For a rally. He will join us after the events to take your phone calls. It gets underway tonight at 7 00 eastern here on cspan. , politics, books and american history. Coverage ofe alive president ial candidates at the iowa state fair continues. Chris christie at noon and bobby jindal at 1 00 p. M. Sunday evening at 6 30, scott walker holds a town hall meeting in ashland, new hampshire. Saturday come up with tv is live at the inaugural mississippi book festival beginning and 11 30 a. M. Rights, history and biography and the literary lives of harper lee and eudora wealthy. Shares her critical thoughts on the obama administrations relationship with millennials. Saturday afternoon at 5 00, andrew on the preservation of new yorks cultural, political and architectural landmarks in the history of the commission created to protect them. Railamerica, three films on the program administered by the Johnson Administration to help improve relations between the police and the community after the Martin Luther king assassination and subsequent riots. With the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina coming up next , we been covering the number of retrospective another coming up on monday. This one, daylong, looking at a the reconstruction efforts among other issues. Life monday beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan. Another one held this week in washington marking the katrina anniversary. Next up, we will show you as much of that as we can until senator cruz speaks at the iowa state fair at 11 00. [applause] go ahead. Evening. I am doug brinkley. I am the clause i moderator here quasimoderator here with my friends. I wanted to begin and set the stage for the 10th anniversary. It is history now, katrina. People in the gulf south are still living katrina. It was not just an event of one day. Its an entire decade affecting the region. Atrina is one word that means whole important part of our country trying to come back. Not just hurricane, but from the manmade disaster of the shoddy levees and other problems that the katrina story points to. Racism, poor school systems, crime, economic disparity. Field ery for kyle fertile field of looking at america today. It is not just history. When the storm came, i was a professor at Tulane University and i evacuated the are before. I made the dumbest decision of my life to stay because i did not want to be in gridlock traffic on i 10. I cannot stand traffic. Im very hyperactive. My inlaws lived on top of a building called one river place. It was right by the hilton right next to the Convention Center. I thought i could do a vertical evacuation with my family, wait out the storm. We had provisions. I did that. It shocked me because the Natural Disaster part of katrina , i river all of my life, i looked at the Mississippi River and saw the river, the Mighty Mississippi you study and think about going in the opposite direction. The power of the storm was pushing the water from the gulf of mexico upwards. I can see across, you could see things coming up the riverbank. When the winds were coming it almost lifted the border collie, pulled the lease of the animal up and quickly brought it back in. You can see the danger of stop signs blowing and debris in mississippi, a lot of people got hurt by shrapnel. Loose bits of metal flying. Many injuries with that. Once the storm settled, i went and walked around the French Quarter. I thought new orleans dodged the bullet. Later, i went to the bywater region and talk to a group of police and we were looking at the levees breaching and the city was under water. Ts when i began looking working on my book, the great deluge. He was now standing mayor and his father was now standing mayor and he worked so hard and continues to work so hard on behalf of the city of new orleans. I wanted to ask you where you were when katrina hit and your first reaction at the time. Thank you to the audience, think you to the museum. , august 27, i flew to norlins for the funeral to new orleans for a funeral. We were living in new york, still owned our home in new orleans. We had moved to new york after i left office. My wife was working at cbs news. Norlinsth, include to new orleans to attend the funeral of the president of the urban league of greater new orleans. The funeral was taking place at dillard university. A beautiful, flawless day. When i walked into the chapel. The hurricane was a category one or two. This was a glorious celebratory funeral. It was going to go on for a long time. , myhours into the funeral Communications Director handed me a note. She said we must leave now. I walked to the side of the sanctuary and she said the hurricane is a category five. We must leave town now because you have to get back to new york. Andairport will be closed all hell is about to break loose. Mind you, it is a sunny, beautiful day. No evidence that a storm is on the way. To my to her im going mothers house to check on her first and then we will go to the airport. House andmy mothers i said, mom, turn on the tv. This hurricane is coming. You must leave town and go to baton rouge. She said im not going anywhere. Please give me a hotel room and i will vertically evacuate. I said, mom, i think you need to. O to sherrys house she goes upstairs, doesnt say a word. Im watching tv and i said i have to get to the airport. Im not leaving until you leave. Sawrned on television and i the beginning of the mishandling of the crisis. Successor saying to the that he could not order an evacuation until the lawyers cleared it. My heart leapt into my mouth because i had managed