageddon, it wasn't.

-The worst-case scenario was
that we would be floating atop

here in downtown New Orleans.

That's not the case.

-What they were predicting
for New Orleans was hundred

seventy-five mile-an-hour
winds and a direct hit

from Hurricane Katrina.

They didn't get that.

The folks in New Orleans
are certainly lucky.

[Marty Bahamonde] The
city of New Orleans is

filling up with water,

but all the media was
down in the French Quarter.

There's no water in
the French Quarter.

-That is Bienville
down the street.

[Marty Bahamonde] So they're
reporting it's not as bad

as it seemed.

Maybe New Orleans
dodged a b*llet.

-New Orleans indeed dodged
what they expected would be

a very strong direct hit.

-But they didn't know.

They didn't know any more than
what was in the neighborhood

that they were standing in.

[Lynette Boutte] There was no
water in the French Quarter

because anything that is
close to the river is at

the highest point in
the city of New Orleans.

So therefore,
there's no water.

-We're in a bowl.

We got the Mississippi River
levee over here and

the lake levee over here.

The city's in the middle.

So we are surrounded by water.

We're six to eight feet below
sea level, and we have some

battles with the
water staying out.

So during the storm,

there are sewage and
water board pumping stations

throughout the city
that propel the water into

the outfall canals.

It's a very good
system when it works.

[caller] Please,
we can hear the boats,

but nobody has
stopped to get us.

We're hearing all these boats.

[dispatch]
They're not, they're not.

They're probably getting someone
in the area also, ma'am.

[caller] Do you know
how much more this is supposed

to come up?

[dispatch] I don't
know how much more, sir.

Please go to your attic, sir.

[caller] I'm gonna die.

The water is steady
rising in the attic, ma'am.

-We need an ambulance.
Please, we need an ambulance.

[officer] Alright, alright.

[Angela Chalk] All of us
who worked in an emergency

operations center became the
lifeline for people who were

calling for assistance, and
our resources were stretched

beyond measure.

There was no playbook
written for a disaster and a

catastrophe of that level.

[Paul Hellmers] By Monday
afternoon, there were several

reports that
levees had busted.

[video operator] That
straight ahead is the

London Outfall Canal,
if I'm not mistaken.

Over there is the
greatest break of the levee.

Now there's a huge
chunk of concrete.

You can't even see,
but you can see that

diagonal piece of concrete.

-So I called back to
FEMA headquarters.

I certainly wasn't informed
about any actions

that were taking place.

And I knew I was the only
one from FEMA in New Orleans.

And that was the moment
where I felt that they couldn't

grasp the severity.

Nobody ever believes a
worst-case scenario.

Well, I knew at the
time that lives were being

lost left and right.

There were thousands
of people on rooftops.

My mindset at the time was
I got to get on a helicopter.

I got a little pushback when
I talked to the

Coast Guard saying,

I don't know that
we're gonna be able to get

you on a helicopter.

I informed them that
the White House was really

counting on me to give them
some situational awareness.

Not completely truthful, but I
just needed to find a way to

get on that helicopter,
because I really needed to put

eyes on what was happening.

Anybody not believing what I
was saying was just going to

delay any kind of response.

I got on, and the
pilot said to me,

"Where do you want to go?"

And I said, "I need to
see how bad this is."

We flew out towards Slidell
and could tell that the bridge

was all damaged
and impassable.

The airport underwater,
that there was no access

into the city.

We flew all over the
city of New Orleans.

It was unlike anything
I'd ever seen before.

And I saw that the
actual levees had breached

in New Orleans.

So when we flew to the 17th
Street Canal, and you could

see just this humongous gap
in the, in the levee, wasn't

overtopping, it wasn't
minor water going over.

The levee was gone.

I said at the time,

like it was underwater.

It was a guess.

It was a pretty good guess.

This is it.

This is the
worst-case scenario.

We talked about it.
It's here.

[♪ solemn music playing]

[Marty Bahamonde]
In the morning,

I gathered everybody
into a conference room

at the emergency
operation center,

and I asked them
to lay out a map.

