TIMELINE TO DISASTER

by Farhad Manjoo, Page Rockwell and Aaron Kinney

From top: Flooding in New Orleans, Aug. 29; President Bush embraces Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco as FEMA director Michael Brown looks on, Sept. 2; flood victims wait at the New Orleans Convention Center, Sept. 1

Salon's hour-by-hour account of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history -- and how our government failed.

Sept. 15, 2005  |  On Aug. 23, the National Hurricane Center in Miami discovered a "disturbed" weather pattern forming off the southeastern coast of the Bahamas. Initially the weather system was dubbed a tropical storm, but it was quickly upgraded to a hurricane, one that sucker-punched south Florida. People there barely had enough time to learn its name -- Katrina -- before it slammed into the coast on Aug. 25, killing 11. "Where did this thing come from?" one incredulous Keys resident asked a local newspaper.

After the hurricane moved past Florida into the Gulf of Mexico, it gathered strength. As officials tracked its direction and assessed its power, they knew that it posed a catastrophic threat to the Gulf Coast and to New Orleans. This situation could not possibly have come as a surprise. Officials had known for years that a major hurricane could devastate the region. Yet both before it made landfall and after it struck, the response at every level, but particularly the federal, was shockingly inadequate.

Over the coming months and weeks, investigations by the media, lawmakers and independent experts will try to discover why the reaction to Katrina went as badly as it did. This timeline does not pretend to provide comprehensive answers. It aims only to lay out some of the crucial decisions and events during the critical time period.

Much about the response to Katrina still remains shrouded in the fog of disaster. But several important themes emerge in this timeline.

Every level of government failed, to one degree or another, in the aftermath of Katrina. But the lion's share of the blame must go to the highest level, the one that has ultimate responsibility: the federal government. Federal disaster planning was woefully inadequate: Command and control, essential to all disaster response, proved abysmal, and red tape snarled and slowed the response. When Katrina hit, federal officials were unconscionably ignorant of crucial developments, perfunctory and slow in their response, and unable or unwilling to take responsibility and make executive decisions.

On Sunday, Aug. 28, the day before the storm made landfall, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, and Michael Brown, then the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were briefed by the Hurricane Center on the possibility that Katrina would overwhelm New Orleans' levees. Although the levees failed on Monday, Chertoff and Brown did not apparently learn of the disaster until Tuesday. By Wednesday, the storm response had become a televised disaster, yet Chertoff, Brown and Bush did not seem to comprehend how badly the federal government had failed until at least Thursday evening or Friday morning (when Bush's aides showed him a homemade DVD of disaster footage so that he could understand what had happened).

Kathleen Blanco, Louisiana's Democratic governor, was also far from blameless. While the federal mistakes seem born out of neglect, failure to plan and outright incompetence, most of Blanco's errors stem from her apparent inability to understand the technical aspects of managing a disaster -- cutting through all the red tape.

But if Blanco failed to cut through red tape, that still leaves the question why the red tape was there in the first place. In a disaster, provision should be made in advance for bypassing the jurisdictional issues and regulations that plagued the response to Katrina. Such planning is ultimately a federal responsibility. The Bush administration in general, and FEMA in particular, simply failed to plan for the chaos that would follow a disaster of this magnitude. That is a fundamental failure of governance, and it is inexcusable.

While officials dithered and squabbled, while they issued increasingly unbelievable promises of aid being on the way, the people of New Orleans were left to suffer and, in many cases, to die. The timeline tells of their desperate straits, and how, under the spotlight of television cameras yet somehow hidden from officials, things went from bad to worse.

Salon produced the following timeline of the events through Tuesday, Sept. 13, focusing on the period between Friday, Aug. 26, and Saturday, Sept. 3, after an extensive (but obviously far from comprehensive) examination of the public record. We looked at news stories, TV interviews, public proclamations and blog posts, and we conducted interviews with the officials involved. We're especially indebted to the work done by Think Progress, Josh Marshall's readers, the anonymous hordes who power Wikipedia, and reporters who assembled timelines for newspapers and wire services.

We also welcome input from Salon readers. If you know of incidents -- or your own personal stories -- that you think ought to be included here, please let us know at katrinatimeline@salon.com.

Friday, Aug. 26

11:30 a.m. The National Hurricane Center issues a bulletin announcing that Hurricane Katrina is a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. According to the bulletin, Katrina is "rapidly strengthening" as it moves west and "could become a category three or major hurricane on Saturday."

