Doomed to Fail - Ep 260: Hurricane Katrina - 21 years later

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Let's talk about one of the worst disasters in American history - Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We'll learn what a hurricane IS, how it affected the New Orleans area, and how massive oversight and poor planning caused thousands of deaths.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail]

In the matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortlandall James Simpson, case number B.A. 019. And so, my fellow Americans. And what you are. Hey, Taylor, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I just was like, everybody on is he's asking me that question. I'm good.

Good. I did it. You know what? It's my fault because usually I start with, boom. Taylor, how are you? I did it. I just said, hey, Taylor, how are you? The people expect that.

And that boom really, really wakes me up. It's like the opposite of the Dan Carlin. and boom at the end of his show. Right. Right. It is the start of something big. Not the end of something big. Right.

It's the start of something big. Well, thanks for hopping on for an impromptu reporting session with our 3D printed octopus that you created for me for my birthday that you also have for yourself. I have so, I mean, obviously, you know this, but just so much 3D printed stuff. It has been so fun. I believe it. I'm glad you like the stuff I sent you. And Rachel also really liked her cat from... Oh, good. It's Princess Donut.

There you go. And you have something relevant to the book, Galleries. Cool. Well, do you want to go ahead and introduce us? I do. Hello, everyone. Welcome to doomed to fail. We bring you historical disasters and failures. And I am Taylor joined by Fars. Yes. We are joining you today for a tale that... Taylor, that's too many tease. It's a... Taylor story. It is. And again, like with your last one, we're trying to do like big,

famous disaster so that people, to hook people in and then you can go back and look at some of the old ones. So you already know what I'm going to do this time. And I, oh my God, and I slacked you on Friday that I was at my desk crying watching a documentary about this. So Florence came home and you're okay. And I was like, no. So like tears running down my face. In hindsight, I probably should have done this one. But Yeah, no, it's a lot. So I'm going to do Hurricane Katrina. And I just, like I wrote, I knew this was sad, but man, it's sad.

You know, just fucking the things. And I feel like every time I see a natural disaster, when people, like, lose everything, it reminds me that everything you own is garbage. So use your stuff, you know, like, don't save your candles for a special occasion. Just, like, use your nice things, you know. Like, do things. Enjoy your life. because you don't know what's going to happen, you know.

I do have one actual nice bottle of wine that has just been sitting in my cupboard for about six years at this point. I have my expensive bottle of champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Like the one you just opened? Yeah, no, this is just like the Walmart, W. Walmart. But I was drinking this yesterday. I'm going to finish it today, so I don't drink it, I don't know, during the day tomorrow. So anyway, use your nice stuff. I'm going to talk.

And also, there's like my, one of my friends, her daughter is in just went to college, her freshman year. She just went to Reno like this week to like get her dorm and get set up. And she already had to evacuate for a natural disaster. There is a wildfire in Reno. And they are like closing schools and all the things. That's scary. That's rough. Yeah.

One one cat bit before you start, just for context, because we said this in like previous episodes where they did an episode that was Katrina related having to do with Memorial Hospital. I don't remember exactly which episode number that was. It was probably four or five episodes ago. Yeah. And the thing that Taylor and I spoke about during that episode was I was of an age where all I really understood. is levees broke, New Orleans was flooded, the Superdome was like part of the safe haven. Like, but like there's so much granularity behind that.

I don't actually truly know what a levy is or what it breaking it means. So there's a lot to like dig into for this topic, but I'm sure you're going to do. I am. I'm not 100% sure if after this you could like build the levy after what I'm going to tell you what it is. I think you're like the general idea. That's good enough. Okay.

So I'm going to talk about Hurricane Katrina from 2005 and specifically, obviously, New Orleans. And I'll say this again, but it affected a lot of different states and cities in, in like the southern United States. And just about like the United States in general, there is no place that is safe from a natural disaster, but they vary depending on where you are. You know, like I'm in California. We have earthquakes and wildfires. There's tornadoes, severe drought, hurricanes, wildfires, all kinds of things that can happen. And the place that we're looking at where mostly it's hit by hurricanes is like the coastal places, the highest risk areas are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. And they also can go up the Atlantic coast.

So I live in New York City for a long time. We had to move our wedding reception because there was a hurricane. So there's debt. And then like, do you remember the 2012 election where there's a hurricane in the middle of it? I don't. So I worked in Pennsylvania during that time. And I was staying with a woman and we were both working to get people knocking on doors. And we had to stay inside for like two days. And it was a like, it was definitely like a hurricane. Like her stuff in her backyard blew all over the place. We were like, luckily by the time it was election day, it was okay. But I don't know what, I don't know what if anything would have been done. know because I do now recall that you I do now recall that you worked from it Romney yes I did I didn't I did not just absolutely not I did not but in hindsight whatever so that's where that's where hurricanes hit you need to make a hurricane you need warm tropical ocean water because the water

the moist air rises, air pressure underneath it drops, and then more air rushes to that pressure area. And then do you know why a hurricane spins? I have no idea. It's because of the way the Earth rotates. I don't know. That doesn't be any sense to me. Like the moon and tides.

Like because the Earth is rotating while it's happening, it's like making it spin. It's, I can't even know. That concept seems so abstract. I can't explain to you any further than that. So you just can't have to trust me. That's fine. I wouldn't understand that if he probably did.

So in that storm, the storm that is going and spinning, once the wind hits 74 miles per hour, it is a hurricane. So a hurricane is a tropical cyclone. And I didn't know this, just some semantics. So a tropical cyclone is the storm. The name hurricane is regional to like North America and then other parts of the world. You might hear the word typhoon, but it's the same thing. So, I don't know, I hadn't realized that they were the same thing. So they can get really, really bad.

