so there is some confusion there, as far as finding coordination. i think this is an area that should be looked at in terms of if we need to do anything to enhance it. you operated it in the gulf of mexico from 2006 to 2009, is that correct? >> his testimony was that he ordered the captain to do what ever it was -- and believe that to be amiss characterization -- i believe that to be a this characterization --

mischaracterization. >> noted. >> your notes are probably better than mine. >> i think he wanted to set the setting for the audience and the witness. this is a four-looking recommendation. -- forward-looking recommendation. >> since we have interrupted, i would just note that mr. thierens area of testimony for which he was prepared was the b.o.p. nderstand that. he has extensive experience in the oil and gas industry. i would think that he is the

senior statesman for the industry. >> i am sure you he is a qualified person in his field. more than qualified. a senior spokesperson is a heavy burden to carry. >> theories of what i am telling you is there is some confusion that i can see here in turn and coordination. do you have any recommendations in terms of improvements for drilling for exploration? to you have any recommendations? >> it is not my field of expertise. i am not capable of forming an opinion of that.

>> had ever served as in oim aboard a vessel engaged in illing operations? >> no, i have never done that. fif>> i will continue. in terms of search and rescue, there was an office supply vessel. were you aware of that? >> no. >> it has ten the ability of rescuing crafts. it was very critical in rescuing survivors. one of the questions i asked today about the recommendation to hae a standby vessel for a motive in gauging during operation, [unintelligible] it is not a requirement right now the mr. winslow said no.

they have a lifeboat could if -- lifeboats. ben >o board the vessel, it is a three legged stool. you have the master, anager, and the well site leader. those three people are supposed to make decisions. are you aware of that arrangement? >> i am not aware of the

arrangements that were in place on the horizon with regard to this. >> i understand it is pretty much the standard on a engagements. it is not just the deepwater horizon. >> alhough i am the well site leader, it sounds like part of the compliment of the vessel, yes. >> it is not a bp vessel? what i'm sorry. at that you were referring to mobile drilling units. >> you are the vp for drilling

and completion for bp and you do not know the chains of command aboard a vessel in case in this activity? >> i do not know the chain of command of board precisely the vessels. >> any vessel operated by bp? > i do not know of the tin command is a navy vessel. i believe the oim is in charge of a bp drexel -- vessel. >> what you mean by a bp vessel? >> you refer to thunder course. does the he have any vessels? >> not that i am aware of.

four vessels operating, the deep water horizon is a vessel. who should be in charge? cle>> i hate to be defending a p witness, but [inaudible] i do not think this is bible information. >> the board has some for the we have lived to each itness to see if they have any recommendations to make things safer.

it ould be great if your experience have let you. we do not want to experience the benefit of your knowledge. i think the board members fill it is our duty that we have for the thing recommendations if they have any. this is not a test. he did not have to answer. if you have an opinion, we would welcome on the deepwater horizon, being oim is in charge from what we understand. for you aware? >> i am not absolutely eschesuro

is in command. >> give a cruise director in charge of entertainment for their energy entertainment. >> of expected capt. to be in charge. >> does it make sense for the deepwater horizon to have a single person in charge evelyn to in the hood is? >> i do not know. -- in charge to know who it is?

>> i do not know. >> do you have an opinion? >> i do not have an opinion. >> how much knowledge do you have in regard to international regulations governing? >> i do not have knowledge of that. who in bp at your level would have knowledge and maritime operations including international regulations that limit -- regulations? >> i do not know. >> is bp a growing company? there is very little attention paid.

>> there are stovepipes abod in terms of the system. onthe company side, you have the stovepipes with the marine system. i do not see how everything is coordinated. that is why my questions have to be received a management assistant for the is to be the framework that everything is tied into. the system identifies one person in charge that is accountable and responsible for upgrading the vessel.

it seems to me that not everything is focusing on drilling here. especially when we go into the emergency situations. it makes it difficult to do have an effective response. you say you are out there. the things you would not know anything about. it seems that and not a lot of things are very well coordinated. . .

we have two relief wells that are being drilled right now. why don't we have problems with them? why don't we have problems with the deepwater horizon? there are well-known techniques of well control. what happened? in terms of the safety net, there were so many holes. it fell through. i am trying to explore what those are. do you understand what i am saying? nail down who to was responsible or anything like that. this is just a consultation. and not holding you accountable for your answer here -- i am not holding you accountable for your answer here. >> the way i would like to respond is that there's a lot of data that is yet to be understood out of this whole event and how it occurred, which

has to incorporate everything to do with the technical side, the drilling side, the marine side, who does what, who responds to who, who does which things at which time. once all of that is available, that is the time that you can really understand what happened with regard to accountability. i do not have time data about nature -- of that nature. i do not have a thorough understanding of the chain of command sequence of events. i do not have an opinion on that. >> i appreciate that. since your involved in the oil industry -- gas exploration, for a long time and worldwide, i am asking you for your opinion. if i am asking the ceo of transoce and he is giving me the same answer you are telling me, and am getting the same

answer, that is not a good thing. somebody has to be in charge here. somebody has to have an overall picture of what is going on, not only in the vessel, but all whole company operations in the industry. i just do not have that clear a picture in my mind of w that is right now. that is why i am trying to ask you your opinion. that is why i am trying to bring it back to the piper alpha incident, 22 years ago. it is something that people say this catastrophe happens every 20 years or something like that. history,n't learn from you repeat -- or what ever the phrase is. that is what i am seeing. a lot of what is identified 20 years ago is happening right here. i prefaced before i question to

is that what i am looking at you as a senior statesman for the industry to tell me your opinion on things we can impre and things that we can prevent something like this from happening again. this is simply a conversation between you and i. not asking you who did what -- it is not that. >> [inaudible] ased on the board's classification -- and i think he is happy to answer all questions relatedo that, things that were his direct involvement. unfortunately, he does not have all the facts related to it. >> yes, ma'am. i understand that.

that is one item we identified. it does not restrict the board from exploring questions. >> understood, but these arc -- some of these things i think mr. harry thierens expressed he does not know. >> i appreciate that, ma'am. >> any other board questions? >> [inaudible] -- from the mms? >> i don't recall. >> when you were the dictor of the wells in the gulf of mexico, did you receive engineering bulletin's from cameron? >> i don't recall. >> did you review the audits for bp? >> no. >> so the rig you were

responsible for you never reviewed any type of audits or bulletins or safety alerts from anyone? >> not that i can recall. >> any other board quesons? >> mr. harry thierens, as the wells director for the gulf of mexico from 2006-2009, what were your areas of responsibility? >> i managed the engineering and operations group in the gulf of mexico and those duties changed in that period of time. when i first came, the engineering and operations groups were dedicated to

individual assets in the company. the long-term goal was to pull those together into a centralized group, which is where we finished up. >> you had engineering and operations? >> correct. >> just to make sure i understand -- so it was part of that -- who withini tha that grp working for you reduce the operational aspects such asri rg audits, notice to lessees, bulletins, who handles that within your group? >> with regards to audits, they are managed through the wells teams, th operations teams. with regard to notice to lessees, i don't know.

