Decision Points

Unlike 1927, no levee had been dynamited in 2005. But the horrific impact on the people in the flood’s path was the same.
    When I got back to the White House that evening, Andy Card met me in the Oval Office. He and White House Counsel Harriet Miers had spent the day—and the previous night—working with the lawyers and the Pentagon on a way to get federal troops into Louisiana. They had come up with an interesting proposal: A three-star general would command all military forces in Louisiana. On matters concerning the active-duty forces, he would report to me. On matters concerning the Guard, he would report to Governor Blanco. This dual-hat structure gave the federal government what we needed—a clear chain of command and active-duty troops to secure the city—while accommodating the governor’s concerns. Andy faxed her a letter outlining the arrangement just before midnight.
    The next morning, Day Six, a call from Baton Rouge came in to the White House. The governor had declined.
    I was exasperated. I had spent three days trying to persuade the governor. It had been a waste of time. At 10:00 a.m., I stepped into the Rose Garden to announce the deployment of more than seven thousand active-duty troops to New Orleans —without law enforcement powers. I was anxious about the situation. If they got caught in a crossfire, it would be my fault. But I decided that sending troops with diminished authority was better than not sending them at all.
    The commander of Joint Task Force Katrina was a six-foot-two, no-nonsense general known as the Ragin’ Cajun. A descendant of Creole ancestors from southern Louisiana, General Russ Honoré had lived through many hurricanes and knew the people of the Gulf Coast well.
    General Honoré brought exactly what the situation required: common sense, good communication skills, and an ability to make decisions. He quickly earned the trust of elected officials, National Guard commanders, and local police chiefs. When a unit of Guard and police forces tried to enter the Convention Center to make a food delivery with their guns drawn, Honoré was caught on camera yelling, “Weapons down, damn it!” The general came up with a perfect motto to describe his approach: “Don’t get stuck on stupid.”

    With General Russ Honoré.
White House/Eric Draper
    While we couldn’t federalize the response by law, General Honoré effectively did so with his strong will and force of personality. Mayor Nagin summed him up as a “John Wayne dude … who came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving.”Had I known he could be so effective without the authority I assumed he needed, I would have cut off the legal debate and sent troops in without law enforcement powers several days sooner.

    On Monday, September 5, Day Eight, I made my second trip to the Gulf Coast. General Honoré met me in Baton Rouge and briefed me on the response. Search-and-rescue operations were almost complete. The Superdome and Convention Center had been evacuated. Water was being pumped out of the city. Most important, our troops had restored order without firing a shot.
    Laura and I visited an evacuee center run by a church called the Bethany World Prayer Center. Hundreds of people, including many from the Superdome, were spread across a gymnasium floor on mats. Most looked dazed and exhausted. One girl cried as she said, “I can’t find my mother.” My friend T.D. Jakes , a Dallas pastor who had joined us for the visit, prayed for their comfort and well-being. T.D. is the kind of man who puts his faith into action. He told me members of his church had welcomed twenty victims of Katrina into their homes.
    There were similar examples of compassion across the Gulf Coast. For all the depressing aspects of the Katrina aftermath, these stories stand out as shining examples of the American character. Southern Baptists set up a mobile kitchen to feed tens of thousands of hungry people. New York City firefighters drove down in a truck the New Orleans Fire Department had loaned them after 9/11. Volunteers from the American Red Cross and Salvation Army set up twenty-four-hour-a-day centers to help disaster victims get assistance. Every state in the country took in evacuees. The city of Houston alone welcomed two hundred fifty thousand. The evacuation went down as the largest movement of Americans since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
    To lead private-sector fundraising for Katrina victims, I had