In the 1940s, the weather service folks in the United States started naming hurricanes after their sweethearts, which is hilarious. That's why they had lady names for such a long time. Then they were like, we should actually do something a little bit more, like official. So they tried to do the like the military alphabet, like alpha, like alpha, whatever, but that's boring. So now they just name them after. It's just like a bunch of different names. So like male or female or whatever, they name them.

There are a whole set of names that are retired. Because if it's like Hurricane Farrs and like whatever it rains and everything's fine, then like they'll use it again when it, you know, they can use it again. But if it's Hurricane Fars and a lot of people die, then they're never going to use that again. So they will never be another Hurricane Katrina or an Irene or Maria. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of them that they won't ever use again. But it's people names.

I read a book called The Great Deluge. It's long. I couldn't find the full audio version, literally anywhere. But I read the abridged version, so I got like the main idea from that. I mean, it was six hours long. It wasn't like nothing. I read that abridge version. So for reference, when we talked about it in the Memorial Medical episode,

we mentioned that from what we understood that a lot of it wasn't the hurricane. it was the stuff that happened after. It was like the most devastating. And so after Katrina hits, so I'll tell you more, but after it hits, there's news reports where they're like, everything's fine, and they're standing in the French quarter and the business districts that everybody knows that New Orleans looks like. So in those places, the news is there, and they're like, everything looks okay. We got through this.

Like, it was rough, but like, we're fine. And as they're doing that, the lower 9th ward is starting to flood because the levees are breaking. So let me tell you how we get how we get there. So New Orleans is, as we also said before, basically below sea level. So if you're like on the beach, you're at sea level and then like it goes out, you go up and down. But they are below sea level based on how the city was built. So it was like built with like landfills and like filling in the land and like, you know, kind of like moving further and further out into the water. And they did that by like filling swamp land.

and like filling up beaches and building on those things. The way that it sits is it's between like a lake and a river and a lot of like bodies of water. It is like, and I'm going to use my hands, so apologies to everyone, it is like a bowl, a saucer inside a bowl of water. So if you took a bowl of water and you put it in your bathtub and you push it all the way down to like the edges of the water hit the edges of the bowl but the water doesn't go over yet, those are the levees. That is New Orleans.

Does that make sense? That is a really, really nice way to describe it. Yeah. I feel like once I got that in my head, I was like, okay, that's how you can be below sea level because like you're being like protected by this infrastructure and you are like in a bowl. So you could like go and if you were at the levee like they're above the water they're above you. You know, and the water's above you. In this situation, the levies are natural or they're manmade? Everything is manmade.

Okay. So there really isn't anything natural in here. And that it also means that the levees keep the water from like going over the sides of the bowl, you know, and going into the city. But if there is extensive water from rain, from like maybe like a little bit of flooding from other things, it also has nowhere to go. So just like in the water, like it's the levees protect the water from coming in. It also stops water from going out. So a big part of the infrastructure is also huge. pumping stations that pump the water out of New Orleans back into nature water. This has nothing to do with your story. And if you can actually answer this, I'll be very, very impressed. Why did humans decide to live there? It seems like it's a lot of stuff to have to do to not die every day. It does. It's just access to water in like a port city that growing outwards and people needing space, basically. It had been, like, flooded and stuff before, and people had suggested moving and not rebuilding it again.

People were like, no, we really like it here. So they just kept rebuilding it again. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The neighborhood that you hear of that was, like, fully destroyed, is the lower ninth ward. A ward is like a precinct.

So just like an area inside of the city, there are 17 historical wards inside New Orleans. They were created as voting districts. Now they're not voting districts anymore. The voting districts are a little bit different. The lines are different. They stopped being voting districts in 1912, but the name stuck. And the ninth ward is the largest, and it is primarily black families that have been living there forever.

So before Katrina, there's a lot of people who lived in the lower ninth ward who owned their homes. So it had a very, very high percentage of homeownership because they've been living there for generations. And it was easy to eat more forward. horrible to buy a home there. But they didn't necessarily have transportation, but they owned their homes. A lot of, like, generations live in the same house. So you might have, like, you might, like, live with your grandma. So there's, like, a lot of older people there as well. There have been, obviously, hurricanes in this area all the time. There's always a hurricane happening in this area. And, like, I don't know why I didn't mention. Also, like, Puerto Rico, obviously gets hit with hurricanes a lot. I flew to Puerto Rico one time, like, 20 years ago. And the captain was like, if they look at your left window, you can see a hurricane. And I was like, I hate this. But you see it? Yeah, because we were above it. It wasn't like a huge one, but it existed and I did not like being above it. Whatever, but the captain was like a sign.

So there have been some big standouts in the New Orleans area. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy flooded the lower ninth ward. And it flooded it also because the levees broke. And the water kind of came in. And it comes in like the way, it's not like, like I'm saying it's a bull, but there's also like rivers through the bowl. So a lot of it is like river levees, which is like, just like the structures that hold up the water from coming over it. So in 1965, when Hurricane Betsy flooded,

the rumor in the lower 9th Ward was that the government did it on purpose to flood the black neighborhood so that they could save the business district and the more commercial district. So they were moving the water away from the central business district of Orleans to the lower 9th Ward to save that and they didn't give a crap about the people. I don't know if that's true, but that's the rumor. And it was a rumor because in 1927, there was the Mississippi River flooded, and they did do that.