and with regard to industry bulletins, i am not sure who they would be addressed to. >> have you ever seen an notice to lessee? >> i do not recall seeing one. . >> not in the three years that you worked in the gulf of mexico? >> i do not recall. >> you were the walls director and you are currently the vbp -- for operations. in those roles, how did you ensure the people answering to you are actually doing their job if you are not doing spot check are ving som type of accountability to make sure they are doing what you pay them to do. >> we would check with people what they are doing, but this would go down to the chain of command. so i would not necessari go

direct to a single person. i may go to a manager, are we on track? are things going ok? are we managing the way things should be? >> one more question. as the wall director of the gulf of mexico, were you respoible for specific projects? >> no. >> did you normally have an a projectraction in like this one? is a typical for bp to have approval come from anadarco? >> i would not be involved in that work. >> any other board questions? >> thank you, a judge.

i represent the republic of the marshall islands. i have just a few questions for you please, sir. you testified in response to the questions from mr. matthews that as you were involved in the intervention activities you came to learn that there had been some changes made inhe bop, but that it appeared to you that there had not been a management of change procedure within transocean with respect to the safety critical equipment. i understand said testimony correctly, sir? >> yes. to be precise, what i said was my concern right know is that transocean made possibly an uncontrolled change. >> i want to explore that we do

a little bit. you testified that you were working with mr. stringfellow, mr. hand, and mr. schultze from transocean. >> amongst others. >> did you discuss that issue with any of those three individuals, whether or not transocean had anrc procedure? was that a topic of conversation with any of those three individuals? >> i do not recall exactly the conversation. i recorded what i heard from mr. hand at the time. >> did mr. hand tell you what you had recorded their? wamr. handset told m told me te s a change made a couple months ago. >> to explore with him whether or not the company had a

procedure for managing that kind of change? >> no, i did not. >> in your capacity as director for dnc ops and specifically with regard to your experience in the gulf of mexico, do you have knowledge or oversight as to the activities and procedures that are involved in the temporary abandonment of wells? >> i am not involved in the detail of that. i do understand what temporary abandonment of a well means, yes. >> do you have knowledge of

what tests and activities are required before a well can be safely, temporarily abandon it? >> no. >> i have nothing further. thank you. >> do you have any questions? >> bp? >> yes, thank you. good morning. on behalf of bp. may i procede? thank you. good morning. what is your current job

title? president fore- drilling and completions operation. >> where are you curntly based? >> london. >> to you have any current responsibility for drilling and completions operations for the gulf of mexico? >> no. >> so when you were asked questions regarding your involvement in drilling incompletions operations with respect to the gulf of mexico, you have no responsibilities in the gulf of mexico currently, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> have you ever held the position of director of drilling and completions operations for the gulf of mexico? >> yes, i have. >> and when were you involved with gulf of mexico operations? >> between 2006 and 2009. >> now, with respect to your involvement in the lacanodo

well, you were asked about a rig audit. are you a marine authority? >> no, i am not. >> are you a professional manner. >> no. -- are you a professional mariner? >> no. >> are you personally involved in conducting e rithe rig auditn the deepwater horizon in september, 2009? >> no. >> o with in the gulf of mexico operations had responsibility with respect to monitoring or following the september, 2009, a rig audit. >> that is the responsibility of the team leader associated with the vessel. >> did you have any responsibility associated with

monitoring that 2009 audit? >> no. >> yesterday we heard testimony from mr cramond, who was the marine authority in 2009. did he report to you? >> he does not report to me. >> and did he report to you in connection with the 2009 rig audit? >> no. >> i want to turn to disssing your involvement with theost- incident intervention efforts. when did you first become involved with the post-incident intervention? >> i received a call or a text in the early hours of the 21st of april informing me that there

was an incident on the deepwater horizon and there were not a lot of detai available. >> and where were you physically located, which country were you and, since you are normally basedn london? >> i was in the united states, in houston. >> was it a mere coincidence that you were in the stas when this incident took place and they were asked to become involved as a result of that? >> yes. >> could you describe for as a generally what you're involved post-incident was specific to the bop? >> yes, i can. there was a lot of confusion and a lot of activity in the first couple of days of my involvement.

i stepped up to help with putting together a resource- loaded plan that would help us move forward. so the first few days, i was not directly associated with the bop. i was associated with putting teams together with regard to relief well response, with regard to contain, etc. so i had some knowledge of what was going on during the early days, but not first hand knowledge. call then't date, but i was then asked, ok, we need to get focused on how we respond. i was then told, your duties are to work with the team, the combined response team on the bop. that would beround the 23rd or

the 24. >> when you state the combined response team, what team that you refer to? >> the combined team are referred to is transocean who were leading the response. cameron, companies like oceaneering that could be involved with above bop response. >> the team you worked with was that -- was that a team comprised of members from different companies including cameron, transocean and others? >> yes. >> what were your duties in connection with that response team? >>ransocean had an outline plan going forward, and one of the first things we had to do a combined plan for which was agreeable with us, with transocean, and unified

mmand, and mms and coast guard. when my first duties was to do an outline plan. i do recall discussing some of that with mr. carroll and the coast guard. and then we would put that forward for approval, as a work plan, and we would agree that that would be our work plan so that we could plan ahead toom up with the right response and the right tools. >> so what was the purpose of that team and you were working on -- to understd what had happened with the bop or to understand going for what could be done with the bop? >> the purpose of the team was to close the bop. >> in connection with the work that you did for the purpose of deciding how to close the bop, did you come to learn of

various changes that had occurred to the bop? >> yes. >> could you tell us what some of the modifications were that you learned about? >> well, early on, there was an inability to close the bop with the rov functions, and it was not fully understood what it could not occur. there was speculation it may be leaks, something else, but it was important to establish why we could not create sufficient pressure in the system. and it was during the process of looking to establish what the problem was that we discovered a

leak. >> what leaks was it? >> if i recl, the leak was in the vicinity of the blind sheer round of shuttle. it was a connection on one of the control lines. >> who wast that discovered the leak? >> deepwater hotransocean were g the work, and it wasn't until we installed a bladder on the seabed, which is a reservoir, with dye, then we could pull it slid through the control system and observed where it may be leaking -- pp it through the control system and observe word could be leaking. -- where it could be leaking. >> did transocean indicate if

they were aware of that leak prior to this incident? >> no. >> do you know whether they were aware of that week prior to this incident? >> that calls for speculation. hearsay. >> you can ask if he knows. tellf he knows, he can us. >> i can clarify. the first time i asked if transocean knew. now i want to know if he knows if transocean knew of that leak. >> i do not know. >> fair enough. >> were there any other modifications identified as a result of e work that you did st-incident? > i don't recall any further modifications to the control system during that, but it was

highlighted to us near the end of the bop intervention work that one of the rov function lines from the panel which we assumed was to the metal pipe ground was to the lower round, a test round. >> mr. harry thierens, did you take notes of your observations as you're going to use different process these? >> yes, i did. >> and did you create logs of what you were observing as you were going through these steps? >> to the best of my ability. >> let me give you a notebook. i apologize. i handed them out, but i do not think i gave one to the witness.

