REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans 150,000 people were left to fend for themselves against a disaster the authorities knew was coming. One of them was Sandos McGee a 56-year-old Vietnam veteran, who thought he'd seen it all.
SANDOS MCGEE,KATRINA SURVIVOR: I'd go back to Vietnam before I go through one of them. No way! That forces of nature is something, man. I've learned.
I caught up with Sandos at Baton Rouge airport desperate to fly out of Louisiana, and the chance to escape the nightmare of his struggle to survive against the surging floodwaters.
SANDOS MCGEE: Like I said there was four of us in the house, and we didn't have time to try and make some kind of escape, it was too late. We slammed the door back shut, and tried to keep it closed.
We took the girl who was with us and put her up in the attic, and then we all got up in the attic, all except one guy. And when we got up in the attic, he was down there trying to hold the door closed against the force of the water, but he couldn't do it. The water just caved in the walls and snapped that door like a toothpick, man, and I heard him scream. And the guy who was up in the attic with us he just fell over backwards like this, and his legs broke off right there both of them.
REPORTER: His legs broke off?
SANDOS MCGEE: His legs broke off right here. And, man, you talk about nightmare beginning.
Indeed, for many in New Orleans, this was just the start of the terror. When the levees built to protect the city were breached, and Lake Pontchartrain drained into New Orleans, the force of the water began sweeping whole houses away.
With two of his house-mates almost certainly dead, Sandos and his female companion were soon overwhelmed.
SANDOS MCGEE: The girl, she was screaming and hollering, and I was trying to get a hole open in the roof so that we could get out the vent, but it was too small, so me and the girl, we got stuck in the hole like this. By that time the water rushed into the house, the walls caved in, took the roof off of the house, and down the street we went. That roof ran into a tree and it span around and broke apart - that's what freed me and the girl.
Now the girl - whoosh - it just took her all away. I was able to hold on to the corner of a building. Actually, I heard her screaming and I said, "Just catch something, hold on till you get yourself together, hold on to something, you can't swim in that water it's too strong."
REPORTER: You didn't see her again?
SANDOS MCGEE: I never seen her again, I never seen any of them again.
In America's Gulf states, the force of hurricanes is well known and usually well tolerated, but when Katrina started her direct track towards New Orleans, officials had their first inkling that this hurricane might be different.
JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF: You have an obligation to yourself and your family to haul ass and get out of here, and I’m telling you, get out now.
WALTER MAESTRI, EMERGENCY DIRECTOR, JEFFERSON PARISH: Everyone involved knew that a major hurricane - Category 4 or greater in New Orleans, Louisiana could be an absolute catastrophe.
Walter Maestri is head of disaster management in Jefferson Parish, which surrounds the city. He's one of the most senior officials with the responsibility for dealing with hurricanes in New Orleans.
He confirms that a full three days before landfall all the relevant authorities were directly told that Armageddon was on its way.
WALTER MAESTRI: Then on Thursday before the storm makes landfall we get a call from the Director of the National Hurricane Centre and he tells us that he also believes that the storm was going to seriously intensify, that we would be looking at perhaps a Category 4, even a Category 5 hurricane and that we should prepare for the worst case scenario, the doomsday storm and so forth.
RAY NAGIN, MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the city of New Orleans.
It wasn't till the following Sunday, the day before Katrina hit, that the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation. By that time, only those with cars were able to get away. Most of the city's wealthier residents fled north. But around 200,000 people didn't evacuate, no transport had been provided for them and they'd not realised how serious the threat was.
REPORTER: Why did you decide to stay, and not evacuate?
SANDOS MCGEE: Because I've been a fool, for one thing, because I was in Hurricane Betsy, and even though they said it was going to be stronger than Betsy, I thought I would survive, because I was born and raised right there right there in that neighbourhood. But I'm going to tell you something, Betsy was a joke. That was no joke there. Man, that was no joke.
It seems incredible now but in those three days when Federal, State and Local officials all knew what was coming no-one in authority took the evacuation more seriously.
SANDOS MCGEE: I don't understand, they had all these buses and transportation vehicles. It looks to me that they knew that the people that stayed behind at that particular time they should have... ..that's when they should have forced them out, they should have forced them out, or came by.