And I then proceeded
to tell them everything

that I had just seen,

where all the
floodwaters were.

I remember looking at
Mayor Nagin and seeing a

face of disbelief and
almost of, what do we do now?

-Now, I don't know how
to brace you for what you're

about to see.

[Marty Bahamonde] And I told
the mayor, you need to make a

list of all of the priorities
that you think you're going to

need in this environment
where everything is damaged.

It were things like shelters,
knowing that there were people

that needed shelter.

Rescues.

How are we gonna rescue
people from rooftops?

[Sally Forman] To what every
department needed in order to

run the city in this new,

very strange dynamic
that was occurring.

We were a different city.

The old city was gone.

When that list of our
needs was handed over to

Marty Bahamonde and FEMA,
maybe naively,

but we expected
immediate results.

That wasn't actually the case.

-FEMA's not really
a first responder.

Local officials are
first responders.

The state with the National
Guard are first responders.

And FEMA wasn't designed
to be a first responder.

Back then, at that time,

we put a lot more emphasis
on state and local governments

to handle the initial response

in preparation for disasters.

And only when they
couldn't handle it,

were we actually

then designed to come in on
the back end and

provide that support.

[Sally Forman] We knew
just from putting all the

puzzle pieces together
that catastrophic failure was

beginning to occur around
the city beyond our capacity,

way beyond our capacity.

[rescuer] One set of power
lines there, clear down there.

[rescuer] Roger.

[rescuer] The
basket's coming up.

[rescuer] Roger.

[rescuer] The
basket's coming up.

We have a
survivor in the cabin.

-The Coast Guard was able
to assist immediately because

we're not like the
National Guard that needs

permission or a, like,

a formal request
from the governor.

We didn't need to ha,
be asked by anybody.

[rescuer] Roger,
you're on our mic.

Target is at two o'clock.
Check water.

[Sara Faulkner] My crew
had a game plan that we were

going to fly and just
pick a location that had

a lot of people.

[rescuer] And source ready.

[Sara Faulkner] It
didn't take us long.

We found a huge three-story
apartment complex

with people everywhere.

We trained to get
people off of, you know,

cruise ships, sailboats.

We had never trained to
get people off of rooftops or

off of balconies
with urban hazards.

[rescuer] Copy that.
Swimmer's going out the door.

Swimmer's outside the door.
Have target in sight.

Forward and right, 75.

[Sara Faulkner] We picked
this balcony with women and

children and elderly people.

And when a mother is so
desperate to get her baby out

of danger that she hangs
him over a two-story balcony,

that's alarming.

She didn't even
bat an eyelash.

It was like, I don't know you.

You're connected to a
giant loud helicopter with

hurricane force
winds blowing us around,

but here's my baby.

Get him out of here.

[rescuer] Have ready for pickup.
On the inside.

[Sara Faulkner] And, you know,
I just snatched him,

and he's so small.

We don't have rescue
equipment for babies.

So to carry a baby in your
bare arms with nothing keeping

him from falling except for
me is very nerve wracking.

[rescuer] Swimmer and
survivor are in the cabin.

-My first day,
I rescued 48 people.

We just didn't stop.

We were picking up as many
people as we could as fast as

we could around the
clock for days and days.

And honestly, kind of waiting
for the Calvary to come,

but it was all
about life saving.

That's it.

[rescuer] And basket
is clear of the rooftop,

and you are clear
to move back and left.

-As we move people
out of the Superdome,

people begin to move in.

So people are coming out of
either parishes where they've

been in their homes and
not out on the streets.

They're continue, continuing
to come out of homes when

maybe they were
on the second floor,

and now they can get out
and start moving around.

And there is just simply
no way we can estimate the

numbers of people that
are out there like that.

-When the levees broke,
everything changed.

Our population doubled.

And that was really our
first indication that, okay,

something, something worse
has now happened, and there's,

there's a stage two.

[Shelton Alexander]
They just had so, so many

people just coming in.

It doubled real fast.

It just kept going
nonstop, nonstop.