aside.uld just steop if i can approach? thank you. mr. theirens, i have handed you a notebook with the various logs. if you could tell us whether these are the logs you created as a result of your post- incident intervention efforts. while you are looking at them, i will identify them for the record -- they are three logs. -- 137274 through 303. 4/22. a log dated

the second is a log dated 4/28. bph znmbi 00171039 through 1063. and then there is a log dated may 1st. hznmbi 00171007 through 038. do you have those logs? >> yes, i do. these are my logs. >> we will not go through all of them, but to be clear, for the record, are these notes you created it while you were involved in this effort? >> yes, they are. they are notes i created but in ed notes s i 8 added notdded

that were handed to me. all the handwritten notes are mine. >> you are talking about learning about plumbing, do you recall that? >> yes. >> if you will turn to the third b, the log dated may 1st. that is my second tab. >> sorry. the page ending 1028. >> yes, i have that. >> could you read for us what you noted in connection with the plumbing of the test ram in you r log book, beginngiing with

"stat". >> "on the middle pipe rams is beings plumbed for --" >> is 130 the time? >> it must have been? >> do you know that date? >> i don't recall exactly. that was the date there. maybe the 3rd? i don't know. >> sometime around may 1? >> probably. >> "that stab in on the middle pipe rounds -- and that was a statement we received from mr. ray picard who was from transocean. >> it was mr. picard who notify

you that the npr was for the test ram and not for the mp. r. >> heid not notify me personally. he was called into the room and we had open communications. was made it werehaaware that e discovered this, but he wted confirmation. >> what does it mean to stab into npr? >> you have to realize that when things are moving dynamically, you put down a note to the best of your ability. the stab in port for the rov panel has been plumbed for the test rounds. >> so the plumbing that should have been in a metal pipe ram

was in the test ram? >> yes. it says pipe rams on the rov panel. our assumption all along was that plumbing was to the metal pipe ram. >> is the test ram a ram that is capable of activating in order to assist with a well controlled event? >> no. it does not hold pressure from below. >> so if the plumbing is to the test ram rather than the vvr, what effect does that have on the upper ability of the bop for purposes of activating and well controlled event? >> it would mean that the pipe rams could not be closed. the test ram would close in an

emergency, but it would not be capable of withstanding pressure from below. >> continue reading your notes, please. >> "met immediately with steve hand, robert white, transocean, lawrence, who i believe was transocean, and coastguard, chris martin. we also have present then -- jose and frank. jose santos had -- was there from petrobras assisting us. and frank gillander was in a similar way in giving whatever assistance chevron could. and we met immediately, because -- and i do recall it was a

significant event. there's a lot of commotion in the room at that time. we have come a long way. to find something likehis was quite emotional. so we met, and i spoke frankly about the seriousness of this. and i was frankly astonished that this could happen. >> is that what you noted in your notes? spoke frankly about the seriousness -- >> yes. it says i spoke frankly about the seriousne of this issue, and quite frankly was astonished that this could have happened. i told transocean to get photographs. to get with their subsea engineers and to understand what has gone wrong. when i heard this news, i lost all faith in the bop. billy stringfellow, clearly

emotional at that point, told me, this is plumbed wrong. >> and to be clear, who is mr. stringfellow? >> mr. stringfellow was transocean's subsea superintendent who is effectively leading the operational side of the bop stack intervention. >> you have the words "-- billy stringfellow told me, "this stack is plumbed wrong." why quotes? >> this was something i heard police sbilly say. >> did the fact that the plumbing on the bore rams was mistaken, they appeared to be

plumbed it to the test ram, did that have any affect on the -- >> i would object. that is mistaken. this witness is involved in intervention, it only sved a purpose of promote a closing the bop after a blowout. and what was a known, what was ordered, what bp and transocean did prior to the casualty is not within the realm of this witness's knowledge and should not be in testimony. whether he was mistaken or not it's a mischaracterization. >> two things. as we all know, what one of the attorneys says in a question for is not really evidence. however, your objection is well- taken. without necessarily its forbidding any motive for or historical knowledge -- without

necessarily in attributing any motive or historical knowledge, could you get to the conditions and the impact of the conditions, then he can answer the questions without including any speculation as to cause of it that others might dispute. >> certainly. >> thank you per >> does the fact that the mpr had been plumbed to the test ram and not tohe middle pipe ram, did that have any effect othe intervention efforts? >> yes. >> whaeffect did it have? >> we did not agree to a program to try to close the metal pipe rams. we got to this point in the program and we found all of our efforts to do that had actually be directed to a different set of rams. >> and did mr. stringfellow said it was in his view -- this had been plumbed wrong?

>> yes. >> mr. thierens, were there other modifications you identified during the course of your intervention efforts? >> and no. >> now, you referrenced a drawing you saw for the bop, is that correct? could you repeat the question? >> you had asked for a drawing of the bop. >> that's correct. i did not receive it. it was on the wall in the room. >> were there any markings on that drawing, as best you can recall? >> yes, there were. >> can you describe what those markin work?

>> not precisely, but there had been some red lines put on the drawing which were indicating that this was a new route for pipe work. bop not an expert on th pipi systems, but there were some red line drawings overlaid on the drawing. >> to you know whether those red markings were intended to denote the difference between theop as built versus the condition were finding it in the intervention? >> as a recall, i recall seeing a as-built diagram for the bop. there were some modifications made to the drawing. lasterter, i would see another

drawing which brought more clarity to that. >> do you know what the purpose of the later drawing was? >> i don't know. it was highlighting and a me specific way the findings at transocean had. >> did you make any of those ridings or were those made by others? >> there were made by others. >> do you know who made those writings? where was it posted? >> it was posted on the wall in the operations room. >> at whose offices was this drawing was marked up? >> it was not place in an office. it was placed in a room on the third floor and the incident command center. >> fair enough.

discuss modification you identified. i think you also discussed leaks discovered during the course of this incident. were you aware of any of those prior to this incident? >> no. >> have nothing further. thank you 3 >> thank you. >> transocean? >> thank you. good morning. i repsent transocean in this litigation or before the board. >> good morning. >> as i understand, sir, your

first involvement with regard to this bop was after this casualty. >> that's correct records for purposes of the introduction? >> that is correct. >> did you review the may news ecords of thisintenance bop? did you interview any bp witnesses about their satisfaction? and had you for any reason seen the bop prior to the casualty? if you did, you don't remember. it was incidental. >> if i had seen it, it would

have banned it sometime in the past when i visited the rig. >> i take it you have no comment regarding the fund sodalifunctionality of the bop r to the incident? >> no. >> you did not undertake to determine why if any modifications were made, the new, for what purpose, any of that? >> my job was to expedite with transocean the close of the bop. i did not have time or desire to do that. >> i understand. would you take a look at page that she directed to you in her tab two? i hope you will find it ands spare -- >> i have that. >> i'm curious. is the handwriting on this

page yours? >> yes. >> is all of it yours? parte directive - you -- the to be a it papearappears different style in handwriting. writing.is my rid sometimes i write in capitals and sometimes in free hand. >> ok. with regard to your writing at the top of the page, as i understand this is a product of the notes you made with mr. picard. do you agree?