They did break levees and flood the poor neighborhoods to save the rich neighborhoods. So there is a history of that happening, which is also a history of people not trusting the government in these areas. So after 1965, after Hurricane Betsy, they did build the levees a little bit stronger, but they were strong enough for a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina is going to be a 5. So it's like they're not going to be able to withstand that. So another thing that we've talked about, so the government does like these like scenarios. Like we talked about like Abel Archer 86.

Like we're like, you know, what would happen if there was a nuclear war and they do a lot of like, you know, a bunch of guys will go to a hotel in the conference room and be like, we'll pretend things are happening in real time. And like, are we able to, like, fix this is a good thing. And they did in 2004, so a year before Katrina, they did a scenario on Hurricane Pam, which is not a real hurricane, but they were like, what would we do?

if we get a major category five hurricane into new Orleans and they were basically like we'd be fucked so we better hope that doesn't happen because they knew that they wouldn't be able to get everybody out and they knew that a lot of people would die and then a lot the levies wouldn't make it like all of all the stuff that happens a year before they practiced and they're like yeah that's going to happen but they hadn't like started fixing anything if they were even going to you know do we know why they only built the levies to be rated for our cat three. I don't know. I feel like probably that was just easier. Awesome.

You know, like, it's like a lot of these engineering disasters, which is like this is, both engineering and natural, is because it's like someone costs cut, you know. Got it. I think we see that all the time. So as Katrina approached in August, FEMA was talking about, which is a federal emergency management agency, which I had not heard of until Hurricane Katrina. Yeah. I never even heard of it. but they were they knew internally that it would be worse than pam even though Pam wasn't real they like knew it would be worse than the scenario that they did so they knew it was coming so also a year before in 2004 there was Hurricane Ivan and Hurricane Ivan and so the thing with hurricanes is sometimes they go away by themselves you know because they form over open water and then they move towards land so you can be like we

We think based on what we know that it is going to go in this direction. And then it cannot do that. It can move and go a different direction, you know. So you need to, like, be prepared for it to move. And also sometimes it just stops and you don't, it doesn't do what you thought it was going to do, you know, which is great. But also can be very costly if you left. So in 2004, there was Hurricane Ivan. They thought it was going to hit New Orleans terribly.

So a lot of people left. And it's not, it wasn't easy. like a huge percentage of people in New Orleans don't have cars because they have, you know, they take the bus. You don't have to have a car. You don't have transportation, but not even have a credit card. You can do a credit card to even rent a car, you know, to get out. And it's expensive to, you know, move your family and receive this with every thing. Like COVID.

Like you can leave a big city if you have money, you know, but you can't leave a big city if you don't. Like there's nowhere to go. But people had left for Ivan and then nothing happened. And it moved and it didn't do the fighting that they said it was going to do. like, well, I just spent thousands of dollars to move my family, you know, got a hotel room, we rented a car, we threw out, I missed work for nothing. So like, they kind of cried a wolf about it and people were like, I don't know if I believe you. I don't know if I want to do it again, like when it happens again, which I understand, you know. That sort of happened to me when I was

in Miami when there was this one hurricane that was supposed to hit. And the language being used was so like this is it folks like this is the one like you have to get your families out of here and I remember that time I was living at some high rise in downtown I was like I don't know like this thing is like a giant

build I felt sort of safe and secure but they also freaked me out and also same concept I was like but I have school I have stuff to do, I have a job like what I can go to Dallas and stay with my parents but then like what if I can never I can't get back into the city

like what does everything look there's a lot of considerations I ended up staying and ended up becoming like an absolute nothing situation yeah there was memes going around where it would say like the hurricane's name and then you know I survived hurricane whatever it was called and then like a launcher was on the ground like that attitude yeah yeah

and then if it happens over and over again even if it is like bad but you stay home and you're fine you know and like you get to at least like be where your house is so you can fix things the next day like you're going to stay you know and I think I think that that totally makes sense like there was a fire in the national park next to us I don't think like maybe two years ago and we packed our bags and foreigners was like are we are you overreacting and I was like no we're lucky we can leave if if we're in like a suggested evacuation zone we're leaving you know we're not you know like because we can and because like I don't want to even risk it but like I understand if you've done that a couple times you're like oh fuck I'm going to stay you know right so a lot of people are saying and because they you know they can't um so now i guess now that it's late so now so that was that was in joseph four that one didn't happen uh it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be so now it's late august 2005 and also i feel like it's so fucking hot in norleans in august i just want to put that on top of all of this like it is

humid and hot and awful and the power's going to go out and your house is going to be gone and you have to be outside you know so that's a big part of this too so the leadership which i'm not going to get into at length, but the mayor is Ray Nagin. And he's like a very pro-business mayor, like, people don't really trust him. And he definitely like, he spends the whole time in a hotel and like a high floor, comes on every once in a while, doesn't really like lead anything. There's a story where like, Bush finally comes and they let Ray Nagin take a shower in Air Force One because he wasn't able to take a shower because like all of the infrastructure breaking. And he stayed in the shower for like way too long. The Secret Service was like, dude, you have to get out if you're going to meet the president.

Like he was just like, you know, not. I think he tried to run for president at one point, too. He was just like not the strong leader that we needed at this time. You know? The, yeah. It's actually what I thought of a lot with these elections that are going on right now where people win from mayor. And it's like there's a, I think to myself, like I was thinking about Memdani.

And I was like, man, you're in a real high. list zone where something really big and bad is going to happen and you're going to have to just put on that hat of it sounds terrible to be in that role. I agree. I agree. Yeah. There's already been like, you know, shootings and things that have been awful that he's had to like address, you know, it's not all filling pot holes.