5 p.m. Gov. Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency for the state of Louisiana, effective until Sunday, Sept. 25. "We are in the strike zone," she tells CNN.

The governor's deputy press secretary, Roderick Hawkins, says the declaration "puts us on standby just in case we need to mobilize the National Guard." The announcement activates the state's emergency response and recovery program -- which supports the evacuation of coastal areas as well as implements the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan -- and launches preparations for providing emergency support services when the storm hits.

Sometime on Friday, there is a discussion among FEMA officials about evacuating people in New Orleans who don't have cars. "We should be getting buses and getting people out of there," a FEMA employee named Leo V. Bosner will later tell the New York Times. But the discussions appear to go nowhere. Bosner will say: "We, as staff members at the agency, felt helpless. We knew that major steps needed to be taken fast, but, for whatever reasons, they were not taken." The question of buses -- where they are and who will drive them -- will ring out at every level of government over the next few days, with little resolution until late in the week.

Saturday, Aug. 27

5 a.m. The National Hurricane Center announces that Hurricane Katrina has become "a major hurricane," reaching Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with wind speeds of 115 mph. "Some strengthening is forecast in the next 24 hours," it says. Katrina is moving west, but "a gradual turn toward the west-northwest is expected during the next 24 hours."

Morning: In his weekly radio address, President Bush talks about Israel, Iraq and the greater Middle East. He does not mention Hurricane Katrina.

St. Charles Paris, to the west of New Orleans, orders a mandatory evacuation, while New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin urges officials in Jefferson Paris, also to the west of New Orleans, to follow the state evacuation plan. Jefferson Parish officials later order a mandatory evacuation for low-lying areas, while Plaquemines Paris issues a call for a full mandatory evacuation.

In a letter, Gov. Blanco asks President Bush to declare a federal state of emergency for Louisiana. The governor writes: "I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments, and that supplementary federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster."

Blanco estimates that the federal services -- operating emergency shelters, evacuating coastal areas and performing search and rescue missions -- will total $9 million. Meanwhile, Gov. Haley Barbour declares a state of emergency for Mississippi.

Bush grants Blanco's request.  The federal emergency declaration authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate hurricane relief efforts. "Specifically," the president's declaration states, "FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent federal funding."

4 p.m. As part of Louisiana's evacuation procedure, state police set up "contraflow" on the state's highways, allowing traffic to move away from New Orleans on both sides of Interstate Highways 55, 59 and 10. The Louisiana National Guard begins pre-positioning equipment, personnel and supplies to areas near the coast, Lt. Col. Pete Schneider tells CNN.

5 p.m. In a joint news conference with Blanco, Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary evacuation of New Orleans. "This is not a test," he says. "This is the real deal."

Nagin says the Superdome will be available beginning Sunday morning as a refuge of last resort for those who can't get out of the city. He urges residents in low-lying areas of the city, such as Algiers and the 9th Ward, to begin evacuating. He says that he will wait until 30 hours before expected landfall of Katrina to issue an official order, as state guidelines recommend, but "we want you to take this a little more seriously and start moving -- right now, as a matter of fact."

8:30 p.m. Amtrak runs its last train out of New Orleans. The rail line had offered the city the train -- which had room for hundreds -- to use for evacuating people. But the city did not take Amtrak up on the offer, and the train leaves the station without any passengers.

By Saturday evening the mayor's legal staff is looking into "whether he can order a mandatory evacuation of the city, a step he's been hesitant to do because of potential liability on the part of the city for closing hotels and other businesses," according to the Times-Picayune. The paper also reports that on Saturday night Nagin tells local station WWL-TV, "Come the first break of light in the morning, you may have the first mandatory evacuation of New Orleans."

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, calls Mayor Nagin, Gov. Blanco and Gov. Barbour to reiterate the dangers posed by the storm. "I just wanted to be able to go to sleep that night knowing that I did all I could do," Mayfield says.

Sunday, Aug. 28

1 a.m. The National Hurricane Center announces that Hurricane Katrina has reached Category 4 and continues to move west-northwest, with a gradual turn to the northwest and possible strengthening expected later in the day.

8 a.m. The hurricane center upgrades Katrina to Category 5, the highest possible rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Its report concludes: "Katrina is expected to be a devastating Category 4 or 5 at landfall."