They're supposed to come by with a bullhorn or something and tell everybody, "You gotta go." Nobody even came by nobody came by, man, and once the water hit it was too late.
That water didn't take its time just risin', and risin' that water came in like that tidal wave that water came in, man, that's the first time I ever seen that in my life. I seen that, I lived through that I lived that one.
JANE BULLOCK, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, F.E.M.A. We always knew if a Category 3 or a larger hurricane hit New Orleans that the levees would be overtopped, and Lake Pontchartrain would drain into the city. This was a Category 4. They knew that was going to happen. They weren't prepared.
Jane Bullock is the former chief of staff of FEMA - America's Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is the federal body that has the funds, and the responsibility to respond to disasters like Katrina. Local and State authorities don't have the money or manpower to respond to something this big.
Jane Bullock says FEMA's head, Mike Brown, simply failed to react.
JANE BULLOCK: In New Orleans Mike Brown should have been on the phone to Mayor Nagin on Saturday and saying, "We better to do a mandatory evacuation now, or, I suggest you do a mandatory evacuation now, don't wait until Sunday."
He could have been on the phone with Governor Blanco saying, "I think you need to activate your National Guard." The National Guard is a Governor's asset, that could have been activated earlier, and there could have been security so the Red Cross could have moved in more quickly.
This once thriving city has taken on a surreal post-apocalyptic character mainly devoid of civilians, and with thousands of heavily armed troops and police on patrol. Every day new stories emerge, about heroism, and horror.
At the same time a clearer picture is also emerging of how the US Government, heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and preoccupied with the war on terror, was unable to help some of its most vulnerable citizens.
Following the failure to evacuate the city the days immediately after the hurricane turned into an unmitigated disaster. In the world's wealthiest nation it took four days for any meaningful help to arrive.
REFUGEES: Help us! Help us! Help us! Help us!
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD: So you had 20 feet of water coming in this way, 15 feet coming in this way in the first day. The National Guard HQ is located right here.
As Katrina made landfall, Lt Colonel Jacques Thibodeaux sat through the hurricane at the National Guard compound in suburban New Orleans.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: I drive a pick-up truck. I walked outside at about 3:00 in the morning, and my truck had about 2 inches of water, 3 inches of water round the tyres. I walked out about 4:00 in the morning, and the water level had rose about 6.5 feet and my truck was underwater.
As daylight broke the National Guardsmen realised the gravity of their situation, and began to swing into action.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We're picking people off of rooftops. We're going out in boats we're going out in trucks. We lost about 20 of our trucks that we had staged at Jackson barracks under 25 feet of water. We, in a sense, became victims of the storm also.
By Monday night, more than half the city was underwater but things were about to get worse. Early on the Tuesday, another canal draining from Lake Pontchartrain burst, sending another wave of water into the central business district, isolating the Superdome, which already contained tens of thousands of people.
REPORTER: So the water is coming up at this stage?
TRENA CASH: The water was up to here on me.
Less than a mile away in the poor tenements district Trena Cash was struggling to keep her children and grandchildren alive.
REPORTER: And you had your kids with you at this stage?
TRENA CASH: I had to put them on mattresses. I had my 3-year-old baby and my 12-year-old daughter, my 8-year-old granddaughter, my 7-year-old grandson, and my 5-year-old grandson and my 3-year-old granddaughter, and my 1-year-old grandson.
REPORTER: And you were floating on mattresses?
TRENA CASH: ..and 2 of my nieces, I put them on mattresses, we had to wade through the water.
REPORTER: So you then went from the mattress to where, to the freeway?
TRENA CASH: Yeah, to the freeway.
REPORTER: And then what happened? You stayed there the night?
TRENA CASH: We spent the night up there 'cos they say someone was coming to pick us up, but nobody never came, so we just walked down the bridge to the Superdome.
By Wednesday morning, 40,000 people filled the Superdome and the incredible scale of this disaster was now was clear to the world. Louisiana's Governor and police chief went on television to plead for federal help, saying the state couldn't cope.
GOVERNOR KATHLEEN BLANCO, LOUISIANA: We have so many people suffering, I'll just tell you it's heartbreaking. All of the relief workers that I've come across are in tears. I'm talking about grown men crying.
