Wampum

Made for TV

I'm still searching for the exact wording through NPR's transcript (supposedly available online by 5pm the same day), but I'm willing to paraphrase, as my memory of the event is so great.

This morning, while bustling around the trailer with Vermont Public Radio filtering through the air, a clip of George W. Bush was played, where he asserted that "no one ever imagined the levies would be breached." My shock was so great, I actually turned to Eric, dumbfounded, and asked whether he really said what I'd just heard him say.

See, a few days before the hurricane struck, as it loomed off the coast, growing in intensity and eyeing New Orleans, we sat at our dinner table and tried to explain the situation to Grace, our very intelligent almost nine-year old. We spoke of global warming and more intense hurricanes, but in particular, we spoke of the vulnerability of New Orleans, due to it's dependence on levies keeping out the Gulf, the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. We easily imagined the levies could be breached - so why couldn't Bush?

To be honest, my own ability to visualize the impending disaster was greatly influenced by a made-for-TV movie, The Fire Next Time (no, not to be confused with the late, great Baldwin novel of the same name.) In the Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia thriller, the city of New Orleans is targeted by a category 5 hurricane, which threatens (and makes good on said threat) to flatten the Big Easy. The movie goes into some depth about the problems with NOLA, namely it's dependence on levies and pumps. Even a big flood gate (this is 2017) cannot keep out the super-hurricane.

So if Hollywood had no problem imagining that New Orleans' levies were vulnerable way back in 1993, even before global warming became an everyday term, who failed to send W a clue? I understand he doesn't read newspapers...but to forgo the ABC Movie of the Week? Talk about not being in touch with everyday Americans.

Posted by MB Williams at September 1, 2005 09:15 PM