Opinions at N.Y. Times Defy News Report

On September 1, two days after Hurricane Katrina breached the levees protecting New Orleans, President George W. Bush stated:

I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.

At least five New York Times opinion and news articles assert or imply that this statement was wrong. Columnist Paul Krugman, for example, called it "an utterly fantastic claim" and stated that "[i]n fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk."

A Times news story that interviewed experts, however, supports the president's statement, reporting that the experts did not expect a hurricane to breach the levees.

Times Ombudsman Byron Calame has refused to acknowledge email messages reporting the inconsistency, despite his public commitment:

Everything readers send to our mailbox will be read by me or my associate, Joseph Plambeck. If a reply is appropriate, you will hear from us shortly.

[Promise appearing at http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/thepubliceditor/index.html as well as in automatic replies to email messages addressed to the ombudsman.]

The relevant portion of the news story supporting Bush's statement (Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure, September 2, 2005) states:

[D]isaster experts and frustrated officials said a crucial shortcoming [in the federal and state emergency response] may have been the failure to predict that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city would be breached, not just overflow.

In 2000, [officials] studied the impact of a fictional "Hurricane Zebra"; last year they drilled with "Hurricane Pam."

Neither exercise expected the levees to fail. In an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America," President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

"We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," [said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management at the Army Corps of Engineers]. "We never did think they would actually be breached."

In addition, a review of various news sources by factcheck.org (Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding?, September 2) concludes that Bush's statement was "technically correct." (The review notes that flooding was nevertheless foreseen as a result of "water washing over the levees, rather than cutting wide breaks in them.")

Yet Bush's claim has been repeatedly repudiated, generally with contempt, by Times news and opinion articles:

The president's declaration that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center."

--"Falluja Floods the Superdome," by Frank Rich, September 4.

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Disaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded by the combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees, yet somehow the government was unable to immediately rise to the occasion.

--"The Man-Made Disaster," Editorial, September 2.

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Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

--"United States of Shame," by Maureen Dowd, September 3.

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"We know the president said, quote, 'I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,' " [said Mary L. Landrieu, the senior senator from Louisiana]. "Everybody anticipated the breach of the levee, Mr. President, including computer simulations in which this administration participated."

--"La. Senator Returns to Capitol to Denounce Bush," September 9.

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Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk.

--"A Can't-Do Government," by Paul Krugman, September 2.

The issue of whether a levee breach was foreseen, as opposed to flooding because of levees being overtopped, is not a quibble, since some news accounts have suggested that the breach significantly contributed to the chaos prevailing after the hurricane had passed. For example:

Local officials in Louisiana said the scope of a double whammy -- a Category 4 hurricane coupled with a large breach of a levee -- simply overwhelmed them....

Communication has been nearly impossible, and transportation is extremely limited, complicating the rescue and recovery efforts. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) said yesterday that officials were just getting around to putting functioning communications devices out in the field. The rush of water knocked out the 911 system, police radios and telephones, and state police officials have been struggling to communicate with their officers in the field.

["Planning, Response Are Faulted," The Washington Post, September 2, 2005.]

Levees obviously remain a central issue in the crisis. As experts expected, Katrina showed that a Category 4 or 5 hurricane would send water over the top of the city's levees and flood its below-sea-level "bowl." But the breaches in levees and canal walls made things dramatically worse and raised broader questions about the area's flood control system.

["Covering New Orleans: The Decade Before the Storm," New York Times, September 11, 2005.]

I sent Calame the two email messages shown in the appendix below. I also left a voicemail message on September 14, with my number. Calame has not responded.

Dear Mr. Calame,

A Times news story reports (details below) that experts did not foresee that a hurricane could cause the levees protecting New Orleans to be breached.

Paul Krugman says the opposite in his Sept. 2 column ("A Can't-Do Government"): "Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk."

Maureen Dowd implies the same, though less explicitly, in her Sept. 3 column ("United States of Shame"): "Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl."

Here are the relevant excerpts from the news story, "Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure," September 2, 2005:

[D]isaster experts and frustrated officials said a crucial shortcoming may have been the failure to predict that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain out of the city would be breached, not just overflow.

In 2000, [officials] studied the impact of a fictional "Hurricane Zebra"; last year they drilled with "Hurricane Pam."

Neither exercise expected the levees to fail. In an interview Thursday on "Good Morning America," President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

[On Thursday,] Army Corps personnel, in charge of maintaining the levees in New Orleans, started to secure the locks, floodgates and other equipment, said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for project management at the Army Corps of Engineers.

"We knew if it was going to be a Category 5, some levees and some flood walls would be overtopped," he said. "We never did think they would actually be breached."

I would appreciate your response via email.

Sincerely,

Uriel Wittenberg

From: Uriel Wittenberg
To: Times Ombudsman Byron Calame
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 11:08 PM
Subject: Now 3 columnists have contradicted the news story

Dear Mr. Calame,

To the two columnists cited in my earlier message below, we can add Frank Rich, whose Sept. 4 "Falluja Floods the Superdome" has:

The president's declaration that "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees" has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center."

Regards,

Uriel Wittenberg