COL. HENRY WHITEHORN, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: It's bad. And that's why the Governor has requested the additional reinforcements from the military, that's why we in the law enforcement community are requesting additional help. We are requesting out-of-state support, we are requesting all the help we can get. It is bad.
But with temperatures soaring, and food and water running out, authorities on the ground in New Orleans couldn't believe that nothing had yet arrived from FEMA.
WALTER MAESTRI: At first the response was, "We're coming. Everything's been communicated, we're coming. It's going to be a little bit longer than we thought, but, we're coming." But of course, we're coming eventuated or evolved into, "Well, we don't know where the resources are, and we don't know how long it's going to take to get to you."
What makes this lack of action even more astounding is that Federal emergency officials with FEMA had actually planned for this exact scenario, a year before.
In July 2004, Local, State and Federal officials, came here to the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge to attend an exercise organised by FEMA. It was dubbed 'Hurricane Pam'. Set as a Category 5 hurricane, it anticipated major flooding and the evacuation of up to a million people. At the end of the 5-day exercise everybody agreed they'd done a marvellous job. When the next big storm hit they'd be ready.
WALTER MAESTRI: But because Pam in the exercise and Katrina in reality were the same things, I mean, they are the same storm so nobody should have been surprised at the devastation that Katrina did or at that the devastation that Katrina could do because in the simulations the year before Pam did the same thing.
But after the exercise for Hurricane Pam, FEMA never released the funding to implement the response to a real hurricane.
JANE BULLOCK: The first part was to actually develop the scenario and actually run the exercise. The second part was to take the lessons learned during the exercise, one of which clearly was there were problems with evacuation, and come up with a series of corrective measures. That part of the contract was not funded.
Three days after Katrina hit conditions in the city are worsening. The Superdome is cut off by floodwater, and the 20,000 people at the Convention Centre are watching their friends and relatives die before their eyes.
WOMAN: This morning I found one lady in a wheelchair dead in the ladies bathroom, and another lady lying on the floor by the ladies bathroom dead. And then there's this guy right here that's dead that's been sitting out here for a while.
New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin goes on local radio with a desperate plea to federal authorities.
RAY NAGIN: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price because every day that we delay people are dying. And they don't have a clue what's going on down here.
On the day before President Bush had made his first visit to the area but only from the air. Cutting short his holidays, he flew over the disaster zone on his way back to Washington. At a press conference he showed little sign that he understood how desperate the situation was.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: But there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to succeed. Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected, and I understand that.
Mayor Nagin could barely contain his anger at the President's failure to act.
RAY NAGIN: It's politics, man, and they're playing games and they're spinning. They're out there spinning for the cameras. They flew down here one time, two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn... Excuse my French, everybody in America, but I am pissed.
On the ground it was becoming clear, unless the Superdome and Convention Centre were evacuated immediately, hundreds more could die. The need for buses to evacuate was urgent but in his discussions with Federal officials Mayor Nagin was shocked by their response.
RAY NAGIN: One of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here. I'm like, "You've got to be kidding me! This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their arses moving to New Orleans. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here! They're not here! It's too doggone late. Get off your arses and let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country!"
By Friday morning Lieutenant Colonel Thibodeaux was relieved to finally see the first signs of the federal rescue effort albeit a trickle.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We start getting about 500 out-of-state soldiers in, and now the FEMA plan is beginning to work about the buses, and my position.
REPORTER: When you say the FEMA plan is beginning to work about the buses, buses were actually arriving?
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: Well, buses were being contracted, we were getting buses, reports of buses moving from other states towards this area.
REPORTER: Is there any reason the buses weren't already in place before that time?
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: I could tell you that this is a significant logistical challenge, and you know, I'm not sure, I don't want to have visibility as to when the Governor requested the FEMA buses. I know they first initially arrived in a trickle, when we needed a firehose, and I can't tell you as to why that occurred.
But by this time New Orleans had descended into chaos and the city was in the grip of a looting spree. Certainly a hard core of criminals had taken advantage of the mayhem but most were ordinary citizens desperate for food, water and medicines.