>> that's correct. it's a record of what i heard in the transcript from our conversation. >> mr. picar wanted confirmation of this? >> he identified this as an issue, and if i recall, we asked at that time for cameron to step into the room and look at the rov pictures and confirm if that was correct. >> and the test rams to which your comment refers, i believe you testified were not used for well control. that is not the function of those rams. >> their function was for testing the bop. >> ok. at this point, you were -- your goal, the mission for which you

were assigned here was to see if he could get the bop closed, and you were trying to do that by stabbing from an rov. >> for the purpose of trying to close the piper rams, that is correct. >> the scope of your study was not to determine whether any of these pipe rams, the test rams, could still closed from any of the bop panels on the deepwater horizon. rather, your determination was simply that you had difficulty closing them by stabbing from an rov. is that correct? >> i do not understand your question. could you repeat it, please? >> mr. picard did not comment, and your group did not

study whether the test ram could be closed from any of the bop panels on the rig in the normal course of operation? >> i do not know. >> a this simply relates to your task of the rov intervention while after the casualty? >> yes. all of my task was after the caalty, yes. >> were there other rams your team sought to close by stabbing from the rov which did not have any plumbing issues? >> no. >> make sure we are not missing a connection -- were there other rams that to not have any plumbing issues? >> if i understand your question, if there other rams that could be closed from the rov that did not have plumbing issues? my answer is no.

>> do you agree with me that the plumbing issue was only raised with regard to the testams? >> that's correct. >> how many days did it take bp to shudder this well. >tter this well. >> we worked on it about 12 days and we did not shut the well in. >> how many days did it take to get to where we are now in the control of this well, with the subsequent modifications? 90? 100? >> i do not know exactly. you have to look back from the 21st of april. >> thank you. as i understand, the time it

took for you to get modified drawings was a day. >> approximately. i do not recall exactly. >> that is what you said under direct examination. he said with respect to gting a modified drawings, you got them in a day. >> it was about a day, yes. >> ok. and the time it took to understand what mr picard raised took, and i understood you to this indirect, was between 12 and 24 hours? >> i don't recollect that. you are referring now to the test ram? >> yes. the drawing you saw, the concern you raised. i understand it took approximately 12-24 hours per >>

cannot clarify? -- can i clarify? that was regarding the leak and the control changes associated with the st lock system. they are not associated with the plumbing for the test ram. >> i would like to focus on whatever delayed this must have resulted in, and ask you are we talking about a d and a half to two day delay? the deys the items may have caused when you testified. i may have got it wrong. i thought you said it today to get modified drawings provided to you. and 12 to 24 hours to do something else. >> maybe i can clarify. was about a day before the during arrived. i do not know exactly. this was early on.

the time that transocean had taken to understand what possible changes had been made to the control system when we were looking for the leak to somewhere between 12 and 24 hours to serve a that portion of the bop. that work is not connected to the issue here that we found later, which was the lower pipe ram. >> i may have missed characterized the work. what i am trying to get to is the delays you are talking about. 12 to 24 hours to arrive at the understanding on the other item. >> no. 24 hours was the time taken to understand the leak on the first round.

>> were there a lot of people involved in this intervention project? q>> yes. >> did bp ever commissioned a critical path analysis to determine whether this one and a half to two day delay or items caused any real delay in this project? >> i do not know. >> you have never studied that? >> i have not heard >> and you did not know if any of the other tasks undertaken by the teams would have caused delays at that time anyway? >> i did not recall. >> thank you, sir. that is all i have. >> thank you. >> next we have anadarco.

>> good morning. i represent anadarco. on our witness list, which means you, we have you identified as executive vice president of the drilling and completion operations. is that right? >> no. >> so there is no executive in front of a vice president? >> no. >> now, is there a region you are responsible for? >> no. >> let me give an example. i am just trying to understand how the bp organization is set up. we have coming to testify before us as well pat o'brien, also is a vice president of drilling and operations -- drilling and

completions. what is your relationship to him? are you co-equals? >> clearly we knowach other, but pat o'brien is vice- president in this particular business unit for drilling and operations in its entirety. in the same way tt we have vice-president for drilling and operations in the north sea or in gold or other countries. my role is a functional role, not a line role. so i am not accountable through the line for any operations that have taken place within bp. that is the accountability of the incumbent vice presidents for that particular area. >> right. did i hear you say you have a function that is development of best practices? >> no, i didot say that heard >> do you have that function? >> the purpose of the function

in bp is to ensure thatcross the business in the segment -- our particular area -- that we are managing ourperations in accordance with the functional agenda. >> "with the functional agenda." what you mean? >> when you look at strategy, technology, are we doing things for the common good? do we manage people and places at the right time? can we ensure that people go prepared? >> do you, in the course of naging under the functional agenda, attempt to impose some uniformity in practice across the organization? >> bp has a set of standards for

many parts of the drilling and completions function. and the expectation is that people work to those standards globally, yeah. so we -- pt of our role is to ensure that people are adequately provide with an adequate prepared for their operations. >> in the course of being adequately prepared for the operation, for instance, the drilling and temporary abandonment of the macando well, is it the best practice to ensure that the procedures are written in advance of their actual implementation? >> i do not know. >> let me give you an example.

a negative test. is it a bp breasest practice to ensure that there is a test written before the time it is to be conducted? >> i do not know. >> does bp endorse a doi a negative test on the, flig makig fly, making it up as you go along? >> objection. >> if you want to clarify again what you mean on the fly? >> do you have any knowledge of this area at all? >> no, i do not. >> you do not know about-testing procedures? >> no. >> do you know what procedures are uniform in the context of drillingnd exploration well? >> only a very high level with regards to policies etc. with regard to the design and

drilling of a specific well, no. >> please give me an example. >> bp has a policy procedure within the company, which covers a range of expectations around wl designed. >> and when you say expectations of around it will design are those expectations regarding safety? >> they incorporate safety. >> today incorporate cost efficiency? -- do they incorporate cost efficiency? >> i do not recall. >> what do they incorporate? >> i do not recall the entirety of policies androcedures. >> did you have any part in developing those? >> no, i did not. >> do you know as well site leaders are giving broad discretion to participate in the development of, for instance,

cementing procedures while on the rig? >> i do not know. >> you just do not know at the level of what is conducting on the rig, you are not aware of what those procedures are? >> that is not my job. i do not know. >> no further questions. thank you. honor,uestions, your thank you. >> cameron? >> good morning. my name is david jones and i represent camera. on. you mentioned leaks observed during your intervention efforts. were those leaks you saw on couplings on hose lines?