It also made you
more aware that,

that people getting
rescued like this,

and they're flying
this many people in.

Now it's starting to
grow with numbers.

So whatever so-called plan
they have for food or drinks

or whatever the case
may be, now they wasn't

gonna be ready.

-The population coming in
pre-landfall is dramatically

different than post-landfall.

Pre-landfall, it was by and
large people who chose to come

to the Superdome.

They were nervous, but
optimistic, and we were kind

of all in it together.

And then things rapidly
and dramatically changed,

and we became aware of,

of a second wave of
people who are now presenting

at the Superdome.

Those people had,

in many cases,
had ridden out one of the

worst nights of their life.

[reporter] Every rescue
boat that goes out comes

back heavy with human cargo,
and they will be at it for

days to come.

-The police aren't coming,
and that is a reality when you

have a disaster.

There aren't enough
police to respond.

There were too many people,

and you can only
help so many people.

You can only do
what you can do.

A small group of
firemen can't help everybody.

It's just not
physically possible.

[officer] Rose?
What's your first name?

[Shirley Rose] Shirley.

[officer] Shirley.
Shirley Rose.

[Keith Craft]
Watching the news.

We were seeing people on
roofs waving towels and flags.

We're seeing people
floating in the water.

Felt hopeless.

[Alice Craft-Kerney]
When I saw the images of the

Lower Ninth Ward,

I was just so sad to see it,
because I know how

hard the folks worked
to get their homes.

And now they were gonna
have to start all over again.

-I am 62 years old and I've
never been involved in nothing

like this in my life.

[reporter] And what'd you'd,
and I got to ask you,

what'd you leave behind?

-What, now, today?

Oh, we, everything.

[Alice Craft-Kerney] Quite a
few of the folks that lived

there were seniors.

How were they gonna do that?

My family was also
caught in Hurricane Betsy

back in 1965.

[reporter] Betsy is here.

Gusts now topping
100 miles-per-hour.

Tides three feet above normal,

and escape routes
will be cut off shortly.

[survivor] The storm
was coming into New Orleans.

And suddenly we
heard an expl*si*n,

but we thought it was
from the storm.

And then we saw all this
water gushing coming to us

from the levee.

-Hurricane Betsy was a storm
more powerful than Katrina.

It was on a worse
track for New Orleans,

and as a consequence,
levees flooded.

[survivor]
We'll rebuild.

- You will rebuild?
- Oh, yeah.

[reporter] You don't think
this'll knock you out now?

[survivor] No, indeed.
We're gonna build the levees

higher and have a
prettier community.

[Ivor Van Heerden]
After Hurricane Betsy,

we ended up with a
significant funding program

to build hurricane levees.

There are computer models
that were available to the

Corps of Engineers
since they started building

these levees in
the late 1960s,

that they didn't use.

They didn't get the science
right on the height that they

needed to build it.

They didn't get the
geotechnical engineering right

in deciding whether
the site was suitable.

And lastly, they did designs
that we knew would fail.

They had done their own
research on some of these and

had found that the
failures would occur.

To add insult to injury,
as Hurricane Katrina was

approaching, the
levees weren't finished.

So the net result was
catastrophic structural failure.

-It's just really
been a double disaster.

We had the hurricane.

And on top of that,
we had a flood.

[reporter] But
both of these things,

with all due respect,
sir, were predicted.

They knew it was a
category three hurricane

hitting the area 48 hours
before it struck.

People have been writing
about the potential disastrous

conditions of the levee
system for a really long time,

years and years and years.

It, it, there is a sense
that everyone knew a disaster

could happen and no
one was really prepared.

-This is a natural disaster,
the likes of which our country

may have never seen before.

[reporter] The president, it,
he says he, he doesn't think

anyone anticipated the
breach of the levees.

Now, I don't know how he
can say that given the fact

that everybody anticipated
the breach of the levees.

-We knew immediately
that the levees had breached

once it just continued to
rise and rise and rise.

And as I said,
from past experience,

we knew that the
levees had breached.

[Keith Craft] People were
passing with boats

rescuing people.