through a 1998 storm called hurricane george. Which was a storm which could have been like katrina, but it diverted. City and barely affected the city. The power. It knocked out the power. Back on a flight and went to new york and got back into new york. The hurricane this is what is so important. Youe gets perspective know this. Once the hurricane passed, the sun came out. Mistake number two from an Emergency Response standpoint was that the city and the emergency officials were not aware that there had been levy preaches. People went to bed, went to their homes, those that remained in the city and the levee breaches filled the city with water in the evening and overnight. And into the morning of tuesday, which created the panic in the crisis. In a hurricane, the first thing that happens that causes human anxiety with confusion and misery is the power goes out. You lose power, you lose electricity, you lose access to television, you lose access to anything people with cell phones can charge them. That occurs first. Congregated at the dome and the Convention Center. Last resortof because that is what had occurred in 1998. They went there expecting in 2005 what they got in 1998. Which was a facility where there was water, doctors, nurses, and maris, National Guard on standby. , National Guard on standby. Short, what you saw who had those automobiles and wherewithal got on the roads and got out of town. That means you had a car, a friend, any place to go. A credit card and money to get a hotel in jackson or memphis or atlanta or houston. Someplace away from the gulf coast. If you did not, you either and said iour home will ride this thing up because ive seen this story before. Or, i will go to the shelter of last resort at the Convention Center. That is a bit of context of why these people were stranded at these two facilities at the dome and the Convention Center. This this was a error. Storm of the federal government, President Administration initially pointed the finger at the governor and the mayor. The mayor pointed the finger of the governor, the governor pointed the finger at the mayor. Other,re blaming each having this argument about federalism and who was responsible and that was what characterized the first two or three days. No one stepping up saying i will be responsible. It was the media, the National Media who went to new or less new orleans that elevated what was occurring in new orleans into the national consciousness. Rescue inergency response, you have a 40 hour window to save lives. Goes out,electricity people will die in 48 hours if they dont get a respiratory machine or dialysis. We failed as a country. Except, the coast guard did an incredible job. Ns andana mississippians save themselves. Where were you when you started seeing this on the tv . I was where all good new yorkers along come in the hamptons. Coming, it would have been my 34th hurricane. They always do the same thing. They come straight towards new orleans and then hit mississippi. We knew thats what was going to happen. , as my father and e were tooling around Louis Armstrong was going to close and i had to go. I took my old bag and went straight to the airport. Not easy. There and quickly realized they were not ready. I would disagree about errors being made people made decisions of money over man. When the mayor did not send the buses, he made a decision money over man. That decision kill people. I watched as time went on people who died after day to are not counted as victims of katrina. I dont know what they count them as. They dont count them as victims of katrina. Those people are victims. This is the part where i would fill in the blanks with names. The people who made those decisions kill those people because they could not get water and cannot get food. People came up to me that one person came up with a baby and aid my baby is hotter than humans can be. My baby will die of we dont get to someone. We are on the bridge across from the superdome. There is video to prove it. We stand in front of the place where the cops are screaming by, make the cops stop and say this baby is going to die unless you take the baby. If you dont take the baby, im putting it on the news tonight. He took the baby and i wondered how many dead babies are there because decisions were made about money over man. Thats what happened. This storm did not hit new orleans. A category two hurricane hit nor lets. Orleans. Ts new haveeason you did not people screaming at you for mississippi is because they were dead. A 32 foot wall of water came into my state. New orleans got spared. They cannot even take being spared. So poor atn preparing a city under sea level to be prepared for the absolute they were so poorly prepared that they could not take a brush of the category two storm. It will happen again. It will be worse. Make is point i want to that today, it would not happen. Today, we have twitter and facebook and people would know, you cannot go to the Convention Center. You will die there. Is no medicine for your old people, no formula for your babies. Here is high you can get transportation. It would have been better today. Five wednesday, there were no cell phones. The cell towers went down and when the power went out, people who had cell phones cannot recharge them. You have this catastrophic situation where only by looking at television away from the city from a horrific point of view, when we were in new york and we turned on television and i saw what was happening at the Convention Center and at the dome, my wife and i looked at that i went from an absolute rage