>> not all of the leaks were on hose lines. >> where were they? >> we observed one leak on a solid hose coupling at the st locke area of the blind sheer rams. we observed another leak -- it was a plug of some sort that was attached to a surge bottle. and other leaks we found were associated with hose couplings. >> very good. the test ram, pipe ram plumbing issue. do you know how the stack was plump when it was delivered in 2001? >> no. >> when a stack was delivered in

2001, the lower pipe ram was not -- >> i do not know how it was configured in 2001. >> you do not know if there was a change between 2001 and april, 2006? >> i heard there was a change made some time, perhaps 2004. >> do you know how those cnges were made, mechanically how he would switch uplight bram inta ? >> no. >> do you know if there were any plumbing changes that were done at that time, at the conversion? >> i don't. when that occurred, in 2004, i was not involve in the gulf of mexico. >> i assume he did not know if any plumbing changes were made? >> i do not know anything about

that. >> when there's a discussion about this? being plumbed wrong, i want to be clear that you were not -- this stack being plubmembed wro, i want to be clear that you were not -- >> there is no suggestion of what the status of the stack was when it was delivered by cameron. >> that's all i had. >> it has been a couple of hours now. we appreciate your patience. we want to take about a 10 minute break. we will reconvene at >> on friday, bp engineer brett cocales testified why only 6

were used on the rig instead of the 21 recommended by halliburton. this is just over an hour. >> did you have any other oil and gas experience after that? >> i worked for a service company. >> we have an organizational chart on the board. i want to make sure that i drew the -- and i put blue lines under his name because i since

learned that you and mr. morel are equals and you cannot report to him. >> that is incorrect. are reported to john on the opeartionrations side. >> were you the only engineer the reported to john? >> that's correct. >> really equivalent to what mr. hafely would be? >> pretty close. mr. havely was on the engineering side, and i was on the operations side. >> did he participate in the daily briefings? >> yes, i did. >> to direct contact outside of the morning meetings? >> i was not the first point of contact your coeds for purchase orders or equipment needed, who

was responsible? >> that would ban the drilling engineers, the planning and drilling engineers. >> mr. morel? >> yes, correct. >> i think you said you had drilling experience for 10 years. how much of that was in deep water, sir? >> i spent 10 years in deep water. in various operations. there were not all of loading operations. >> approximately how many wells, sir? approximately 10 well. >> with all exploratory? >> no. >> what is your educational background? >> i have a bachelor of science and petroleum engineering and a master's in business administration. >> to have any licenses or certifications? >> just well control certification. >> when was the last time you have that certification?

>> two years ago. >> do you go to the rig rego lead? >> i do not regularly visit the rig. >> is that why you are required to have certification? >> it's part of our policies to have all engineers and anybody that does operational planning for wells to be certified in well controlled. >> can you give me a synopsis of your job responsibilities? associated with the macando well. >> primarily, my focus -- i am more of forward-looking, engineering, planning. basically what i would be doing is looking at what the operation would be doing after the macando well. end of well preparations, work

that would be going on with the rig. the main focus was providing for the nile, the next operation that the horizon was going to do. >> what was your interaction with mr. hafely. >> we saw each other nearly every day. we were in the morning call together, and we spoke to each other, bounce ideas off each other. >> how about mr. died? guide? i worked for him and i would seem quite frequently and updating him. i was a resource for him. if you needed anything, i was there for him in whatever capacity he needed. >> particular to this well, review overall and any of the assistance with mr. guide? >> no, i was not.

i don't know what process they follow. >> i do know that when they go to the raiig, it's always overlapped. when one well site leader changes out, there is an overlap of one week, so you have one person that has been out there when the new person comes on. >> how about mr. david sims? >> i saw david. we worked in the same general area, but we did not have many conversations. mostly that was a john and david would talk. >> how about anyone from anad arco? >> i did not have any meetings

with them. >> to know if bp has a program that allows anadarco to have access to the well? >> typically, they would go through the land department to request documents or information they need or there would be interacting with somebody within the subsurface side, the operational geologist and get information through them. >> that is a process -- the thing i want to concentrate on is is there are program or partner of any well can go into login andnet system, have access to files that you are aware of? >> i do not know exactly. there is a share. point side. i do not know how that was set up for this particular well.

i've seen that done in the past with partner operations. >> did you participate at any level in the application submitted to the mms for this well? >> i was copied on tehe latest apm submission and request for that. that was the only one i recall. >> a do you know who created that apm? >> mark hafely. let me clarify. i believe he created the attachments that went with it and then it went to a person in our regulatory group who actually filed a permit. >> who created the procedure? >> i believe that was mr. hafely. >> what is your role in the planning of the well design

? >> i do not have an actual role in the planning of the well. i was a reviewer for the updated program after the marianas was removed. >> do you know what the original td was? >> i don't know the exact depth? >> do you know what it was on april 20? >> approximately, i do not know the exact word >> 18,003 and 63 >> that is closed. was the original td supposed to be deeper than that? >> i believe it was, yes.

i do not know the exact reason why it was decided. >> i have an email that is in front of you. that is communication with moex wondering why there was a -- just for a record, you are not on this email. >> i am sorry, mr. matthews. can you identify? >> -- mbi 00126338. i believe there is a highlighted portion on the bottom. can you read that, sir? not into the record, but ask him to read it. >> not into the record? >> just look at it and read it. aware at any time a and

the reason they went to that death was because drilling ahead would jeopardize the wallboard? of that.t aware tupp >> do you know who bobby bodeck is? what is his position? >> he is an operations geologist. >> was he a communication printer between you and the land a man? >> i did not communicate with the land people. >> did you participate in any meetings on april 14 to discuss the options of going with along stream versus -- ?

>> i sat in on a meeting. >> who was in that meeting? >> mr. morel, mr. guide, mr. hafely and mr. simms. >> prior to that meeting, what was bp's objective? was it to run all liner? >> i am not sure they decided prior to that meeting occurred >> during that meeting, the decision to run along stream was made. >> the final decision was not made in that meeting. >> when was it made? >> i do not know the exact date that that was made. >> do you know who made that final decision? >> at the time i did not, no. >> do you know if the final decision was ever made? >> i learned of that after the fact. >> that it was never made?

>> no. the decision was made, and i just was not copies on the documents for the approval for that. >> a deeper debate in the management and change process for that? >> -- did you participate in the management and change process for that? >> no, i did not. i did nots well, participate in any of the change. >> do you know if the ons- site manager has final approval of the change? the well site leader, in this case. >> i don't -- i don't know if that's correct, but i do not know for sure. >> do you know at the well site leaders had any discussions with anyone within the engineering side on the design changes or

decision changed from a liner to along stream? >> i do not know that. >> are you familiar with the dwop you referred to earliar? er? >> yes. >> the one on the website is not the latest. there is a policy that if a well is greater than 1,000 feet of water, they need to have an independent review. do you know is that independent review was completed with the change from allied air too long string? >> no, i do not. >> i will move to a e-mail and it is identified as today's number bp-hcn-mbi-00128408. is that the one in front of you, sir? >> yes. >> do you recall discussing centralizes with brian morel on

april 16? >> can i remove this? >> that is for me to keep everything organized. you can take it out. remember this exchange, but i do not think it has the full e-mail trail in it. >> when you say trail, you say attachments? >> no. there were some other e-mails after this last one. >> and do you remember what that e-mail said it? i do not have that. this was provided by bp. i do not have the full string you may be talking about. >> it was an e-mail this said that i am here to support you

with what ever you need. >> who was to? >> it was to brian morel. >> is that the only email that is missing you are aware of? >> to my recollection. there may be one in between, no, actually i think there are two. bryan replied and i replied back later on. >> i wanted to talk to you about first, did you receive key concerning the cement modeling for the production casing? >> i have received several models. in particular, which one that? a do you know? >> particularly the one on april 18. >> yes, i did receive it on april 18. >> did you review that document,

sir? >> i read it. i did not read everything. i skimmed through, looked at the parts i was interested in. >> and which parts are those, sir? >> i would typically look at -- would you happen to have that e- mail with the transmittal? >> yes, sir. and the email to you is on the bottom because mr. gagliano responded. all the way on the bottom. and that was the attached document. >> if i remember correctly, there were three attachments. are they all here? >> that is just the report that i was going to ask you about. >> ok.

