The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 5, Ed. 1 Friday, September 21, 2007 Page: 4 of 24
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THE RICE THRESHER NEWS FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 21,2007
Brinkley lectures on new book about Hurricane Katrina
by Joyce Yao
THRESHER STAFF
History Professor Douglas Brinkley
spoke on his latest book Tuesday at the
Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Having evacuated New Orleans during
the Hurricane Katrina crisis, Brinkley
combined his experiences and in-depth
reporting in The Great Deluge, which won
the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
Brinkley said he initially held no biases
regarding Federal Emergency Manage-
ment Agency or the Bush adnruistration.
This changed when he revisited New
Orleans after the hurricane.
"I passed corpses in the water," Brinkley
said. "I grew very frustrated about the re-
sponse at every level. Maybe I'm a romantic,
maybe I read too much on how successful
politicians are, but it seemed to me there
was a breakdown on every level."
Despite FEMA's successful response to
the hurricanes in Florida in 2004, and the
efforts of the US Coast Guard in Katrina,
which he lauded as a perfect, Brinkley
expressed his frustrations with the federal
government's response to Katrina.
"The question now is the preparation for
the next hurricane and where New Orleans
is at," Brinkley said. "Katrina was not 'the big
one.'It was a category three storm, and this
must be kept in mind when we think about
the future of New Orleans. The fundamental
problem has not been solved."
Brinkley observed that no changes had
been made since two years before, when
Katrina hit, except that evacuation might
be easier now that so many people have
left the city. He said New Orleans had
essentially been split into two: the above-
sea-level New Orleans and the below-sea
level New Orleans. The above-sea-level
New Orleans is doing relatively well in
the wake of the hurricane, but the gov-
ernment has yet to effectively deal with
the problems from the below-sea-level
areas of the city.
Brinkley also said the racial issue is too
'Maybe I'm a romantic,
maybe I read too much on
how successful politicians are,
but it seemed to me there was
a breakdown on every level.'
Douglas Brinkley,
History Professor
LAUREN SCHOEFRER/THRESHER
History Professor Douglas Brinkley talked about his new book about Hurricane Katrina in the Baker Institute for Public Policy Tuesday.
heavy and too volatile in overwhelmingly
black New Orleans for the president to
declare to the residents of below-sea-level
New Orleans that they can't come back.
"The policy is disingenuous," he said.
"There are no schools, no water, no elec-
tricity, no garbage service. If the federal
government isn't going to provide these
services it's disingenuous to tell people to
come home. People are very attached to
their neighborhood, particularly those in
the lower ninth ward."
Rather than facing the actual problem
of either tackling the issue of protecting
the below-sea-level regions of the city and
spending at minimum fifty to sixty billion
dollars and committing the United States
to the biggest public works project in the
history of the nation, or publicly abandoning
the city altogether, the federal government
is trying to avoid addressing the actual
problem, Brinkley said.
Brinkley cited several reasons for the
Bush administration's inconclusiveness
on this issue.
The reconstruction of New Orleans
would be no easy task. One of the main
issues was financial, Brinkley said.
"This is a federal problem," he said.
" [A cost of] fifty or sixty billion dollars could
easily mushroom up. It would be the biggest
public works project in U.S. history. It will
require huge engineering and will need to
be sold as a national mission."
Brinkley also said the United States was
probably not prepared to dole out such
budget-spending projects especially in
light of its current foreign policies fighting
terrorism around the globe.
"The good news is nothing's too late
in the big historical sense," Brinkley said.
"We're in the middle of Katrina now. People
will be looking back at how we responded
and it won't be determined by what we did
in 2005, what we did in 2006, what we did in
2007. 'Hie big question is how did America
deal with the sinking of New Orleans?"
'Hie upcoming presidential elections are
potentially decisive for the future of New
Orleans, Brinkley said.
Hanzsen College junior Mike Rown-
tree said hearing Brinkley speak about
his personal encounters with Katrina
shed light on the sheer magnitude of
the destruction at Katrina. "I didn't know
there was such a lack of interest in the
pursuing of policies," Rowntree said, "I
am also surprised at the level of inac-
tion among the presidential candidates
concerning this issue."
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Whitfield, Stephen. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 5, Ed. 1 Friday, September 21, 2007, newspaper, September 21, 2007; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443102/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.