to crying. I hadnt cried since my daddy died. Memorial forat your father it was shocking to see people suffering like they were in the whole of the ship whole of the ship. In august in new orleans, it is 99 degrees. And 99 humidity. The heat and humidity is oppressive. Outdoorsgerous to be for long amounts of time. People are outside for hours, or ood. Without water or f while so much of the focus of katrina is on new orleans, the truth is, its impact was all around the gulf coast. Mississippi got battered. The gulf coast of mississippi. Coastal parts of louisiana got battered. There was a companion storm right behind katrina called rita which affected the southwestern part of the state. While new orleans was the epicenter, the massive extent of this storm went far beyond the city. This itsoffer important for people to understand what caused the flooding. Feared in new orleans that the most catastrophic thing that could occur would be a Mississippi River levee break. In the event of a huge storm. In this instance, what broke canalslevees on drainage that are not as wide as this room. These drainage canals carry water from underneath the streets to a pumping station where they are pumped up and put in the canal and the canal empties into the lake which then mds into the gulf of mexico. With the power of the hurricane, it forced the water in reverse into the canals and created so much pressure that the levee walls broke in five separate places. They were in Engineering Convention of the early 1900s designed to train drain parts of the city that used to be swaps. Innovations,ring why did they fail . If you saw these levees, their flood walls. They look like the sound barriers you see on the side of a highway. Some of them were poorly designed, some of them were inadequately constructed. The responsibility for these levees fail on the net States Army Corps of engineers fell on the united States Army Corps of engineers. A were financed by and designed by the United States government. Yet, when katrina took place, because it is the army, they were imbued by the doctrine of sovereignty from lawsuits. There was a responsible party that in normal circumstances would have been called to task. Therefore, many people were left with if they had flood insurance, they were left with anything the government would do under the stafford act. This was a unique set of circumstances. I really, really believe that and i hope that what people will year isn this 10th really, really have a candid conversation. It could happen again and it could be worse. It ought to be the responsibility of everyone to do Everything Possible to make sure that it cannot happen again in the magnitude that it happened with Hurricane Katrina. One of the other aspects of all this was the disappearing wetlands of louisiana. You will see all these Barrier Islands with erosion the wetlands dying, they built the river it connected the gulf of mexico to make nor lets a better port. New orleans a better port. It became a wind tunnel. That water hopped over all the flood walls. It is boardedup. It was an engineering boondoggle. The environmental boondoggle of costly killing americas wetlands when the storm would gulf,0 miles north of the it would suck in like a sponge a lot of the search. Now, you are getting a more direct hit on the levees. Mississippi, those towns got offclean off wept clean the whole town was gone. Mily picking up their belongings. They said we are getting ready to rebuild. Right on the gulf. Why wouldnt you move 12 miles and and then you can enjoy this in my granddaddy lived here, my daddy grew up here and im rebuilding. We will stay. Yous a lot of that will see people building homes along the gulf again in mississippi. Did you have a personal connection to that region . That made this different than other stores . Im from upstate in holly springs, the oxford area. Mississippi is really three states. , the centralpart part with jackson in the south part where they all talk about cajuns. We are all kind of one people. Dont mess with brett favre. Our hurricane was camille. The hurricane nobody knew about. That is the one that wiped us out. They had building standards to that level. Nothing will ever be camille again. Then, this top camille. The people who wanted to rebuild if you are looking to the left, thats where the storm came a sure. Right there in mississippi. Not in the louisiana. Thing is wavelan. You have to build 30 feet above the waterline. That land, they cannot use. Beforehe 5020 years katrina hit the mississippi gulf coast, the mississippi gulf coast had been transformed by casino gambling. , landbased boats that never float. One of the most interesting stories of katrina is that it wiped out most of the casinos on the gulf coast. One of the interesting stories, the governor, how can he convince conservative mississippi to embrace thie sin of casino gambling again . Iwas a political act want to paint this human picture. In katrina, the numbers about 2000 people lost their lives. People lost their lives in many ways. , ithe personal stories side had press whose parents died in their pets i have friends whose parents died in their beds. There was another group of people who managed when the waters rose to go into their antics, break holes in the roof of their houses and wait on the roots of their homes until the ran for would three consecutive days, helicopter, airbased rescues. There were those for whom the trauma and shock were so bad that they could notwithstanding on the roof, of being stranded for two or three days waiting to be rescued. Then, there