There's plenty of bad things happening. Which I think might surprise some of the people. Like, it seems like Nagin was like a very, I'm in it. for the clout and then like it comes down to that you have actually have responsibilities and he's like ooh don't love that i didn't sign up for that yeah so because you know he makes the decision to wait before he does a mandatory mandatory evacuation a lot of people are waiting for that like forceful evacuation like you know you have to go um they know that it could take up to 72 hours to get everybody out of the really low-lying areas.

But they don't tell people to leave, like, for sure, until less than 24 hours. Some people have voluntarily left, again, if they could, but a lot of them didn't. And then, like, later, we're going to talk about transportation. There's, like, buses that could have taken people, but they didn't have drivers because some of the drivers, like, got scared and left, which, again, I'm not blaming anybody for that, you know? Or, like, some of the, like, police officers abandoned their posts and left to do with their families. Again, not blaming you for that either. Like, I don't know. I don't know. So, like, some of that stuff is happening. But a lot of people is too little too late. Like, they're not going to be able to leave. And again, they're older. Maybe they're disabled. They cannot go anywhere. So they're going to stay home. And there's no, there's just no safe way for them to leave. So they're just going to hunker down like they always have, like they have for years. So all the government officials are going to blame each other. The governor on the news tells people to pray. But I'm like, sure, but also leave and prepare. You know, like, let's just.

make sure we have like, you know, people are going to the store, buying water, just like trying to get whatever they might need. So I also watched, this is what made me cry. I watched a documentary, Katrina, come hell or high water on Netflix. So that's just three episodes. It's great. And it has a lot of videos of people like in the neighborhood before. Because of a hurricane, like the weather's not that bad until it's terrible.

You know? So people are outside like, oh, yeah, this is just another hurricane, whatever. I've been through this before. Dada, da, da. Like one young woman was like, I was 10 years old and my best. friend and I were riding a bike around the neighborhood. I didn't know I would never have a neighborhood again. You know, like that was the last time I ever was outside in my neighborhood.

It's gone. So things like that. So Katrina is coming. It hits on August 29th, which is a Monday at 6 a.m. So some people have traveled to shelters, which is, you know, to get out of the lower lying areas. The Red Cross specifically did not have any shelters in New Orleans because they were like, we cannot safely have one here because it will flood.

You know, like that's how like the, or like we can't protect people in this place. So people go to places that go to the Superdome, which is like the big famous one, which is their football stadium. And they walk there and they end up in like a two mile line in the heat. You know, in the heat and the sun, then it's starting to get windy. It's starting to get rainy. And people are slowly being like hurted into the Superdome while they're. Why? Can I ask why?

Why was the Superdome? Because it's like a big, they thought it would be like a big, strong, strong. So a couple types of evacuations. Like if you're in like a big like being in a big cement structure is safer than being in like your house made of wood. You know, so they had and they wanted people to like be together so that they could like mass give them things like water and food and you know just be like, okay, we're all here. We're all accounted for in one spot that we think is going to be safe. So the city wanted them to go there. Yeah.

Okay. They're like we'll have medical personnel. here, you know, like that. And like it wasn't easy. Like the line was super long. Like they were like, oh, we have a place for like disabled people to go in through the back. And one guy was like, I had my mom in a wheelchair.

We got to the back. They were like, come back in a few hours. And he was like, we don't have time for that. So he just went home. You know, like so a little bit of both. But it's to be able to get the resources to a lot of people fast. And that's why they wanted them to be together. Yeah.

So while they're there, I mean, so Superdome will have water. on food for the next couple days, but it's not great. The power goes out at 5 a.m. And you're sitting in a seat in like a, and like the first row of the first like layer of seats. So people are sitting in their seats and like you're watching a football game, obviously. And the it's loud and it's dark. And you can hear things hitting the side of the building. And in some cases, pieces of the roof do get pulled off from the winds because the winds are insane. Like that's a huge part of the problem. People are going to die like that we don't know their stories or they just got hit in the head with debris, you know, because it's like, like cars flying through air.

The wind is so, is so strong. The Superdome will leak a little bit. People, people will be screaming at one side of it in the dark because it's leaking, you know, and then people are moving across. And the,

even though there will be like some resources there, there also was violence. There's a lot of sexual assault that happens in Superdome during this time. And then there's a lot of like a vandalism. Like the, it is like gross. Like people can't, there's no,

there's no sanitation. You know, people are, people are, are in there who are going through like severe withdrawal because they're drug addicts and they're alcoholics and they're all of a sudden in the spot where they can't get the things that they need like those kind of things you know so like that's happening and there's people who are like maybe having like you know just like fighting with their family so it's just like a whole bunch of stuff

happening because you're hot and you're together in a spot so I guess to your point like it's not great but they were like trying to get resources to one spot um other people I was going to say, so is it fair to create some classifications because that becomes probably relevant later on? So you have the rich people or the people of middle class means whatever who take it seriously and get out. There's some that don't because they don't want to go through the hassle, right? And then you have the people that are probably in structures that are obviously not going to be able to sustain this. So you're looking at the bottom rung of society in homeless people and whatever. And those are the ones that are essentially getting funneled into the Superdome.

And also there's very strong racial lines between these places. Like there's a white neighborhood and a black neighborhood. And another thing about the people who maybe live in like the more structurally sound better neighborhoods is they live higher as well. You know, so they also, they also are not going to get flooded the way that these lower neighborhoods are going to get flooded. And the lower neighborhoods are predominantly black and predominantly lower income. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly.