yeah. this looks like the one i received. there were two others i looked at as well. >> did you read it in its entirety? >> no, i did not. >> what do you look at when you open and read that? >> the items that i must look at are the ecd charts we are looking at. that is kind of like the final output of the model. there are other things in there that might be pertinent, but that is what i looked at as to what the cementing pressures are. >> can you refer to page 18, please? and i think there is a section entitled "gas flow potential." did you look apportioned of the report? >> no, i did not. >> can you read what it says no?

>> under gas flow potential. 10.29 at reservoirs a zone measured depth 18,200. based upon the well and alialys, this well is considered to have a severe gas flow problem to fall under flow category three. >> you never read that paragraph as you testified. >> no. >> can you flip to page 23? did you see that page of the report? >> yes, i did. >> do you know you are looking at on the actual image? ." read becaused to it is so small, but i believe it is showing that there is a lot the lower part of the casing cement analyst?

>> is there any mention of the potential for gas influx? >> i do not see anything in this image that shows me that. when i refer back to that email, and i know that e-mail was sent on april 16, which was actually before this model was sent to you. >> rate. >> you referenced what you said was -- april 16, 4:15 p.m., between yourself and mr. bryant morel. the risks right ont h reward equation," when you're talking about this. can you please elaborate on this? >> the phrase i was suiusing dos

not have any meaning within bp or financial. as a phrase i use generally that i have used for years -- risk- reward equation. >> could you please explain what it means to you? >> yes, i can. the particular decision -- i found out, let's see. i am trying to think back. this is in the middle of an e- mail trial exchange with my colleague brian morel. >> if you want to take the time to read the full e-mail, you are more than welcome. >> let me just review. >> take your time. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> ok. >> what risk-reward equation? >> i had basically worked on getting 15 additional centralize forvers out to the verihorizon this production strain on the 15th. and i learned on the 16th that the decision had been made not to run them. i was not involved in that decision. i had just found out. and brian morel had sent me an

email in which he had gotten the three dimensional profile from of halliburton survey expert that showed how vertical this well actually is. it is actually .6 of a degree, one of the straightest holds i've seen. what he wanted to say is that i do not understand why the model is saying that it needs more centralizes when we have such a straight hole. we debated why the model was reacting the way it was. he provided this information to me. so we talked a little bit about it. in the end, are responded by saying the model -- if it does not have something to hold off the wall, it will think that it is closer to one side than the

other. that is just basically physics of it. at that point in time, there was frustration on my part that is it time to stop debating what the model says and figure out what we should do path forward. i did write, but who care? it's done. end of story. those were my words. it is time to stop debating what the model says. we will get a good segment job. i would rather have to squeeze in its step above the well head so god is right on the risk- reward equation. what i worked on the 15th is working on with the addition of the 15 centralizes on the ecd. the model are reviewed at the time was at 10 essentializes which was 20 -- versus the 21 centralizes. the difference was less than .to

32 of a gallon. i learned the reason why they did not want to run them is because they had concerns over the mechanical integrity of the slip on centralizes that were sent out to the rig, which poses a substantial risk that these things can come off and stick casing above the well head. since it is a long string, it has to land in the wellhead. if that would have been, you would have a pretty good mess. you have to pull and casing -- the casing back out. so, what i did -- i did not talk to mr. died about the decision. guide. what i assumed at the time that the risk of running 15 additional centralizes that have concerns of mechanical integrity of first is the reward of

gaining .2 of a gallon on your ecd, that was the risk- reward. >> you indicated that you saw the image on page 23. what happens when mud is left behind? >> well, typically, it means you do not have isolation. you could get isolation if it is stepped up. it depends on how contaminated this amendment gets with the mud. >> did you re onerun run your equation? >> no. >> do you think had a likelihood of channelling? >> what we did, what is not on this email is in further email chain said we had a caliber log and we repositioned the 6

centralizes in locations that would basically be in the least washed out area of the hole and position them across the main reservoir sands and up to 200 feet above. they went from 18,300 to 17,800. what looked to be decent centralization in this vertical of a hole across the entire pay sand plus 200 feet. looked likehat it it would reduce the likelihood of channelling in that section. >> so you were not concerned at all with channeling in this zone it? >> there still was a risk of channeling, and that would have ighn seen with phgih

ecd's. >> we have talked about risk a lot. i have a charge over your to your right. obviously, i have heard the term risk matrix going around from your fellow bp employees. on the left axis, y axis, you have likelihood, and on the x axis, risk. >> with -- there is a boston square that looks similar to that, yes. >> after reviewing the record, i would like to know what c quadrant? >> i will object to that. i believe that is calling for an expert opinion. he is a fact it is. you are asking him to speculate. i am not sure he has all the

data to come up with an analysis. >> he referenced risk-reward india's talking about risk he has taken on the job. -- an he is talking about the risky as taken on the job. as a model in front of him. i think he can tell me which quadrant he thinks that risk falls into. >> what we rolled in other cases with other witnesses and we will melt is that you do not have the guts to speculate, but it is based on the experience, as well as your experience as an engineer, you can identify which box or boxes are most appropriate, then the board would like to have your view. i will overrule the the objective but you do not have to speculate. >> it would be difficult for me because there is nothing for me to compare it against. i do not know where i would put it on the relative scale. >> would you think the likelihood of channelling was low or high? >> again, i will impose the same

objection. >> the witness has -- we are trying to understand his words and be able to get a handle on them ourselves. so if you can better, if these words help you describe them and they fit, that is fine. >> i do not believe i can give you that assessments. >> do you think the report word says the potential for severe gas flow has a low likelihood. >> it is a low likelihood? i do not know anything about what the severe gas flow means and the optic zone -- opti-zone. >> we will move on. at any point in your position, channeling -- we discussed a few minutes ago -- were you involved with the decision tree matrix that was developed by mr. morel

for the rig on the cement job? >> no. >> have you seen it since then? >> i have seen something like that, but it was after the fact. >> was it based on lost returns? >> i believe they do have a box there that was lost return. >> did they have any indication for what to check for if there was any channelling? >> i will object. he said he did not see it at the time. i think the document, whatever document is, will speak for itself. we do not have the document here. >> what we have tried to do is understand it -- we tried to be clear about understanding what people do before the incident occurred. and to some extent, afterwards, because the board -- sometimes