9:30 a.m. New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Blanco hold a press conference to announce the first-ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. President Bush called Blanco at about 9 a.m. to discuss preparations for the storm and to encourage an evacuation. "I wish I had better news," Nagin says, "but we're facing the storm most of us have feared."

11 a.m. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, holds a teleconference with officials at FEMA headquarters. FEMA director Michael Brown and Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff listen in on the briefings, according to the Times-Picayune and the Los Angeles Times. The information provided in the briefing is to be part of FEMA's daily briefings for President Bush.

Katrina Advisory No. 23, issued at 10 a.m., is the focus of Mayfield's message to FEMA, according to Frank Lepore, a public affairs officer with the hurricane center. The advisory -- titled "Potentially catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, even stronger, headed for Gulf Coast" -- says the hurricane, now Category 5, is expected to hit within 24 hours and that "preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion." The warning includes reports from an Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicating that maximum sustained winds have reached nearly 175 mph. It predicts that a coastal storm surge of 18 to 22 feet above normal tide levels -- "locally as high as 28 feet, along with large and dangerous battering waves" -- will occur "near and to the east of where the center makes landfall."

Mayfield's briefing to FEMA includes "warnings that Katrina's storm surge could overtop New Orleans' levees," the L.A. Times will report. "We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfeld will tell the Times-Picayune. "It's not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped." (Katrina Advisory No. 24, issued at 4 p.m. Sunday, mentions that possibility in the paragraph that begins "Coast storm surge flooding...")

11:31 a.m. President Bush gives a televised address from his estate in Crawford, Texas. The president devotes about one-fourth of the speech to Hurricane Katrina before talking about the Iraqi constitution. Bush says he has spoken with Blanco earlier in the morning, as well as the governors of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.

Regarding the evacuation, Bush says: "We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities. I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground. Please listen carefully to instructions provided by state and local officials."

Throughout the day: Because between 35 and 40 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is on duty in Iraq, Gov. Blanco has fewer than 6,000 troops available for responding to Katrina. Over the weekend, she activates about 3,500 of them; by Monday, about 5,700 are ready.

Realizing that the Louisiana National Guard is thinned by deployments in Iraq, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offers to send his own state Guard troops, an offer that Blanco accepts. But in order to send the troops, Blanco must issue a formal request to the National Guard Bureau in Washington; according to the Boston Globe, she makes that request on Tuesday. New Mexico's troops arrive only at the end of the week. It's unclear why Blanco's formal request comes so late; state officials will later tell reporters that the governor's office, overwhelmed in the first days of the storm, had trouble dealing with the legal complexities -- red tape -- required to bring in a national response. Because of the legal difficulties Blanco encounters in trying to bring in other troops, Guard units from other states just trickle in.

Red tape appears to stand in the way of another critical issue on Sunday: evacuations. The Louisiana National Guard requests 700 buses from FEMA to evacuate people on the coast but receives only 100, again according to the Boston Globe. It's unclear why FEMA gave the Guard so few buses. A FEMA official later told the New York Times that it didn't offer Louisiana more buses because the state issued a formal request for buses only on Wednesday. In fact, state officials requested buses all through the week. It's unclear if they were asking in the right way. The state has not to date returned calls from Salon on this or any other matter.

Bush also declares a federal state of emergency for Mississippi. Gov. Blanco sends a second letter to President Bush, increasing the request for federal emergency assistance to $130 million.

The Pentagon establishes Joint Task Force Katrina to coordinate the military response to the hurricane. The JTF's headquarters are in Mississippi, and Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré is put in command.

At around noon, the Regional Transit Authority begins to send buses to 12 locations throughout New Orleans to transport people to the Superdome, one of 10 shelters operating in the city. About 550 members of the Louisiana National Guard provide security and distribute food and water at the Superdome, while the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary makes preparations to assist the Coast Guard in rescue operations once the storm passes.

4:13 p.m. The National Hurricane Center issues a stark warning titled "Extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina continues to approach the Mississippi River Delta; devastating damage expected."

The report says: "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure ... The majority of industrial buildings will become non-functional. Partial to complete wall and roof failure expected. All wood framed low-rising apartment buildings will be destroyed. Concrete block low-rise apartments will sustain major damage, including some wall and roof failure. High-rise office and apartment buildings will sway dangerously, a few to the point of total collapse. All windows will blow out.