So other people were able to vertically evacuated, just like you were saying when you were Miami. I mean, like, if you're in, like, the middle of, like, a big building, it's kind of the sweet spot because, like, your windows aren't going to necessarily get blown out because you're not high enough for that, and you're not going to flood. You know, like, you might lose power and, like, all those things, but, like, that's the spot. A lot of people went to the Hilton is, like, one of the big ones that did it. A lot of the workers were able to bring part members of their family there as well. There was a, in the documentary I watched, there's, like, a video of a bus, a bellboy, like, bringing luggage and he's crying, you know, because he's like, I don't know what he's. do like I don't know where my family is you know and like when mom was like her son worked there and he was like mom just come here. People are like in the conference rooms just like sleeping. There's 5,000 people in the Hilton when it when the hurricane hits.

The Hilton's also it's going to lose a hundred windows in one minute during the peak of the storm. Like that's how crazy the wind is. So there's people who are in all kinds of different places and then it stops. So the actual like it's a couple hours of like that really intense wind and rain and then the hurricane stops and that's when things people go outside. So that's when the news is in the French corridor being like, look, everything's not that bad. It hasn't flooded too much. Everything's good. I guess things have moved around, but it's not awful. And so as they're doing that, as the news is reporting that, like, things are okay, that New Orleans made it through.

The people in the lower 9th ward next to the 17th Street flood wall, which is like that levee, they're seeing the water rise in their neighborhood like crazy fast. like if you're in like a house that is flooding like this like in those floods that we saw in Texas a couple years ago you know like you are like oh there's water by the door and then two minutes later there's a foot of water in your house you know and that starts happening and they're like what is happening the rain has stopped but this water is coming in so the levees they they've just like they break it's not like the water from the outside water is higher than the levees the levees structurally break like the they've just like they've just like being pushed on by water and like a way that they have not been like not they're not able they've been like beat up by the debris they've been beat up by the whole thing and they break like at their foundations they break um it's what i imagine like a brick wall breaking is what like a if like you watch like a movie of like the hoover dam being exploded by an alien like that is what i'm picturing um so the some people report hearing them break because like really loud like a huge boom oh my god happens in the penguin. Do you remember that?

The show? It's pretty good. But like a levy breaks in that one and that is very similar. So the neighborhood just floods. So people start climbing, like their houses, like they're climbing up the stairs, climbing into their attics. People are going to drown in their attics, which is horrifying. And then there was like one story of a man who they got his family into the attic and then they kicked a wall in the ceiling and they got under the roof. And then the house got lifted off of its foundation by the water.

And the house went three blocks just like they're on this house. It's his, it was like a man, his kids, his grandkids who were little kids and his mother. So they have an elderly woman and they have children. They're on this house that is floating through the water. And the water is like full of debris and oil and all kinds of things. And the house hits something. And then they get pushed off the roof. one of the little girls that climbs out, like falls off and has to like swim to a U-Haul truck, but then she gets lost, and he loses his mother and one of the granddaughters in the flood, you know, and he's like, I can't go get them. I have to make sure everybody else is safe. It's so sad. And so, like, that happened so many times. People are just like on the roof. And those are the pictures you've seen on the news, people are like waving flags and things like that. And another thing that is in the water is animals. So there's like giant rats and water moccasins. So people are like,

my living room is full of water and poisonous snakes. Like, there's where to go. And then the water, by the way, has nowhere to go because the pumps start breaking. So they have to pump the water out. It's no natural way for the water to leave once it gets in there. Yeah, because it's probably already saturated. Yeah. The ground is probably saturated.

So it's just sitting there. Yeah, it's going to stay. So again, the National Weather Service is reporting and the levees are broken. Federally, they're like, we don't know what you're talking about. It's like the communication was really poor between these different agencies. The FEMA director's name is Michael D. Brown, and he is bad at his job. He is not qualified.

He came from like Arabian horse management before this. And no one even knows who he is until George Bush, like, during a press conference, it's like, hey, Brownie, you're doing a great job because like, you're a heck of a job, Brownie. Yeah, heck of a job, Brownie. You're like, who is this guy? What is this? You know, so like, this guy is not ready for it.

also like the federal government is on vacation so convalized a race that goes to see spam a lot in new york city and people are like shame on you like you have to go back you have to go help people um bush because his vacation short but he does other things like he goes to california to celebrate his success in iraq you know so like he's doing other things he's not focusing on new orleans he does fly over in air force one and like looks at everything and there's pictures of him looking sad but he's not like really doing anything um so people are on the roof they're begging for help. And helicopters are like going past them and they're like, well, if you're, and I don't

think this is like the wrong thing to say. But they're like, if you are able-bodied enough to stand on your roof and like, we have a flag, then you don't need me as much as someone else might, you know? That's quite fair. So they were like, it felt very abandoning to people because they were like, they saw us and they didn't save us. But they're like, okay, well, I also see two blocks away that you cannot see that there is an old woman or a woman like, have.

a baby on her roof. We're going to go see her first. You know, um, so there are also a lot of helpers, obviously. People come from all around with their boats, anything that floats. They use their boat to help get people moved to higher ground. Lots of different states and buses and supplies. The Walmart basically is like, everything's free. Come in, take it. Like literally everything. They're like, the Walmart gave away everything that they had that in there. Like in the different Walmarts that were in there in New Orleans, they gave away everything. They brought in more things to give people like for being a technically evil company.