what someone is seeing after words helps us understand. if we are going to make recommendations for the future, that information would be very helpful. so if the witness has seen something or if we can provide him with something that enables him to express a view based on his experience with the situation, that would be helpful. once again, we will keep clear the timing of that knowledge. certainly, we do not want anyone to attribute information he did not have until after the incident to his having it before, but it might have helped him to analyze what happened. will help us as well as making recommendations for the future. >> respectfully, though, i think it elicits a speculation on his part. he did not see it at that time. he has not seen the document. you are asking questions about the decision tree -- what he

would do. it calls for speculation. >> we do not have the document now. so, if the board will get a chance to question him again, if a board member afeels that would be seen to begin, we will give you that document before and. >> i want to follow up a little bit. you stated you have 10 years' experience as a drilling engineer with diin bp? ." >> yes. >> would you recap other experience? >> i worked as a travel packed completion engineer. >> in your experience of directional drilling, how straight is that hole on a straight hole? >> you can't get much straighter. >> is it a corkscrew or a

pencil. >> a pencil. the only deviation was where the bypass to place. billed to 10 degrees which was covered up with a liner. section, itn hole does not get above .6 or .7 degrees of a degree. degree.less than one >> in your den years of experience, how many wells have you drilled in that timeframe? >> approximately 10. >> in the drilling of those wells, those were to the td or were they to temporarily abandon or plugged and abandoned? >> i believe there was about 6 of those were explored during

atory wells. >> did you have to do any squeeze jobs on those? >> yes. >> what was the main reason? >> usually lost returns was one variousblem or there's reasons. sometimes it would get contaminated and you get a wet shoot if you over displaced. there are various things that could happen. >> what you mean by the term over displaced on what shoot? >> if you pumped, if you pump your plugs down and they do not land out, in an effort to try to get them to bump, sometimes to pump too much. and you pump -- what is happening is the bypass fluid. for some reason they are not displacing properly, and you end up over-displacing and pumping mud into your chute track. >> was there a history of lost

returns at this depth on this well? >> there was lost return events on this well. >> ok. in that, did you all consider bylaw? as a montceementment >> what i saw after the fact is there was a cement, a plan to run a cement bond log if there was losses during the cement job. >> i want to back up to the planning with the original six centralizes. who within this group up here, and we may not have everybody on the page, this is part of the struggle we have right now. >> president obama -- he is visiting xavier university.

he is arriving out and will be speaking. you're watching live coverage here on c-span. [applause]

[cheering] >> hello, everybody. it is good to be back. [cheers] it is good to be back. >> good to have you. >> i'm glad. due to popular demand, i decided to bring the first lady down here. we have just an extraordinary number of dedicated public servants who are here. if you will be patient, i want to make sure all of them are acknowledged. you have the governor of the great state of louisiana, bobby

jindal is here. we have the outstanding mayor of new orleans, mitch landrieu. [cheers] we have the better-looking and younger senator from louisiana, mary landrieu. i believe that senator david vitter is here. right here. hold on a second now. we have congressman joe -- is here. congressman charlie -- is here. [cheers] congressman steve -- is here.

secretary of housing and urban development who has been working tirelessly down here in louisiana, shaun donovan. we got our epa administrator, lisa jackson, here. home girl. fema istrator of the mal here. the person who is heading up our community service efforts across the country, patrick corbin cent, is here. the surgeonown, xavier grad, ieren might add, is here. we very proud to have these

republics servants here. it is wonderful to be back in new orleans. and it is a great honor -- it is a great honor. you can see me now? ok. it is a great honor to be back at xavier university. inspiring to spend time with people who have demonstrated what it means to persevere in the face of tragedy, to rebuild in the face of ruin. i am grateful to jade for more introduction and congratulate you on being crowned miss xavier. i hope everybody heard during

the introduction. she was a junior at ben franklin high school five years ago when the storm came. and after katrina, ben franklin high school was terribly damaged by wind and water. millions of dollars were needed to rebuild the school. many feared it would take years to reopen, if it could be reopened at all. but something remarkable happened. parents, teachers, students, got to work making repairs. donations came in from across new orleans and all around the world. soon, those darkened corridors were bright and and filled with the sounds of young men and women, including jade, who were going back to class. and then jade submitted to xavier, a university there

refused to succumb to despair. so jade, like so many students thise scene of, for city -- at university, embody hope in difficult times. that is what i came to talk about today. it has been five years since katrina ravaged the gulf coast. there is no need to dwell on what you experience and what the world witnessed. we all remember keenly. water pouring through broken levees, mothers holding their children above the waterline, people stranded on rooftops of begging for help, and bodies lying in the streets of the great american city. it was a natural disaster but also a man-made catastrophe. a shameful breakdown in

government that left countless men and women and children abandoned and alone. and shortly after the storm, i came down to houston to spend time with some of the folks who had taken shelter there. and i will never forget what one woman told me. she said, we had nothing before the hurricane, and now we have less than nothing. in the years that followed, new orleans could have remained a symbol of destruction and decay, of a storm that came and the inadequate response that followed. it was not hard to imagine a day when we would tell our children that the once a vibrant, wonderful city had been laid low by indifference and neglect. but that is not what happened. it is not what happened at ben franklin, here at xavier,

across new orleans, and across the gulf coast. [applause] instead, the city has become a symbol of resilience and of community and of the fundamental responsibility we have to one another. we see that here at xavier. less than a month after the storm struck, amidst debris and flood-damaged buildings, president -- the president promised this university would reopen it in a matter of months. some said he was crazy. some said it could not happen. but they did not count on what happens when one force of nature need another. and by january, four months later, class was in session. less than a year after the storm, i had the privilege of

delivering the commencement address to the largest graduating class in xavier's history. that is a symbol of what new orleans is all about. we have seen new orleans in in the efforts of jocelyn heights who is here today. katrina left her house 14 feet underwater. but after volunteers helped to rebuild, she joined americorps to serve the community herself, part of a wave of volunteers who have been critical to rebuilding this region and this city. so today, she manages a local center for mental health and wellness. we see the symbol that this city has become in the st. bernard project, whose founder is with us. [no audio] [applause]

endeavor has drawn volunteers from across the country to rebuild thousands of homes in the lower ninth quarter. i have seen this sense of purpose people felt after the storm when they visited musicians in the ninth ward back in 2006. volunteers were not only constructing houses, there were coming together to preserve the culture of music and art, the heart and soul of the city and the soul of this country. today, more than 70 houses are complete and construction is underway on a center for music. we see the dedication to the community in the efforts of xavier grad, dr. regina benjamin, who mortgaged her home, of maxed out her credit cards so she could reopen her clinic to care for victims of

the storm and is now our nation's surgeon general. [applause] we see resilience and hope exemplified by students at carver high school who have helped to raise more than $1 million to build a new community track and football field -- their field of dreams for the ninth ward. because of all of you, all the advocates, the organizers who are here today, folks standing behind me who have worked so hard, who never gave up hope, you are all leading the way toward a better future for this city with innovative approaches to fighting poverty, improving health care, reducing crime, and