When I seen the water and the
way that the water was coming,

I said they did it again.

[Ivor Van Heerden] Witnessing
these things is what led us to

use the terms catastrophic
structural failure.

It wasn't the storm.

It was shoddy design
and construction by the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

[helicopter rotors]

[♪ somber music playing]

[Kevin Goodman] We
had water all the way up

to my mama doorstep,

and so we started
getting kind of worried then.

The only thing we could
do is just try to get to

some kind of shelter.

We just, you know, we
didn't want to stay there,

and the water was
steady rising and rising

and rising, and you know,
we didn't have no way out.

So we took off walking,

but where we was at,
it was like,

what we gonna do
with the little children?

Because the water
is almost four feet.

Well, they had this door
floating in the water, so we,

we grabbed the, the door,
put the children on top,

and pushed the door so it
could glide through the water.

[Lynette Boutte] In my
neighborhood, we were lucky

because my property
sits three feet, nine inches

above sea level.

So I would not
have left my house,

except for the
fact that the militia,

guys that were in
flat boats with AKs,

came and knocked on our
door and told me I had to

leave my house.

I didn't have
water in my house,

so it was not a
necessity for me to leave.

And since many
buildings are built at least

three feet off the ground,

a lot of the people
around here felt the same way.

-Water's lifted everything.

-We ain't going nowhere.

If we leave, our
people are in trouble.

[officer] You got to get out.

[Lynette Boutte] So we were
forced to leave the house and

walk an eighth of a mile
from the residence to what was

supposed to be a safe haven.

They sent us in a direction
where the water was deeper,

so my sister and I were
carrying kids and helping

these seniors who were with us.

Man, I don't think I
was more frightened about

anything than
walking in that water.

[Kevin Goodman] You
couldn't see under that so

you just really
walking on faith.

And my brother, he
kicked a stop sign because

he didn't see it
under the water.

So the, the pressure that
he was applying to, you know,

to be able to walk
through the water,

and then he, he kicked a
big gash in his leg almost,

like, almost two inches deep.

There wasn't
nothing he can do,

so he walk in the water
with a open wound.

The first thing I thought
about was we're in this dirty

water and then the
germs from the water.

That scared me
more than anything.

[Lynette Boutte] We were
just trying to find refuge

on higher ground.

[survivor] The safest thing
to do is take

that raft to the interstate.

[Lynette Boutte] And one
of the highest points in

this area was up on
the Interstate 10.

So that's where we headed.

[Kevin Goodman] And all you
can see is all the people just

coming toward the bridge,
you know, because the bridge

was really, like,
the safest place.

You know, my main focus
was to get the kids to safety,

you know, anywhere
where they had shelter,

where they can rest.

From where we was
at on the bridge,

you can kind of see the
Superdome, and the,

the Superdome was
swamped with people.

-They just kept bringing
more and more people

to the Superdome.

You see high water vehicles
with 100 people stacked into it,

bringing people to the
Superdome and dumping them off,

and people were
walking in the water,

coming to the Superdome as
if that was the savior place.

[Ed Bush] This was a
population who were coming to

the Superdome or being
brought to the Superdome

because there was
nowhere else for them to go.

Many times, I
would say unwilling.

They certainly didn't want
to come to the Superdome,

but there was,
it was desperation.

[Kevin Goodman] We didn't
know where we was going.

The military was running
people away from their houses,

like you had to go.

It didn't matter where
you went or whatever, like,

you had to go.

-We seen tens of thousands
of people on the bridge.

Eventually, they also
got to the Superdome.

Now, we three, four
times the number now.

-Peter, we don't
have nowhere to go.

My house is underwater.

I don't even have
another house to go to.

I don't even know
where my children at.

[Shelton Alexander] Seeing
people coming in rescued,

it was like, man,

something really bad is
going on on the outside,

because all you're
hearing is helicopters.

You're seeing people
getting dropped off.

At least they was out
of one bad situation.

[rescuer] They're
coming back for you.

-But they didn't know they
was coming to another hell.

-It's really, we're living
like dogs and pigs up in here.

We need help.