"Airborne debris will be widespread and may include heavy items such as household appliances and even light vehicles. Sport utility vehicles and light trucks will be moved. The blown debris will create additional destruction. Persons, pets and livestock exposed to the winds will face certain death if struck.

"Power outages will last for weeks, as most power poles will be down and transformers destroyed. Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."

6 p.m. As a curfew is imposed on the city of New Orleans, Molly's at the Market, a French Quarter bar known for ignoring hurricane warnings, closes its doors. "When they close, you know it's bad," says Bourbon Street resident Tip Andrews. "They never board up."

By Sunday night, approximately 25,000 people have gathered at the Superdome. The Louisiana National Guard has stocked the arena with three trucks of water and seven trucks of meals ready to eat, enough for 15,000 people for three days, a Guard spokesman tells the Times-Picaynue.

11:14 p.m. A New Orleans blogger named Kenneth Greelee, watching satellite images of the storm from his evacuation point in Galveston, Texas, writes: "There is a Schrödinger's Cat quality to watching the spinning red ball: does the New Orleans that I know even exist right now, hours before landfall?"

Monday, Aug. 29

6 a.m. Hurricane Katrina makes landfall at Buras, La., a bayou town 70 miles southeast of New Orleans. The storm, which had previously been heading directly toward New Orleans with wind speeds of 175 mph, appears to have granted the city a last-minute reprieve, relaxing to 145-mph and veering slightly to the east. In photographs, Buras appears to be completely destroyed.

Over the next few hours, strong winds and rain pummel New Orleans, and tidal surges cause flooding in some parts. At 8:14, the National Weather Service issues a warning that a levee along the Industrial Canal -- which holds back water from the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish, on the city's east -- had been breached, and that 8 to 10 feet of flooding is expected. Mayor Nagin tells a local radio station that water is overwhelming the pump and levee system in the city's 9th Ward, and that some people may be stranded on their rooftops. Two large metal plates fly off the roof of the the Superdome, allowing rainwater to drip in. The Dome, where 25,000 people are holed up, loses electricity at around dawn; it runs on generator power, with lights dimmed and the air conditioning off.

In an interview with CBS's "Early Show" just as the storm hits, FEMA director Brown says he's pleased with how city and state officials have prepared for the hurricane, and he promises aid will soon flow into affected areas. "I started jamming up those supply lines as fast and as downward as I could to be ready to respond to anything these governors might need," Brown says.

Louisiana Gov. Blanco, also on "The Early Show," sounds satisfied with federal efforts. Bush's declaration of a federal emergency "allowed FEMA to come in here early," Blanco says. "We've set the stage for a lot of help for evacuation help, and the federal government is standing by. The president called. He was very supportive of our efforts. He was encouraging evacuation. He was very concerned. We appreciate his concern." In another interview on NBC, Blanco says, "I believe the water has breached the levee system, and is -- is coming in," but does not suggest that New Orleans is facing possible doom. It's unclear exactly what Blanco knew about the situation with the levees, but levees breaching had long been the nightmare scenario, warned about for many years by experts.

Neither does any federal official, including anyone at FEMA, express any concern about the levees.

9 a.m. Katrina's eye passes to the east of New Orleans. Wind speeds are estimated at 135 mph, and the storm is heading out of town -- toward the Mississippi coast -- at a rate of about 15 mph.

In New Orleans, flooding is reported in several places. The Times-Picayune -- providing continuous updates on its blog -- says that water has risen to over 6 feet in some parts of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes. The city's telephone and electric grids are failing.

10:15 a.m. Mayor Nagin tells the "Today" show that his city is "still not out of the woods as it relates to that worst-case scenario," but that overall, "it looks as though everyone is pretty safe here -- so just stay tuned to all the news reports and I'm sure that we're going to get through this OK." Nagin also says that the city has enough provisions for people to stay in the Superdome for "four to five days. And then if it has to extend beyond that, we're going to -- we're basically counting on the federal government to supply us with what we need."

11 a.m. FEMA director Brown arrives in Baton Rouge. It's around this time -- five hours after the storm hits the coast -- that Brown sends out his first alert to the Department of Homeland Security requesting extra personnel. The memo, to DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, does not express much urgency: Brown asks for 1,000 DHS staffers to come to disaster areas within two days, and 2,000 within seven days.

