"Let's try that again: The cavalry wasn't late. It didn't arrive on Thursday smoking a cigar and cussing. It was there all along.After Katrina I posted several comments that were based upon what I could read and hear from the news industry. The essay I point to above paints a much different story than I got then, and apparently it is more likely the accurate story of what happened after Katrina had passed New Orleans. Apparently there were significant rescue efforts that saved many, many people.
The National Guard's response to Katrina was even more robust than I suspected in my reporting for RealClearPolitics in September, and in more detail for National Review, where I revealed for the first time that rescue operations saved up to 50,000 lives, with perhaps an equal number making their way to shelters on their own.
Fifty thousand New Orleans residents were in danger of death from drowning, heatstroke, dehydration and disease. That was a tough one to get through the media reality-distortion field, but the numbers have since been confirmed by Congress, the White House, Louisiana state officials and the relevant agencies themselves. If anything, I understated the size of the rescue effort. What I didn't understand was the critical role the Superdome headquarters played."
Perhaps I should take this as a reminder that the news industry, on the whole, is not a very good source for information that leads to true understanding.
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