NEW ORELEANS EXAGGERATIONS FINALLY COMING TO LIGHT

The irresponsible reporting by the press and the emotionally charged reaction by local officials during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina along with the debacle that the city and state of Louisiana caused are now finally being revealed as the truth, as it always does, becomes known. As the waters were rising in New Orleans the rumor mill that always appears in the wake of such devastation was being reported without confirmation of the truth and Mayor Ray Nagin and other city and state officials were compounding this by blatantly telling of these exaggerated stories in numerous press conferences in the days after the storm. False report of babies being murdered and raped in the Convention Center and Superdome were rampant. Reports of the evacuees living with hundreds of dead bodies and murders taking place by the minute were headlines and none of these stories were being confirmed, just reported as they were heard then being touted as the truth! When doctors arrived at the Superdome when the building was cleared they came expecting to carry away hundreds and found only ten, eight of which died of natural causes, one was a suicide and the tenth died elsewhere and was brought to the Dome . One week after the flooding members of the Arkansas National Guard reported 30-40 bodies in a freezer at the Convention Center and this too was widely reported, yet when the body count from the Center was revealed the total was four. Now this does not take away or diminish the chaos that the city was in after Katrina nor the fact that city officials did not have any control or handle of the situation. For instance more then 200 city police officers are being investigated and will be brought up on charges of desertion and derelict of duty as they ran from their posts during the chaos that followed. The blatant irresponsible reporting by the press and the exaggeration and out right falsehoods expressed by city officials not only added to the panic that the city was in but I dare say may have cost lives as the situation worsened and officials were too busy looking for a camera to complain to instead of doing their job while reporters looked for the sensational rather than the truth!

Ken Taylor