They really did good here. Like for real. There are, the National Guard comes in, the Coast Guard comes in. But also a lot of the resources were delayed or they didn't have them directly in New Orleans because they had been sent to Iraq. So a lot of the Louisiana National Guard wasn't even there. they were in the Middle East. So that was also part of the reason why it took so long to save all these people. So during the last couple days, people are going to be moving from, like, flooded areas,

and they're getting buss or taken to higher areas. Some of it is, like, on the freeway. So they walk up the freeway to get to the convention center, which is another, like, place where they're going to, like, hopefully get them on buses. But, like, the buses start coming, and they're like, well, if people here, like, dehydrated and heat stroke on the freeway, we're just going to take them first. you know, it's like taking those people. There are dead bodies like laying on the freeway, laying on the street, just like

wheelchairs of dead people, like covered by a blanket. Like that's all there too. So it's obviously smells terrible. Like there's sewage and you haven't showered in several days and it's super hot. Maybe you haven't drank any water. There's like terrible videos of like children like passed out because they haven't drank any water, all the things. There's also there is looting and violence of, like of course that's going to happen.

But the media is very much like the black people. people are looting and the white people are fighting supplies. Like, they literally said that. You know, they specifically in some of the white neighborhoods, like Algiers Point is the example, they created like a little militia of white dudes with guns to keep themselves safe. They shot 11 black people who were just trying to walk through their neighborhood to go to somewhere else. Wow.

Do they get prosecuted? Yes, one guy, at least one guy did go to jail. I'm not sure about like the rest of them. so this is when Kanye West says his thing that is one of the only true things that ever came out of Kanye West Bowles What a weird moment

Like we are From where he was then to what Doesn't matter To selling swastika t-shirts are in the super bowl? I know it's like how do you make that pivot I don't know He needs a lot of mental health help You should be in many medications

And maybe in a home But Kanye West said George Bush hates black people, doesn't care about black people, which is like, you know, in this case, like the, the black neighborhoods are the poor neighborhoods or the ones that got flooded, like, you know, and people are not, they're not being helped by the federal government in the way that they should have been. And like the federal government knew it was going to happen eventually. They knew they weren't ready. And then when it happened, they did not step up. I think I would, I think I would abstract that out that nobody seems to really care about poor people. Like, I agree. Like when the meth crisis hits like poor white communities, it's like, whatever, move on from this. Like, it's just like, I don't know. Do you remember when Christy Nome had that meth thing and like, where was she governor of Montana? North Dakota.

North Dakota. Her campaign to stop meth was meth. We're on it. Do you remember that? No. That was Nancy Mace's campaign. Okay. It was, it was an NC Mace? Either way. That's ridiculous. Either way. Yeah. But yeah. So no, you're totally right. Like there and then like even like, so I told you I was reading that biological war scenario book by Annie Jacobson and in the scenario that she did of like, you know, how quickly a biological war could destroy America. Like there's no data that the federal government keeps on the health of the homeless population. You know, so like if like a disease hits a homeless population,

we don't know about it. Those alerts don't go off if they would go off if everybody in Beverly Hills got like a weird flu the government would know immediately but if everyone on Skid Row gets a weird flu they're not going to know.

Like it's just like not connected. If you think about it from like an economics perspective like I don't know like it does make sense why the government would care about one demographic like one cohort of society one and the other because it all boils down to like tax revenues.

Yeah. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying. No, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's not right, but it's definitely what we're saying. How it is.

Yeah. So there's one hero that I want to talk about, a lieutenant general, Russell Honor. I don't know if you've ever seen him, but he is super fun. So he was actually on the ground. So he was like the highest ranked person that was on the ground. in New Orleans. And when he gets there, there's like the National Guard and the police and everything, like, they're standing there, you know, with their guns pointed at people,

you know, be trying to like keep order. And there's videos of him literally being like, put that goddamn gun down, you know, telling people to like, you know, calm down. this is a rescue mission. Some people are going to be like kind of not confused, but like, they use the word refugee in that like, you know, these people are, are escaping something, you know, but also like these are American citizens. It's not like, you know, a refugee who's like, needs to beg for your help. They should be given help because we're already here, you know, so there's a lot of that happening. But Russell Henry is great. He's in there. He's like, it's a rescue mission. We're helping people and he's actually on the ground.

People are going to be, like, how they're going to be helped after this is like their houses are gone. Like there's, you can't go to it. So you need somewhere to go where you can like, have a shout take a shower get some clothes get some food try to figure it out so a lot of states took in families so they like a lot of people like went to utah and like went to other places and they're like you can start over here like just come here and start over they like opened up their schools to bring in more kids and things like that they also had like obviously like the FEMA camps and places people could stay like temporarily but they weren't allowed especially in the lower ninth ward they were allowed to go back on December 1st so this is august 29th through December

first and are allowed to go to your house and then you can only go back during the daytime and again there's no house to go back to it is a pile of rubble you know that has been in the elements for four months and you can go back and try to salvage things but you can only go back like during the day because it's so like dangerous to be there at night because there's no power you know there's nothing um so a lot of people left some people did rebuild they rebuilt the ninth ward partially in like weird ways that they built all these houses on stilts and things but like a lot of it was just totally gone, you know? And Sydney, like, knew that it could happen. They had just practiced it happening. And then when they knew it was coming, they did not prepare the way they could have,

whether they knew they should have. And that is, I think, like, why so many people died and, like, why it was, like, so many people were trapped in their homes. Like, can you imagine me, like, 90 years old and drowning in your attic? You would never. That's rough. Yeah. I don't know how many people died altogether. I want to find out that. But there were 1392 fat, fat, confirmed fatalities and 652 people are missing. So they can never found their bodies. Boy, he disappeared as a heart of a new life. Ray Nagin was incarcerated in 2014.