MAN: We ain't got nothing! We've got to steal from each other so we can survive and feed our children.
At the Convention Centre, a far more worrying crisis was developing and reports of rape and murder were beginning to emerge.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We begin to hear these reports, and we're concerned, but we're knee deep in evacuating the site. The next morning, on the second, which would have been Friday, September 2, General Landreneaux assigned me as the leader of the rescue mission for the Convention Centre.
When we made the corner and turned, and I saw 15,000 residents - and I'm a lifelong Louisiana resident - it was very heartfelt, and it really hit me pretty hard, looking at those people, looking at the help, looking at them just wanting somebody to help them.
While national guardsmen tried their best to contain the powder keg, the breakdown and desperation was broadcast to the world.
WOMAN: I don't want to die like this.
Jane Bullock watched on in disgust at the failure of FEMA to respond.
JANE BULLOCK: I am shocked, flabbergasted and very saddened. They had at their disposal - they meaning Secretary Chertoff and Mike Brown - had the authority at their disposal to bring in the military, the US Military, and US civilian resources, and they didn't do it - whether it was a question of priorities, whether it was a question or concern about the cost of this disaster, or whether it was simply not knowing what to do, it astonished me.
That same day, President Bush, seemingly oblivious to the horrors still taking place in New Orleans, took time out to publicly congratulate FEMA boss Mike Brown.
GEORGE BUSH: I want to thank you all for... ..Brownie you're doing a heck of a job, The FEMA director is working 24...
How did you feel on the Friday when you saw President Bush saying to Michael Brown, "You've done a heck of a job"?
WALTER MAESTRI: I smiled because I don't know what a heck of a job means but the President's definition and mine are certainly not the same.
GEORGE BUSH: Er, Katrina, er, exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.
Almost two weeks after the storm, President Bush was reeling from the criticism of the federal response. He accepted the resignation of FEMA boss Mike Brown, and even accepted a qualified level of responsibility himself.
GEORGE BUSH: To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right I take responsibility.
WALTER MAESTRI: This is a national tragedy - not so much the storm, we all knew one day the storm would come, the response to the storm, particularly from those support agencies that have proclaimed themselves to be ready, willing and able to respond and to come into communities is fairly completely lacking.
I was gonna call you today because Howie sent me a list of 171 sheriff's deputies who lost their homes. We need to find out the same thing about your fire fighters.
Walter Maestri points to the federal government's preoccupation with terrorism as one of the main reasons why the response was so badly handled.
WALTER MAESTRI: I think it's necessary to look at the priorities of the government and to ask the question as to how these resources are going to be allocated. As much as it is necessary to deal with terrorism, Katrina was a terrorist and she terrorised this community significantly.
Since the 9/11 attack FEMA was officially sidelined and subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security, the Administration's $55 billion bureaucracy to deal with terrorism. Effectively, natural disasters now played second fiddle to Bush's focus on terror.
JANE BULLOCK: When I say the system is broken it's because local and state resources are not working on preparedness for hurricanes or other disasters. By requirement of the Department of Homeland Security, who funds local and state emergency management organisations, they have to spend 75% of their money on preparing for terrorism. And while we recognise terrorism is an important issue so are those disasters we will see every year - hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wild fires.
MAN: We're gonna move fast, we're gonna move quick and we're gonna do whatever it takes to he disaster victims.
According to Jane Bullock, the anger and despair over the handling of Hurricane Katrina, extends well into FEMA itself.
JANE BULLOCK: I have friends who are still at FEMA who called me up and were crying because they felt that they had not been able to do their job, that they had let people down. And it has to be fixed, this system has to be fixed.
If they couldn't respond to a hurricane they knew was coming, and had two days to prepare, how would they respond to a dirty bomb incident? This is a critical issue now, the system has got to be fixed.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, they know to trust the Lord in times of crisis. These refugees have at least survived. As it stands Katrina's death toll will certainly surpass more than 1,000 people.
That the world's only superpower couldn't protect its own citizens from a fully anticipated disaster has left many Americans questioning the government's priorities.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans 150,000 people were left to fend for themselves against a disaster the authorities knew was coming. One of them was Sandos McGee a 56-year-old Vietnam veteran, who thought he'd seen it all.