Noon: At a town hall meeting at the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort and Country Club in El Mirage, Ariz., President Bush says: "Our Gulf Coast is getting hit and hit hard. I want the folks there on the Gulf Coast to know that the federal government is prepared to help you when the storm passes. I want to thank the governors of the affected regions for mobilizing assets prior to the arrival of the storm to help citizens avoid this devastating storm ... When the storm passes, the federal government has got assets and resources that we'll be deploying to help you. In the meantime, America will pray -- pray for the health and safety of all our citizens." Bush also mentions that he phoned DHS secretary Chertoff that morning -- but the topic wasn't the hurricane, it was illegal aliens.

The White House declares disaster areas in the affected regions of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These declarations constitute a legal promise of financial aid to local governments: "For a period of up to 72 hours, Federal funding is available at 100 percent of the total eligible costs for emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance," the White House says.

Meanwhile in Louisiana, it becomes clear to officials in St. Bernard Parish that the breach in the Industrial Canal levee is serious. The area floods almost immediately. Henry Rodriguez, the president of the parish, will later tell NPR, "It came up so fast, in about, I'd say, 30 minutes, we had eight feet of water on our first floor." On its Web site -- in urgent red -- the parish reports, "Estimated 40,000 Homes are flooded."

2 p.m. The city confirms that another levee -- this one along the 17th Street Canal, on the northwest side of the city -- has failed. There are reports of flooding in the nearby Lakeview neighborhood. It's unclear when two levees along the London Avenue canal -- the final two levees in the city to fail -- actually succumb. Al Naomi, who manages New Orleans' levees for the Army Corps of Engineers, later tells the Times-Picayune that these two also probably fail sometime on Monday morning, meaning that by the time the storm leaves the city, New Orleans' critical levees have already been breached.

Around 3 p.m. The storm subsides in the city, and it's difficult for residents, as well as the media, to assess how New Orleans has held up. Damage caused by the high winds -- broken windows, downed trees and power lines, overturned cars -- is widespread. Yet compared to what some officials and experts had been predicting -- "Armageddon," as one meteorologist had told the New York Times -- parts of the city, especially those of most interest to the media, appear to have come through the storm unscathed. The French Quarter, for instance, looks fine. Some people there gather outside bars to take in the breezy, beautiful weather.

But officials monitoring the levees realize that disaster is about to strike. The Army Corp's Al Naomi calls the state emergency headquarters in Baton Rouge to inform officials of a catastrophic situation in the city. Water from the increasingly large breach in the levee at the 17th Street Canal -- it ended up being 200 feet wide -- is pouring out, flooding the city center. It is this breach that will inundate the city of New Orleans over the next day, eventually making it part of Lake Pontchartrain. But for reasons that aren't known, state officials do not heed his warning. Nobody sounds the alarm that the city may soon be flooded. Indeed, Mary Landrieu, Louisiana's Democratic senator, will later tell Newsweek that the mood in the state's headquarters wasn't one of panic. "We were saying, 'Thank you, God,' because the experts were telling the governor it could have been even worse."

Meanwhile, communications failures hamper rescue and relief efforts. Radio channels are overwhelmed, cellphone networks are down, and police, fire and rescue workers are often unable to communicate with each other.

By Monday evening, neither federal nor state officials appear to have registered the scale of the disaster. After a second Medicare speech in California, President Bush makes no public statement on what's happened in New Orleans. But he talks on the phone with Gov. Blanco, who said, "Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you've got."

Later, Blanco will be faulted for not specifying what exactly she needs -- active-duty troops, who would be under the president's command, or more National Guard troops, whom she would direct. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," Newsweek will quote a state official as saying. Blanco's vague request will prove to be a key part of a struggle between federal and state officials as the week progresses, one that contributes to the inadequate response.

But if Blanco is vague, Bush is uninterested. Also from Newsweek: "There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president ... went to bed."

On television, Blanco and FEMA director Brown say they're concerned about flooding, but both seem to be referring to the early flooding in the city's east, not the flooding of the west and central areas caused by the massive breach in the 17th Street Canal. Brown reports that his aid teams are moving aid into the city, and Blanco tells about Coast Guard rescues of people stranded on rooftops. Neither one discusses looting, which has begun in some parts of the city.

It's unclear whether either of them knows or understands the disaster posed by the breached levees. Communications on the ground are inadequate and the media was erratic and at times erroneous in its reporting on the levees. On TV, neither mentions that New Orleans -- where waters are rising by a foot per hour in some parts -- will soon be inundated.

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