For what? He was imprisoned for 10 years, or sentenced to 10 years. For corruption? Yeah, 21 corruption charges, wirefront conspiracy, bribery, money laundering. fake tax returns related to bribes from city contractors

yeah he's not he wasn't great yeah like they should have had mass evacuations before they should have helped people who couldn't get out they should help them get out they should have done like all of that and then after it was over they should have helped you know

get people back into their home or their area but again like that is also really hard like I know like parts of like the Pacific Palisades and like, you know, in California, like, you know, some houses are being rebuilt from the fire, you know, a year and a half ago, but it's a long process and you have to have money to do it too. You know, you can't just start. Has it actually been rebuilt? Some of us.

I think there've been like some houses. Yeah, I don't know. I think, you know, it's funny is out of all the places that are like touristy places in the U.S., New Orleans is like the one of the few that I've never really had a huge urge. to go there. Most of the because I lived in Memphis for when I was working a house campaign and that was also like very lively

yet the whole street. Everybody's walking around outside. There's music everywhere. I was like, I was like, oh, I bet this is what New Orleans is like and I just was like, I don't need to necessarily experience it. Except I have heard Halloween in New Orleans. It's supposed to be one of the coolest places to be given like some of the stories that originated out of there.

But I would just God, sorry. No, no, go ahead. I did go. I went on August in like 2010. It was hot. It's fun, though. I'm sure it's fun. I'm sure it's fun. We used to go to Shreveport a lot when I was younger because that was really close to Dallas

since I was like a three-ish four-showered drive. That's as much of Louisiana I think I've ever seen. My brother's partner is from Louisiana and he makes great food. I'm sure. He made for Christmas and made us like dirty rice, which is like a bunch of meat that is from weird parts of an animal and gumbos and like just really good food.

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure it's a blast. Remember like a million years ago we did an episode on the Acadians where the people who were displaced from Canada and they went out for the French and they went down to New Orleans? That's why they speak French there. Yeah. We've actually done a number of episodes. So episode 183, Devil in the Big Easy, Delphine, La L'Lauri.

we did episode 2.30, turn the music up or else, the Axeman of New Orleans. And then a few episodes ago, episode 255 was a week in hell Memorial Medical. So those were all Louisiana slash New Orleans specific topics, which I'm sure one day Taylor is going to turn into some sort of social content that ties together,

all the New Orleans. I should do that. I should. I will. But I don't know. Like I guess, but where I was going with all that, was like, look, if you were a family that was, like, stuck there one way or the other and you had no way of getting out, I don't know.

Like, maybe it forced you to go live in, like, Dallas or whatever. And, like, it's got objectively be better than being in, like, a warm, wet bowl surrounded by an ocean, you know? Yeah. But I mean... Also, I imagine their mosquitoes and roaches must be out of control. I know. in the book and stuff, I was reading, I'm talking about the rats.

Like the rats were like, just gigantic. I mean, but also, man, it's just cool. Like, I remember being there and walking around at night, and it's like so humid, it's hazy. And you can just, like, hear the jazz music, and walking past these, like, beautiful old houses,

and you're like, oh, they're witches here, you know? That is pretty cool. You know? Halloween, I think maybe that should be, I don't know, October's coming down. Maybe I'll do it. I'll finally make a New Orleans trip about Halloween. But I also feel like, man,

It's probably one of those places where, like, if you get, if you have too much of a good time, you might run into someone like Adolfo Casano who might, like, put a spell on you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Oh, 100%. No, you're going to meet a ghost. It feels sinister. It feels like there's an undercurrent of, like, easy access to, like, sinistery things. If you are out looking for a person to hook up with, you're going to hook up with a ghost, which could be cool.

unless they turn you into a ghost right right but then you can haunt together it's true the ultimate romance and then once you're a ghost you can find out what happened with a jazz man because I'm sure that he's dead and he's there he's there hanging out

and then there's like who's the the witch in the not um like the voodoo witch yeah you run into the skeleton key girl lady yes Oh, yes. Oh, you burnt to Marie Laveau. There used to be this, like, haunted history podcast, and I think it stopped a long time ago.

But the episode on Marie Laveau, she's a good 19th century voodoo queen. I was so scared listening to it, but I, like, thought I heard something behind me and, like, jumped. Like, I was like, it's so fun. So now I want to go. All right. Why don't we do Halloween this year? I can't do that. with DoDV weekend.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. Which is why we should have two Halloweens because Halloween's always Some of us. We have the campaign.

We can't do it. And the new Romanticie book from the Court of Thorne and Roses thing comes out on the 27th. And I'm like, how are you going to put out

a brand new book on October 27th, which is like a week before the election and it's Halloween. Like, I don't have time for this. But I'm going to have to have to not be on social media for two days so I can finish reading this book and not get spoiled in the middle of

my husband's campaign and my work and all these things. So, it's super fun. Very fun. Was there anything else on Katrina you wanted to go through? No, I think, I mean, there's so many more details that obviously didn't even learn to get into it, but I do recommend watching that documentary

on Netflix. It was super, like, human-sized and really, really sad. And you really feel, terrible and it's just so terrifying just these like what nature can do and then also by the way it's just going to get worse oh yeah that's why I'm kind of glad I'm here

like Austin you're pretty central like I don't know like we don't really have wildfires tornadoes or a thing but like not that much of a thing yeah I went to visited my cousin in Houston they just they just built a house and

it was a weirdest thing because you go outside the primacy or the back of the house and all of their electrical stuff, like the ACs and the generators and all that, they're all like five feet above you because you have to build that way. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think like the answer is like, we'll use your nice things. You know, like, don't be precious about things. You know, like have fun.