SANDOS MCGEE,KATRINA SURVIVOR: I'd go back to Vietnam before I go through one of them. No way! That forces of nature is something, man. I've learned.
I caught up with Sandos at Baton Rouge airport desperate to fly out of Louisiana, and the chance to escape the nightmare of his struggle to survive against the surging floodwaters.
SANDOS MCGEE: Like I said there was four of us in the house, and we didn't have time to try and make some kind of escape, it was too late. We slammed the door back shut, and tried to keep it closed.
We took the girl who was with us and put her up in the attic, and then we all got up in the attic, all except one guy. And when we got up in the attic, he was down there trying to hold the door closed against the force of the water, but he couldn't do it. The water just caved in the walls and snapped that door like a toothpick, man, and I heard him scream. And the guy who was up in the attic with us he just fell over backwards like this, and his legs broke off right there both of them.
REPORTER: His legs broke off?
SANDOS MCGEE: His legs broke off right here. And, man, you talk about nightmare beginning.
Indeed, for many in New Orleans, this was just the start of the terror. When the levees built to protect the city were breached, and Lake Pontchartrain drained into New Orleans, the force of the water began sweeping whole houses away.
With two of his house-mates almost certainly dead, Sandos and his female companion were soon overwhelmed.
SANDOS MCGEE: The girl, she was screaming and hollering, and I was trying to get a hole open in the roof so that we could get out the vent, but it was too small, so me and the girl, we got stuck in the hole like this. By that time the water rushed into the house, the walls caved in, took the roof off of the house, and down the street we went. That roof ran into a tree and it span around and broke apart - that's what freed me and the girl.
Now the girl - whoosh - it just took her all away. I was able to hold on to the corner of a building. Actually, I heard her screaming and I said, "Just catch something, hold on till you get yourself together, hold on to something, you can't swim in that water it's too strong."
REPORTER: You didn't see her again?
SANDOS MCGEE: I never seen her again, I never seen any of them again.
In America's Gulf states, the force of hurricanes is well known and usually well tolerated, but when Katrina started her direct track towards New Orleans, officials had their first inkling that this hurricane might be different.
JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF: You have an obligation to yourself and your family to haul ass and get out of here, and I’m telling you, get out now.
WALTER MAESTRI, EMERGENCY DIRECTOR, JEFFERSON PARISH: Everyone involved knew that a major hurricane - Category 4 or greater in New Orleans, Louisiana could be an absolute catastrophe.
Walter Maestri is head of disaster management in Jefferson Parish, which surrounds the city. He's one of the most senior officials with the responsibility for dealing with hurricanes in New Orleans.
He confirms that a full three days before landfall all the relevant authorities were directly told that Armageddon was on its way.
WALTER MAESTRI: Then on Thursday before the storm makes landfall we get a call from the Director of the National Hurricane Centre and he tells us that he also believes that the storm was going to seriously intensify, that we would be looking at perhaps a Category 4, even a Category 5 hurricane and that we should prepare for the worst case scenario, the doomsday storm and so forth.
RAY NAGIN, MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS: Every person is hereby ordered to immediately evacuate the city of New Orleans.
It wasn't till the following Sunday, the day before Katrina hit, that the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation. By that time, only those with cars were able to get away. Most of the city's wealthier residents fled north. But around 200,000 people didn't evacuate, no transport had been provided for them and they'd not realised how serious the threat was.
REPORTER: Why did you decide to stay, and not evacuate?
SANDOS MCGEE: Because I've been a fool, for one thing, because I was in Hurricane Betsy, and even though they said it was going to be stronger than Betsy, I thought I would survive, because I was born and raised right there right there in that neighbourhood. But I'm going to tell you something, Betsy was a joke. That was no joke there. Man, that was no joke.
It seems incredible now but in those three days when Federal, State and Local officials all knew what was coming no-one in authority took the evacuation more seriously.
SANDOS MCGEE: I don't understand, they had all these buses and transportation vehicles. It looks to me that they knew that the people that stayed behind at that particular time they should have... ..that's when they should have forced them out, they should have forced them out, or came by.
