Reply #2: More excerpts... [View All]

[Be Brave]

Ms. Landrieu knew how reluctant people could be to leave. This was the first time her own father had ever left during a hurricane. She said in an interview that she knew instantly that thousands who thought they had survived the storm would now be trapped in their houses, racing the rising floodwaters to their second floors, or to their attics or rooftops.

But she and other local officials suddenly faced a new problem: convincing federal officials that just one break in one canal with such a mundane name could bring on a cataclysm.

"I have been with Michael Brown since the minute he landed in this center," Ms. Landrieu said Friday in Baton Rouge, referring to the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, "and I have been telling him from the moment he arrived about the urgency of the situation."

But, she said, "I just have to tell you that he had a difficult time understanding the enormity of the task before us."

Natalie Rule, a spokeswoman for FEMA, disputed Ms. Landrieu's account. "There was no doubt in our minds that a Category 3, 4 or 5 headed for New Orleans was going to be dangerous," Ms. Rule said. She said agency officials told state and local leaders: "We will be there for you. You just go for it. We've got your back."

But if they did, no one knew it. And as the flood-control system broke down, so soon did everything else.

There was no immediate announcement that the levee had been breeched or what it meant, but different people realized at different times that maybe the bullet had not been dodged, after all. The prestorm evacuation, as chaotic as it seemed to anyone stuck on the road, was still part of a plan. Now , a whole new ad hoc stage began.