The Secret Katrina Response
by Bill Shein
"The [White House] report provides
little detailed criticism of the performance of key
leaders in the response to Katrina ... At times, it
reads more like a recitation of history than a critical
overview of what went wrong."
— The NY Times on the Web, Feb. 23.
The White House Katrina Response
Aug. 26, 4:17 p.m. — With Hurricane
Katrina heading toward the Gulf Coast, Louisiana Gov.
Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency, but very
softly. In fact, she just mouths the words "state
of emergency," making no sound, while alone in her
office.
5:23 p.m. — President Bush, who
is a former fighter pilot, secretly flies a NASA aircraft
over the gathering storm. The plane is equipped with a
weather-control machine based on the work of Sir August
de Wynter, the evil villain played by Sean Connery in
the 1998 film, "The Avengers." Despite the president's
heroic efforts to steer Katrina out to sea, it continues
on track, the de Wynter device a failure. Frustrated but
undeterred, the president races back to Crawford, Texas,
to "clear brush" — the Secret Service
code word for "repair the weather-control machine."
Aug. 27, 10:17 a.m. — Gov. Haley
Barbour declares a state of emergency in Mississippi,
and Louisiana's Gov. Blanco calls on President Bush to
declare a federal state of emergency, which he does.
11:51 a.m. — The secretary of
homeland security, Michael Chertoff, disappears into a
Capitol Hill phone booth and emerges as "Levee Man,"
a superhero who can reinforce earthen barriers using only
the power of his mind. As he sets about strengthening
the levees protecting New Orleans, he is suddenly attacked
by his masked archenemy, "CatastroFee," rumored
to be a Washington lobbyist who represents companies that
could earn millions from Gulf Coast reconstruction. They
begin what will become the longest street fight in history.
Aug. 28, 9:30 a.m. — New Orleans
Mayor Ray Nagin issues his city's first-ever mandatory
evacuation order, telling the old, poor, infirm, and those
without cars to "swim for it."
11:45 a.m. — The battle between
Levee Man and CatastroFee enters its second day. The fight
moves to the sidewalk outside the Department of Homeland
Security, distracting many DHS and FEMA managers from
important disaster preparations.
Aug. 29, 10:05 a.m. — As Katrina
makes landfall, President Bush poses with Sen. John McCain
and a birthday cake. After the media depart, the president
jams his hand into the cake and pulls out a device used
to direct the emergency response of the federal government.
Tragically, the frosting used to write "Happy Birthday
Sen. McCain" interferes with the device's encrypted
microwave signal, making it useless.
10:06 a.m. — President Bush orders
the Justice Department to investigate the pastry chef
who created the McCain birthday cake for possible ties
to al-Qaida and French cooking schools.
7:00 p.m. — Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld attends a San Diego Padres baseball game.
Alerted to the approaching storm, he uses his BlackBerry
pager to activate the Pentagon's "WaterTron 5000,"
a giant flying robot that can remove billions of gallons
of water from a flooded city in minutes. However, because
of the ongoing BlackBerry patent-infringement case, the
activation signal goes astray.
9:17 p.m. — As the scope of the
impending disaster becomes clear, President Bush initiates
"Operation Body Double." After he is beamed,
"Star Trek"-style, directly to the White House
Situation Room, a Bush look-alike continues with the president's
schedule.
Aug. 30, 2:00 p.m. — Following
a speech about Iraq, "President Bush" meets
with CIA super-spy Mark Willis, known to the public as
merely a country-music star. Willis gives "the president"
a "guitar" crafted by the CIA that, when strummed,
causes hurricanes to reverse course. Inexplicably, it
does not work.
Sept. 1, 4:30 p.m. — As part of
the administration's multifaceted disaster-response strategy,
the president sends Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
to a fancy Manhattan shoe store where she spends a few
thousand dollars "to keep the economy moving during
this crisis."
Sept. 3, 3:47 p.m. — Weakened
by days of fighting with Levee Man/Chertoff, CatastroFee
is captured by a team of delinquent teens and their talking
dog. He is unmasked and revealed to be Michael Brown,
the director of FEMA. Brown yells, "Why, if it wasn't
for you meddling kids, I would have made millions!"
The pace of federal response increases dramatically.
Sept. 6, 1:00 p.m. — Unable to
reveal the classified details of the administration's
early response to Katrina, White House spokesman Scott
McClellan tells reporters, "The president doesn't
want to play the blame game."
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Bill Shein's superhero powers remain classified.
(This column originally appeared in the Berkshire
Eagle newspaper on February 26, 2006. Join a discussion
about this column in Bill's blog.
And read Bill's previous column, "My
Dinner with Jack").
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