They're supposed to come by with a bullhorn or something and tell everybody, "You gotta go." Nobody even came by nobody came by, man, and once the water hit it was too late.
That water didn't take its time just risin', and risin' that water came in like that tidal wave that water came in, man, that's the first time I ever seen that in my life. I seen that, I lived through that I lived that one.
JANE BULLOCK, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, F.E.M.A. We always knew if a Category 3 or a larger hurricane hit New Orleans that the levees would be overtopped, and Lake Pontchartrain would drain into the city. This was a Category 4. They knew that was going to happen. They weren't prepared.
Jane Bullock is the former chief of staff of FEMA - America's Emergency Management Agency. FEMA is the federal body that has the funds, and the responsibility to respond to disasters like Katrina. Local and State authorities don't have the money or manpower to respond to something this big.
Jane Bullock says FEMA's head, Mike Brown, simply failed to react.
JANE BULLOCK: In New Orleans Mike Brown should have been on the phone to Mayor Nagin on Saturday and saying, "We better to do a mandatory evacuation now, or, I suggest you do a mandatory evacuation now, don't wait until Sunday."
He could have been on the phone with Governor Blanco saying, "I think you need to activate your National Guard." The National Guard is a Governor's asset, that could have been activated earlier, and there could have been security so the Red Cross could have moved in more quickly.
This once thriving city has taken on a surreal post-apocalyptic character mainly devoid of civilians, and with thousands of heavily armed troops and police on patrol. Every day new stories emerge, about heroism, and horror.
At the same time a clearer picture is also emerging of how the US Government, heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and preoccupied with the war on terror, was unable to help some of its most vulnerable citizens.
Following the failure to evacuate the city the days immediately after the hurricane turned into an unmitigated disaster. In the world's wealthiest nation it took four days for any meaningful help to arrive.
REFUGEES: Help us! Help us! Help us! Help us!
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD: So you had 20 feet of water coming in this way, 15 feet coming in this way in the first day. The National Guard HQ is located right here.
As Katrina made landfall, Lt Colonel Jacques Thibodeaux sat through the hurricane at the National Guard compound in suburban New Orleans.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: I drive a pick-up truck. I walked outside at about 3:00 in the morning, and my truck had about 2 inches of water, 3 inches of water round the tyres. I walked out about 4:00 in the morning, and the water level had rose about 6.5 feet and my truck was underwater.
As daylight broke the National Guardsmen realised the gravity of their situation, and began to swing into action.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We're picking people off of rooftops. We're going out in boats we're going out in trucks. We lost about 20 of our trucks that we had staged at Jackson barracks under 25 feet of water. We, in a sense, became victims of the storm also.
By Monday night, more than half the city was underwater but things were about to get worse. Early on the Tuesday, another canal draining from Lake Pontchartrain burst, sending another wave of water into the central business district, isolating the Superdome, which already contained tens of thousands of people.
REPORTER: So the water is coming up at this stage?
TRENA CASH: The water was up to here on me.
Less than a mile away in the poor tenements district Trena Cash was struggling to keep her children and grandchildren alive.
REPORTER: And you had your kids with you at this stage?
TRENA CASH: I had to put them on mattresses. I had my 3-year-old baby and my 12-year-old daughter, my 8-year-old granddaughter, my 7-year-old grandson, and my 5-year-old grandson and my 3-year-old granddaughter, and my 1-year-old grandson.
REPORTER: And you were floating on mattresses?
TRENA CASH: ..and 2 of my nieces, I put them on mattresses, we had to wade through the water.
REPORTER: So you then went from the mattress to where, to the freeway?
TRENA CASH: Yeah, to the freeway.
REPORTER: And then what happened? You stayed there the night?
TRENA CASH: We spent the night up there 'cos they say someone was coming to pick us up, but nobody never came, so we just walked down the bridge to the Superdome.
By Wednesday morning, 40,000 people filled the Superdome and the incredible scale of this disaster was now was clear to the world. Louisiana's Governor and police chief went on television to plead for federal help, saying the state couldn't cope.
GOVERNOR KATHLEEN BLANCO, LOUISIANA: We have so many people suffering, I'll just tell you it's heartbreaking. All of the relief workers that I've come across are in tears. I'm talking about grown men crying.