Don't, don't not have fun in the world because it happens so fast. And then like, if you have the means to leave, you are lucky and you should leave, even if it's early. even if you think you're overreacting, even if you're like, you know, whatever. Because like, even like, I remember the, there were all those terrible wildfires in New Zealand,

like the people who were like, oh, I'm just going to wait a couple more hours. And then they burns the death in the garage, you know, like, they died of suffocation because the fire was like all up to their house. And they could have left, but they were like, I don't know.

Like, overreact. Leave as soon as you can. If you can, leave. If you can't, you know, prepare your best, have your go bag with all your stuff in it. I had, I added that I hadn't seen it on a list, but I added a,

prescription glasses to Artigo bag. Just like, my husband wears glasses. Like, if his glasses broke, it'd be like, I don't know what we would do. He wouldn't be able to do anything, you know. So, you know, add extra glasses, add some extra medication, get your passports, be ready to go and go if you can. And if you can't, then, you know, good luck. Take a gun.

Always take a gun. Because you never know what you're going to be going out into the wilderness too. Well, then that's what we're going to get. Okay. So you're talking like a bear? because like another thing that happened in Katrina is like people were people have guns people are shooting guns from the roof to get the attention of someone you know so there's people who are in these houses and they're on the roofs and they're trying to get attention because they need

medical help they need assistance they need something people have signs like my I'm here with type one diabetic help us you know and so they some of them would shoot in the air which is like I think a natural response because you're like trying to get attention or whatever but then there was a rumor there were snipers in these areas and the people stopped coming to help you know takes well i i don't mean that use case i mean more so like you don't know you go into like a if if the zombie apocalypse hit you absolutely need a gun on you like if you're gonna go out there and you're like i'm gonna search for food somewhere well everybody else is going to search for food and they're going to want to kill you not to let you get it but i'm not a survivalist so i don't know

no that's true i mean i don't i watched like a cooking video today of someone like prepping a fish to eat and I was like I wish I was dead like I wish I didn't see that I know so if I shot like a rabbit because of rabbits are all the time and sometimes I do look at them and think could I eat you if I like had to and I'm like I don't even know if I don't know like what part of you can I eat you know do I like cut you open and then please email us um doom to fill a pot at gmail.com what do you like cut up I could here's what I think I think I would cut up in the middle throw away the guts skin the meat, cook it, and then scrape the skin and hang it up so I can make a hat.

Any other ideas? I think you skin it, then you cut it in half, because if you don't do that, then it won't come off as like a single blow. I skin it so I can make a hat out of it. Then I cut it in half and throw away the gross stuff. Then I cook the rest of it on a spit. I spatchcock it onto a spit over my fire pit in my backyard. Taylor, I think if it's me and you having to learn how to survive out in the wilderness, we just got to break into a Costco and just like live in the walls.

I don't think we're going to make it otherwise. No, I want to try to remake the printing press. Okay. Which is my overarching thing that we could do. And, yeah, no, I don't think I could find food. I, in my wildest dreams, like today, I was on Zillow looking at like tiny little cottages. in Hawaii and they were like talking about like you know they're small they're dingy but they were like close to the water on the water and they're like fishing villages so people are just like out there

fishing all day and then I was like picturing myself out there fishing and I was like I don't even know how to hook a fish I would never a million years know how to kill a fish if I actually did catch one and then what do you do with the scales they just go flying and then I started picturing how bad the garbage around their most spell because it's all like just rotting fish parkuses and I was like you know what maybe this isn't a dream that needs to be realized no I had to fish last year and I just like could not figure it out I know I could figure out someone like physically

showed me but I was like looking on YouTube trying to figure out how to do it I was like this is not I'm not going to do it not my jam this is not my jam I don't think anyone to survive this way Costco break into the Costco live there get a spoon and a big thing of peanut butter and be like, there you go. To our best.

Yeah. Be careful out there, folks. Well, is there anything else before we sign off? No, that's all I have for now. Thank you, everyone. Please tell your friends. Leave us a review if you can, Apple Podcast. That's what they say is cool.

But I do go on there and read reviews. So I appreciate everyone who has done it. I'm trying to do more content on the socials, but like, so, I'm just, there's so much going on. I have now of a child activity every single day of the week. So if there is anything that, if you just feel like sharing our social posts or telling someone who's like, oh, I need some to listen to or, oh, you know, I heard about that crazy historical thing on Doom toville. That'd be cool. Tell your friends. Thank you to Nicole for listening all the time.

She always sends me texts and stuff, and I appreciate that. I'll shout out Daniel who also sends me text all the time with ideas and what he's take is but yes please all your friends rate us rank us soon to fall pot at gmail.com and honestly I think we do want to get back to doing more esoteric lesser known topics but we want to build the audience base and those are hard to find and that's why we're doing some keywords getting getting it figuring out SEO which is like wishcraft we should go to New Orleans

find a witch lay a candle get some bones whatever she wants us to get and then maybe that's our marketing plan guys that might be our last shot here it'll be easier if you just tell your friends

so tell your friends also missing persons in new Orleans yeah also write to us stupid to fall pot at gmon.com false on those socials and i think that's it anything else taylor no that's it thank you so much sweet thank you and we'll cut it off there