was the aftereffect. And then there was the aftereffect. Was so difficult and challenging that diabetics were separated from their medicine for a long period of time to those on dialysis didnt have dialysis for several days because of the storm, and also days or weeks later because of the effect of the storm. This is one of the great human tragedies in modern american history. The reason why it is a tragedy ill tell a story. I was asked to the saturday after katrina to go to a meeting at the white house. I went to a meeting at the white house, and i will say this because it is absolutely true. At that point in time Michael Chertoff had just been named secretary of Homeland Security you know, distinguish former who said to me in a meeting in the white house that the reason why they could wasget supplies in thei there was no place for military helicopters to land. I challenged him to the point because at the dome there is a helipad. There is a helipad at the dome. What you saw in those first few days was absolute denial, failure to accept responsibility, a fumbling, bumbling, and political finger pointing. And it ought to be a lesson. The Public Officials who were front and center of what you see lost tremendous credibility because of how they respond. Andrward, what i saw i lived in new york during Hurricane Sandy were Public Officials knocking themselves out to run in front of the cameras, to communicate to their public what they should do to prepare for Hurricane Sandy. And it is a lesson to be learned that in a crisis, you have got to drop partisanship, you have got to drop politics, you have got to drop all the games that people play. Shepard they dont know how. Marc i saw something criticized Chris Christie somebody criticize Chris Christie for embracing obama in the course of a storm. L, if he hadnt done it and i saw no one defend the fact that he was willing and i will say this in a crisis to say the politics of the moment need to be set aside. Him in the defending sense that i agree with his politics, but i will say that politicians, elected officials, and leaders have to remember that in a crisis, the public and the people dont care about rs, they dont care about ds, they dont care about ideology, they dont care about platform. They expect you to take care of them. [applause] douglas in 1965, we are talking about hurricane camille in agency five, and in 1969 theres betsy and Lyndon Johnson got in boat, flashlight in his face, said i am here. Some people criticized lbj for doing that, but as the president , you are saying you manner, we love all of you, our country cares. George w. Bush didnt care enough. He left crawford, texas, where they had a meeting about it, worried about if the levees would top. He went out to san diego and continue to give a speech on Foreign Policy comparing the work in iraq going to drag more in iraq going to drag on longer, just like Douglas Macarthur in japan, and he kept doing the Foreign Policy rollout rollout,n played even played air guitar in front of a camera while the gulf coast was being stricken, and famously did that fly over looking out, seeming to care. It was a disaster not to have gone down there after the storm and have exhibited some kind of leadership. Ma, who recounted on that was a jimmy carterformed organization, fema, and it got ized in ghetto Homeland Security, an orphan agency. Fema, if you had to give them a great, there would be f, f, during the storm. The louisiana National Guard should have been able to help, but they didnt evacuate their assets. They kept them at Jackson Barracks along the mississippi. Shepard in iraq with the satellite douglas and the National Guard in louisiana and iraq. You have all of those louisiana they were attracted save each other, trying to save each other, let alone help anybody else. ,hey had moved their assets moved them in line to alexandria so they could come back and rescue people and go backandforth. The coast guard and other groups did well. The fish and wildlife boat people would come in and rescue people. Heroicmeboy homeboys and homegirls. People felt they were marginal i interviewed people, a reggae singer who felt he couldnt make it they were suffering and they went in and help people and did an incredible individual hero is in job. We cannot forget the word toxic soup, the phrase. There was fear that the water would have toxic runoff and the policeman would not go in the water. They awold it out of town. Shepard after dropping by the car dealership. It is important to not just talk about the stories remember the moments that were pivotal where we could have saved lives. They were not big, unmentionable things. They were little things. First, the decision not to send the buses. And then we were listening to 87 0, wwll, and the parish president is on the levy and says, on, my gosh, im watching it, the levees breached. If you know anything about new orleans, we have new rules. Get out. If you cant get out, you got a go up. Instead, they went to bed. If there had been some kind of warning system, when that parish residents and what i heard, i went straight to the air on my channel and said the city of new orleans is going to flood. I know lots of people are going to die. I told her studio, you have got to send people. We will be here for weeks and months, and they told me it was crazy because it had not been reported, have not been on Associated Press yet. If people have been able to be notified in the way that i was by that parish president that it was about to flood, a lot of this wouldnt have happened. We need a warning