COL. HENRY WHITEHORN, LOUISIANA STATE POLICE: It's bad. And that's why the Governor has requested the additional reinforcements from the military, that's why we in the law enforcement community are requesting additional help. We are requesting out-of-state support, we are requesting all the help we can get. It is bad.
But with temperatures soaring, and food and water running out, authorities on the ground in New Orleans couldn't believe that nothing had yet arrived from FEMA.
WALTER MAESTRI: At first the response was, "We're coming. Everything's been communicated, we're coming. It's going to be a little bit longer than we thought, but, we're coming." But of course, we're coming eventuated or evolved into, "Well, we don't know where the resources are, and we don't know how long it's going to take to get to you."
What makes this lack of action even more astounding is that Federal emergency officials with FEMA had actually planned for this exact scenario, a year before.
In July 2004, Local, State and Federal officials, came here to the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness in Baton Rouge to attend an exercise organised by FEMA. It was dubbed 'Hurricane Pam'. Set as a Category 5 hurricane, it anticipated major flooding and the evacuation of up to a million people. At the end of the 5-day exercise everybody agreed they'd done a marvellous job. When the next big storm hit they'd be ready.
WALTER MAESTRI: But because Pam in the exercise and Katrina in reality were the same things, I mean, they are the same storm so nobody should have been surprised at the devastation that Katrina did or at that the devastation that Katrina could do because in the simulations the year before Pam did the same thing.
But after the exercise for Hurricane Pam, FEMA never released the funding to implement the response to a real hurricane.
JANE BULLOCK: The first part was to actually develop the scenario and actually run the exercise. The second part was to take the lessons learned during the exercise, one of which clearly was there were problems with evacuation, and come up with a series of corrective measures. That part of the contract was not funded.
Three days after Katrina hit conditions in the city are worsening. The Superdome is cut off by floodwater, and the 20,000 people at the Convention Centre are watching their friends and relatives die before their eyes.
WOMAN: This morning I found one lady in a wheelchair dead in the ladies bathroom, and another lady lying on the floor by the ladies bathroom dead. And then there's this guy right here that's dead that's been sitting out here for a while.
New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin goes on local radio with a desperate plea to federal authorities.
RAY NAGIN: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price because every day that we delay people are dying. And they don't have a clue what's going on down here.
On the day before President Bush had made his first visit to the area but only from the air. Cutting short his holidays, he flew over the disaster zone on his way back to Washington. At a press conference he showed little sign that he understood how desperate the situation was.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: But there's no doubt in my mind that we're going to succeed. Right now the days seem awfully dark for those affected, and I understand that.
Mayor Nagin could barely contain his anger at the President's failure to act.
RAY NAGIN: It's politics, man, and they're playing games and they're spinning. They're out there spinning for the cameras. They flew down here one time, two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn... Excuse my French, everybody in America, but I am pissed.
On the ground it was becoming clear, unless the Superdome and Convention Centre were evacuated immediately, hundreds more could die. The need for buses to evacuate was urgent but in his discussions with Federal officials Mayor Nagin was shocked by their response.
RAY NAGIN: One of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here. I'm like, "You've got to be kidding me! This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their arses moving to New Orleans. Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here! They're not here! It's too doggone late. Get off your arses and let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country!"
By Friday morning Lieutenant Colonel Thibodeaux was relieved to finally see the first signs of the federal rescue effort albeit a trickle.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We start getting about 500 out-of-state soldiers in, and now the FEMA plan is beginning to work about the buses, and my position.
REPORTER: When you say the FEMA plan is beginning to work about the buses, buses were actually arriving?
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: Well, buses were being contracted, we were getting buses, reports of buses moving from other states towards this area.
REPORTER: Is there any reason the buses weren't already in place before that time?
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: I could tell you that this is a significant logistical challenge, and you know, I'm not sure, I don't want to have visibility as to when the Governor requested the FEMA buses. I know they first initially arrived in a trickle, when we needed a firehose, and I can't tell you as to why that occurred.
But by this time New Orleans had descended into chaos and the city was in the grip of a looting spree. Certainly a hard core of criminals had taken advantage of the mayhem but most were ordinary citizens desperate for food, water and medicines.
