New Orleans "dodged the bullet" : early deception

[pazuzu]

In the first hours after Katrina, an article appeared claiming that New Orleans had dodged the bullet. Who was repsonsible for this deliberate deceit?

[populistdriven]

1. fox news?

[SPKrazy]

2. Was It Deliberate?

as I recall, the levees didn't breech until after the storm's eyewall had already come ashore

So maybe it was really believed that they dodged the bullet?

[bryant69]

5. Yeah I think you should have to rpove a charge like that

I mean it's possible - but the sheer maliciousness involved in purposfully telling peopl the worst had passed? I don't know.

Bryant
Check it out--> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[pazuzu]

9. Someone DID prove the item was from a rightwing source,

but I had HD crash and lost my bookmarks and don't have the link.

[Skip Intro]

3. I remember hearing that from several sources

seemed to be the decided-upon spin, for a while.

wonder where it came from?

[pazuzu]

8. Yes, it was spin n/t

[Shakespeare]

13. Oh, there were even several DUers spouting that bullshit.

I could name them, too, but that would be against DU rules. Of course, when it was obvious NO had not dodged a bullet, do you think they acknowledged their error? Of course not. :grr:

[Kagemusha]

4. I recall dodged "a" bullet, myself, but more importantly...

the direct damage could've been massively worse. That the flooding ultimately did such damage was only obvious once levees started breaking.

[pitohui]

6. this would be hard to say where i first heard this said

people in the area and by in the area i mean in the area of 90,000 square miles where we had no or only sporadic electricity weren't getting much news at all

we heard the storm had turned, putting new orleans on the west side of the storm -- a direct hit or the storm hitting to the east of new orleans would have been much, much worse

so this is where you may have had people saying spontaneously, "we dodged the bullet"

if the storm had continued on track to hit new orleans, everyone who was rescued out of an attic or off a roof would have been drowned immediately, tens of thousands of lives lost

[TwilightZone]

7. I don't think it was deliberate.

Ignorant, yes. Deliberate, no.

The talking heads didn't have the first clue what they were talking about and had no understanding of the situation. The "dodged the bullet" meme was simply a kneejerk reaction after the storm had come ashore.

And, frankly, in a way, they did dodge a bullet. Had the storm stayed a category 5 and hit New Orleans directly, the catastrophe that resulted would have dwarfed what really happened. The number of dead would have been multiplied several times.

[Kickoutthejams23]

10. I remember this was said after the storm had passed.

I doubt many people in NOLA were watching all news cable at that point. And as another poster pointed out it wasn't a direct hit and the storm did weaken before landfall. So saying they dodged a bullet wasn't completely out of line. (The federal governments response however was completely out of line)

[RamboLiberal]

11. Worldnet Daily for one - hey maybe that explains why the

Bushies all thought it had. :sarcasm:

Hurricane slams ashore, N'Orleans dodges bullet http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46025

But in truthiness, I think it was a widespread headline for the morning papers in much of the country.

Big Easy dodges bullet http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1433&dept_id=170166&newsid=15117125&PAG=461&rfi=9

[Swamp Rat]

12. I can't remember

I was too busy looking for my mom and my dogs.

[misanthrope]

14. It was merely presumptive, not nefarious.**nm

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