system. We also need a separation between the regulars and the regular irregulars. We can say whatever we want about who it was who was there been any of us who go and love new orleans the way we do know that there is a Large Community of addicted people who live within new orleans and often stuck in new orleans and are caught in a cycle of lack of education and lack of opportunity and become addicted and is cheap to do it and three days later, people who are addicted and dont have the things which they are addicted to, there was no separating of that within these refugee centers. It was ugly. People didnt go in there if they were worried about it. We needed somebody to control the need patrol the needed. Marc there were addicted people everywhere. Shepard amen, but these were all stranded together. Marc the other credit for mistake was the minute you knew you had 10,000, 3000 people, at the Convention Center and the dome, every effort should have been made to get water, to get mres, meals ready to eat, to get medical supplies to those facilities immediately. By way of airdrops look, if can get into new orleans, then emergency vehicles can get into new orleans. It was an absolute lie that you couldnt get supplies in one way or another tuesday, wednesday, thursday. Now, what happened next . I think one of the heroes of katrinas general russell hono re. The general was assigned, if you will, to lead the effort to completely evacuate the city. , thee time friday came federal Emergency Management agency had mobilized literally hundreds and hundreds of buses to get to new orleans, to pick people up, and bring them to the , twodome in houston facilities in jackson, baton and memphis,a, where these temporary shelters for. Were. I visited the temporary shelter in houston, and bill clinton was there, the newly minted United States senator barack obama was there. Rick perry, who at the time was the county executive in harris annty, was actually absolutely very helpful person in responding to Hurricane Katrina. I will tell it like it is. Give love where love has been earned. To ao by the time you got week, 10 days after the hurricane, the city of new orleans was a complete and total ghost town. What happened next . This is important. This is one of the this became what i called the Second Chapter, doug, of tragedy could a group of selfanointed new orleans Business Leaders went to theas, had a meeting, hired urban land institute, and decided they would contact a plan to rebuild the city. That plan included rebuilding only certain neighborhoods in the city of new orleans, and, bingo, what neighborhoods were not going to be rebuilt . The lower ninth ward. The upper ninth ward. New orleans east. Potter train park. Ponchatrain park. Areas that were historic predominantly africanamerican neighborhoods. Leaders i of business think had the gumption and the golf to advance such a plan an gall to advance such a plan publicly as if it was the only way to rescue the city. Imagine if you are laying on the sleeping bed in houston, on the floor of the astrodome, and you look up on television and you see people talking about a plan to rebuild the city that doesnt include the house you evacuated from, that doesnt include the apartment you evacuated from, that doesnt include the neighborhood that you call home and that you love. Of soecond chapter the Second Chapter of what was a tragedy was this plan. I call it the dallas plan to , which new orleans immediately became discredited, because in its intent to the intent was morally bankrupt, in my opinion. And it outraged me to some extent that i decided i was going to fly to new orleans and we were going to host a rally at a church in new orleans east, and we held a rally in a church with no lights, with no chairs, with no carpet, to say to the people and the leadership of the ray naginitially, embraced this plan. As things evolved and the election was nearing, he abandoned his support for that plan. Quickly went into the garbage and that plan quickly went into the garbage can, went into the trashcan. But what it led to was a chaotic rebuilding that began to take place because everyone sort of threw up their hands, there really was not an organized, orderly planning process, and everyone was doing the wrong thing. To the credit of the people of the city, and the civic organizations, the people said i dont care if the government doesnt have a plan. I dont care if the government is dysfunctional. Im going to rebuild my house. We are going to rebuild this community. So you had come if you will, civic uprising, but the effect of that plan and how that plan effects where we are 10 years later. That some neighborhoods in the city were very late to begin the rebuilding process because doubt was thrown over whether these neighborhoods would be rebuilt. So businesses would not go back, Public Services would not go back, bus lines did not go back, hospitals were not reopened, clinics were not reopened, Public Service douglas Insurance Companies wouldnt cover people in those neighborhoods. Marc so they got a late, late start to rebuilding. Im talking about new orleans east. Im talking about the lower ninth ward. Im talking about the upper ninth ward. Im talking about a lot of predominately africanamerican areas. And dont leave out the fact that there was st. Bernard parish,st. Bernard which is not a predominately africanamerican but mostly wase, bluecollar area, also tremendously battered by the storm, and there was doubt about whether the st. Bernard parish would be rebuilt. Many people found themselves in this sort of