MAN: We ain't got nothing! We've got to steal from each other so we can survive and feed our children.
At the Convention Centre, a far more worrying crisis was developing and reports of rape and murder were beginning to emerge.
LT COL JACQUES THIBODEAUX: We begin to hear these reports, and we're concerned, but we're knee deep in evacuating the site. The next morning, on the second, which would have been Friday, September 2, General Landreneaux assigned me as the leader of the rescue mission for the Convention Centre.
When we made the corner and turned, and I saw 15,000 residents - and I'm a lifelong Louisiana resident - it was very heartfelt, and it really hit me pretty hard, looking at those people, looking at the help, looking at them just wanting somebody to help them.
While national guardsmen tried their best to contain the powder keg, the breakdown and desperation was broadcast to the world.
WOMAN: I don't want to die like this.
Jane Bullock watched on in disgust at the failure of FEMA to respond.
JANE BULLOCK: I am shocked, flabbergasted and very saddened. They had at their disposal - they meaning Secretary Chertoff and Mike Brown - had the authority at their disposal to bring in the military, the US Military, and US civilian resources, and they didn't do it - whether it was a question of priorities, whether it was a question or concern about the cost of this disaster, or whether it was simply not knowing what to do, it astonished me.
That same day, President Bush, seemingly oblivious to the horrors still taking place in New Orleans, took time out to publicly congratulate FEMA boss Mike Brown.
GEORGE BUSH: I want to thank you all for... ..Brownie you're doing a heck of a job, The FEMA director is working 24...
How did you feel on the Friday when you saw President Bush saying to Michael Brown, "You've done a heck of a job"?
WALTER MAESTRI: I smiled because I don't know what a heck of a job means but the President's definition and mine are certainly not the same.
GEORGE BUSH: Er, Katrina, er, exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.
Almost two weeks after the storm, President Bush was reeling from the criticism of the federal response. He accepted the resignation of FEMA boss Mike Brown, and even accepted a qualified level of responsibility himself.
GEORGE BUSH: To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right I take responsibility.
WALTER MAESTRI: This is a national tragedy - not so much the storm, we all knew one day the storm would come, the response to the storm, particularly from those support agencies that have proclaimed themselves to be ready, willing and able to respond and to come into communities is fairly completely lacking.
I was gonna call you today because Howie sent me a list of 171 sheriff's deputies who lost their homes. We need to find out the same thing about your fire fighters.
Walter Maestri points to the federal government's preoccupation with terrorism as one of the main reasons why the response was so badly handled.
WALTER MAESTRI: I think it's necessary to look at the priorities of the government and to ask the question as to how these resources are going to be allocated. As much as it is necessary to deal with terrorism, Katrina was a terrorist and she terrorised this community significantly.
Since the 9/11 attack FEMA was officially sidelined and subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security, the Administration's $55 billion bureaucracy to deal with terrorism. Effectively, natural disasters now played second fiddle to Bush's focus on terror.
JANE BULLOCK: When I say the system is broken it's because local and state resources are not working on preparedness for hurricanes or other disasters. By requirement of the Department of Homeland Security, who funds local and state emergency management organisations, they have to spend 75% of their money on preparing for terrorism. And while we recognise terrorism is an important issue so are those disasters we will see every year - hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wild fires.
MAN: We're gonna move fast, we're gonna move quick and we're gonna do whatever it takes to he disaster victims.
According to Jane Bullock, the anger and despair over the handling of Hurricane Katrina, extends well into FEMA itself.
JANE BULLOCK: I have friends who are still at FEMA who called me up and were crying because they felt that they had not been able to do their job, that they had let people down. And it has to be fixed, this system has to be fixed.
If they couldn't respond to a hurricane they knew was coming, and had two days to prepare, how would they respond to a dirty bomb incident? This is a critical issue now, the system has got to be fixed.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, they know to trust the Lord in times of crisis. These refugees have at least survived. As it stands Katrina's death toll will certainly surpass more than 1,000 people.
That the world's only superpower couldn't protect its own citizens from a fully anticipated disaster has left many Americans questioning the government's priorities.