"What it most looks like is the storm water that is present in New Orleans every time it rains," said John H. Pardue, an environmental engineer at Louisiana State University, who headed the team whose research was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. "We still don't think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."Other than the location, and the fact that it was all Adolf O'Bushiburton's fault, I wonder what the news got right on this story?
Oh yeah, oops. I must be wrong, Dan Rather thinks it was great: "It's been one of television news' finest moments," Rather said. "They were willing to speak truth to power."
Keep up the great work.
2 comments:
The media actually did a fantastic job in Katrina. They investigated the urban legends that people from Bush to Mayor Nagin passed off.
It was the media that uncovered the fact there were no murders at the Superdome and no shots fired at helicopters -- things FEMA boss Mike Brownie used as excuses for his slow response.
And the fact that water now is not as toxic as it was during the flood is not an error. Tests at the time showed water samples to be highly toxic.
But the media also pointed out at the time that sunlight would kill bacteria in the open.
It's the stuff inside houses that is still problem.
The media didn't "uncover" it. The report came from the troops that saw there just weren't the bodies claimed in the Superdome. It was not an investigative report of a journalist.
Mike Brown didn't use those shots as an an excuse, but the reports of it did keep people from getting in, because there was believed to be an increased need for security.
And the FEMA response was not slow. It may have felt slow, because the local response was nonexistant, but compare it to Andrew, or Charley, and be objective about it.
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