limbo, where fectcialdom couldnt not con a coherent plan, but had abandoned the idea that the areas should not be rebuilt and people were left to their own devices. To their credit, if there is something significant to 10 years later, it is the determination and the nerve of individuals. Flunked,rnment bamboozled,bled, people did the wrong thing and said we were going to rebuild. My own mother people to do their own thing and said we were going to rebuild. My own mother spent eight years in baton rouge before she could bring herself to rebuild, before she could wade through the difficulties of insurance and contractors and get over the sting, the sting of what katrina did to so many people. Imagine, each of you, about your own hometown, your own home neighborhood, the people you ove, and all of a sudden one day you are enjoying it and a week later, they seem to all be gone. There is a really, really feeling that is indescribable feeling. You never know if you are going to see her friends again. You may never know if you are going to read connect with cap reconnect with family. If you go back to the place you were shipped, the civic and social clubs they gave her life fabric, if you enjoy the places where you ate. That is the feeling that many people had in the years, months and years immediately following katrina, whether in fact they would ever get back home. Douglas we also speak about american candoism. Fdr right now, the grand cooley dm, or the moon shot of kennedy and the moon. Starting in the 1960s lets not just blame this on the Bush Administration we built a lot of really bad levees. The corps of engineers did dee ply shoddy work. There were three major breaches for all sorts of breaches going on. Like ponchatrain lake , see water coming in. It is a tale of two cities. New orleans is doing well on the 10th anniversary in the French Quarter and the garden district, but some of these other neighborhoods, benign neglect. Many people who want to come home 10 years later still cant come back from atlanta, and it is a huge tragedy. Lets talk about the Mississippi River. Minneapolisst. Paul has about 23 fortune 500 companies. One. Rleans has not a lot of money in new orleans. It is often broke. It relies on port business and tourism. Port andu feel, marc, businesses doing marc it is important to understand my the character of the port and the job creator is not in 2015 what it was in 1965 or 1985, where you had a very laborintensive system of loading and unloading partisanship spirit unloading barges and ships. It is still a significant driver of the new orleans economy and the important component of the new orleans economy. Perhaps one of the challenges that the city is a part of shipment, a place where cargo from Foreign Countries comes to the port of new orleans. It is transferred from oceangoing vessels to barges were to a Railroad System or to transshipment to other parts of the United States or to a truck to transshipment to other parts of the United States to as opposed to a destination port. That is one of the challenges of ability to maximize its status as one of the leading ports in the United States, but it is still a significant driver. 30 years ago, new orleans had fo ur, maybe five fortune 500headquartered companies. Consolidations in shipping, consolidations in oil and gas, those companies Louisiana Land and exploration, lifelines, for example either ceased to exist or were bought by other companies and relocated away. One of the most exciting things for the future of the new orleans economy is the brandnew Veterans AdministrationMedical Center and the new medical complex. But it still remains to be seen whether that is going to be maximized beyond treatment, research, and the ability to do the things like the Cleveland Clinic or the anderson Medical Center in houston are able to do. New orleans has always been a city of Family Businesses and small businesses. But it has also been a city with wide income disparity. Wide wealth disparities. And i think when i am asked what grade i would assign to new orleans 10 years later, i would give it the grade i for incomplete, because the recovery is not yet complete. You have to celebrate or you have to highlight those things that have happened that have been good. Dougou have a spotlight, and shepard, those pieces of difficult and unfinished business. Neighborhoods that have not come back, poverty that still exists, challenges that still remain. Douglas there are two microphones here and if anybody has questions come up now. Shepard a question and that if anybody wants to ask something. Shepard, we saw you in that incredible clip, talking about with your, warring boss is about the coverage could you did a remarkable job as a journalist of breaking news, and yet a lot of reporters who tried to do that started reporting rumors which created all sorts of problems. You seem to have constantly spoke from the heart but also the head, and you really, to america, we all were impressed by your journalism jobs. Impressed by your journalism chops. How do you know what not to report . What is the instinct to Say Something was happening when the rumors were widespread, even spread by the New Orleans Police Department that were bogus . Shepard and the mayors office. When you are gathering through chemicals, which is what a lot of networking journalism is, that is one cracked, and in the moment, you have to realize that is where you are, and you only know what you can see, taste, smell, hear. You have to use your senses, and you can report those things with a great degree of certainty. Even the bigger context when the National Guard and other states when they opened the doors i could not get in there and you can fill in the blank when the doors open, positive pressure building, and the smell that came out of there was nothing i ever experienced, and the thought of families being there and just being able to tell the story of something you couldnt see on television was, for a journalist from a very powerful thing to be able to do, to be trutho impart a bit of that there was no way for anyone to have, or being across from the superdome, the largest airlift at the time in the history of the nation, peacetime airlift. It was accomplished by these heroes of the coast guard. To be able to document these things marc give the coast guard at hand. The coast guard deserves a hand. They performed. [applause] douglas yes, sir . With the exception of perhaps mr. Smiths organization, most people in the country in the world relies Climate Change shepard i report daily on Fox News Channel that Climate Change is real and we are responsible for it. If there are people who wish to have other opinions, they are entitled to those but i am positive they are wrong. [applause] but realistically, Climate Change says that water levels are rising. From a purely economic standpoint, wouldnt it have made sense to pay to move people elsewhere . Marc let me just say, you could argue that you should shut down fort lauderdale, miami, tampa shepard new york city. Marc every single coastal city. I mean them in new orleans, right, is a coastal city, and i hear people say why dont you just move people to high ground in new orleans . Aint no such thing. [laughter] marc all of southeastern louisianas pretty much at or below sea level. We have got to understand that we build cities near water for practical reasons, and there are a handful of landlord big cities in america atlanta, charlotte, dallas maybe, denver, was vegas las vegas. Most of your major cities they are vulnerable. Manhattan, lower manhattan, is vulnerable to a storm surge and flooding. Trusting, south carolina, is a full charleston, south carolina, is vulnerable. If you are going to say that, you have got to say it for all cities that are in any risk. Douglas we talk about how the dutch if you love your country enough we have got to save these american cities. When chicago burned marc and i want to say this, because in 1995 or 1996, every year when i was mayor, may 1 there was a beginning of Hurricane Season tabletop exercise that took place. That tabletop exercise included all of the Emergency Management people, all of the fema people, and it happened every year. The first year i was in office i showed up at the hurricane tabletop exercise, and people said what are you doing here . I said that if a hurricane happens ive had to call the shots. If i call the shots, i need to understand what is going on and not rely solely on what one or two people tell me in the heat of a crisis. Conversation, one of the people who was presenting the 1996 this was in 1995, Climate Change came up. The el when i believe nino effect was in place. I asked this guy to logically explained to me how climate affects aatively hurricane. It goes through this little formula about how every degree that the temperature is higher has that much of an effect on the sea level, and i got it. It was easy to understand the way it was explained. A more practical conversation about Climate Change. Weve got to explain to people so they dont think it is some kind of scientific theory that it is realistic, right, if ultraviolet rays hit the water and it is more. And it is warmer. I am convinced with Hurricane Katrina that i lived through, lived through betsy, lived through camille, many other ofricanes, that the warmth the gulf waters, it was so warm that summer that it took a hurricane from a category one or two to category five literally in hours. Usually dont see hurricane grow in that kind of strength in such a short period of time. Climate change is an important issue, but we will not surrender the city under any circumstances. [applause] miamis good article on and Climate Change in a recent national geographic. Tore are things we have got do in cities to do with climate so thanks for raising it. Yes . Good evening to the panel. I was one of those folks watching cnn the data hurricane hit and the levees broke, and i was raging, pacing up and down in my living room going why why why . Im not sure 10 years later all the whys can be answered. I would like your opinion on the spike lee documentaries, when the levees broke spike onuglas i worked with it. Whenever i went to interview somebody spike would be there. We started to Work Together and he is a great friend of mine and i think he did absolutely brilliant work and when the levees broke is one of the great document is about time. Marc im in the movie. [laughter] and some of what i said you know the beauty of broke is it is an artistic triumph because the entire narrative is interviews that was stitched together. What you hear is the voices of the people. Spikethe emotions managed to interview people from all walks of life. I think it was masterful. And i hope that some people will go and look at it again. On the 10th anniversary, i think it is helpful and important to look at it again. Douglas even though somebody might be in a soundbite for, lets say, 30 seconds, spike would interview them for two hours so he created a great oral history project of Hurricane Katrina on film by getting some people so quickly. Yes, sir . Householdsew orleans dont have a car, but there