creating opportunities for young people. because of you, new orleans is coming back. [applause] i just came from the tavern. five years ago, the storm nearly destroyed that neighborhood institution. i saw the pictures. now, they are open. business is booming. that is some good eats. i had the shrimp po'boy and some of the gumbo. but i skipped the bread pudding because i thought i might fall asleep while i was speaking. [laughter]

five years ago, many question whether people would return to this city. today, new orleans is one of the fastest-growing cities in america, with a big surge in small business. five years ago, they had to play every game on the road because of the damage to the superdome. two weeks ago, we welcomed them to the white house as superbowl champions. [cheers and applause] there was also food associated with that. we march to the association -- the occasion with a 30-foot -- marked the occasion with a 30- shrimp'boy made with from the gulf. you'll be pleased to know there were no leftovers. i did not have to tell you there

are still many vacant and overgrown lots. there are still too many students attending class in trailers. there are still too many people unable to find work. there are still too many new orleans folks who have not been able to come home. so, while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, i wanted to come here and tell the people directly, my administration will stand with you and fight alongside you until the job is done, until new orleans is all the way back. all the way. [applause] when i took office, i directed my office to redouble our efforts to put an end to the turf wars between agencies, to cut the red tape, to cut the

bureaucracy. i wanted to make sure that the federal government was a partner, not an obstacle, to recovery here on the gulf coast. members of my cabinet including the epa administrator lisa jackson, who grew up been pontchartrain park. they have come down here several times. shaun donovan has been down here. it is not just four appearances for photo ops -- for appearances or photo ops. they came down here to make the changes so that the government was working for you. for example, efforts to rebuild schools and hospitals, to repair damaged roads and bridges, to get people back to their homes. they were tied up in a tangle of disagreement and byzantine

rules. when i took office, working with your extended -- with your outstanding delegation, particularly senator mary landrieu, we put in place a new way of resolving disputes. [applause] we did that so that funds set aside for rebuilding efforts actually went toward rebuilding efforts. as a result, more than 170 projects are getting under way -- by air stations, police stations, health clinics, -- fire stations, police stations, health clinics, libraries, universities. we are tackling the inefficiency that has plagued the housing authority. we are making it easier to build and to find affordable rentals. we're helping people move out of temporary homes. when i took office more than three years after the storm, tens of thousands of families

were still stuck in disaster houses, many still living in small trailers provided by fema. your spending tons of money on temporary shelter, even though -- we knew we were spending tons of money on temporary shelter, even though it would have been more affordable to rebuild homes. we made it possible to rebuild those homes and find them. we reduced the cost of doing so. on the health care front, i pledged to make sure we were helping new orleans refer to -- recruit medical personnel and rebuild facilities. [applause] we have resolved a longstanding dispute that had tied up hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the replacement for charity hospital. in june, veteran secretary shinseki came to the

groundbreaking for that hospital. in education, we have made strides as well. as you know, schools in new orleans were falling behind long before katrina. but in the years since the storm, a lot of public schools have opened themselves up to innovation and reform. we're seeing rising achievement and new orleans is becoming a model of innovation for the nation. this is yet another sign that you are not just rebuilding. you are rebuilding stronger than before. just this friday, my administration announced a final agreement on $1.8 billion for borland's -- orleans parish schools. [cheers and applause] this is money that had been

locked up for years, but now it is freed up so folks here can determine how best to restore the school system. in a city that has known too much violence, and seemed to many young people lost to drugs and criminal activity -- seen too many people lost to drugs and criminal activity, we have a justice department that is determined to weed out corruption, fight a violent crime, and ensure the criminal justice system works for everyone in this city. [applause] i want everybody here to know and hear herethank mitch -- hear me thank mitch landrieu, your new mayor, for his commitment of that partnership. -- to that partnership. [applause]

we're preparing for future threats so that there is never another disaster like katrina. the largest civil works project in american history is under way to build a fortified levy system. just as i pledged as a candid that, we're going to finish the system by next year so that this city is protected against a hundred-year storm. should not be playing russian roulette every 14 season -- we should not be playing russian roulette every hurricane season. [applause] we're working to restore wetlands and natural barriers that were damaged by katrina and just katrina, but had been rapidly disappearing for decades. we are restoring confidence and accountability in washington. i am proud that my fema director, craig fugate, as 25

years of disaster management in florida -- has 25 years of disaster management in florida. [applause] he came from florida, a state that has known its share of hurricanes. we put together a group led by secretary donovan and secretary napolitano to look at this disaster recovery across the country. we're improving coordination and modernizing it. we're putting in place reforms so that never in america is somebody left behind in a disaster because they have a disability or they are elderly or they are infirm. that will not happen again. [applause] finally, even as you have been buffeted by katrina and rita, even as you has been -- have

been impacted by this recession, in recent months, you have seen new hardship as a result of the bp deepwater horizon oil spill. just as we sought to ensure we were recovering from katrina, we have worked hard to match our efforts on the oil spill to what you need on the ground. we have been in close consultation with your governor, mayors, parish presidents, and local government officials. from the start, i promise you to do things -- that we would see to it that the leak was stopped. it has beeen. -- been. i promised we would stay on bp until the damage to the gulf and the lives of people in this region was reversed. we'll keep this promise. we are not going to forget. we will stay on it until this

area is fully recovered. [applause] that is why we rapidly launched the largest response to an environmental disaster in american history. 47,000 people on the ground. 5700 vessels on the water to contain and clean up the oil. when bp was not moving fast enough on claims, we told bp to set aside $20 billion in a fund managed by an independent third party to help those whose lives have been turned upside down by this spill. we will continue to rely on sound science, carefully monitoring waters and coastlines as well as the health of the people along the gulf to deal with any long-term effects of the oil spill. we're going to stand with you until the oil is cleaned up, the environment is restored, polluters are held accountable,

communities are made whole, and this region is all the way back on its feet. [applause] that is how we are helping this city and this state and this region to recover from the worst natural disaster in our nation's history. we are cutting through the red tape that has impeded rebuilding efforts for years. we're making government work better and smarter in coordination with one of the most expansive non-profit efforts in american history. we're helping local leaders to address serious problems that have been neglected for decades, that existed before the storm came, and have continued after the waters receded -- from the levees to the justice system, from health care to education. we are making new orleans a

place for -- that stands for what we can do in america, not just what we cannot do. ultimately, that must be the legacy of katrina, not one of neglect, but of action, not one of abandonment, but of a community working together to meet shared challenges. [applause] the truth is there are some wounds that have not yet healed. there are some losses that cannot be repaid. for many who lived through those harrowing days five years ago, there are searing memories that time may not erase. but even amid so much tragedy, we saw stirrings of a brighter

day. we saw men and women risking themselves to save strangers. we saw nurses staying behind to care for the sick and injured. we saw families coming back to rebuild and helping their neighbors. we saw music and mardi gras. we saw the vibrancy and fun of this town on diminished -- undiminished. we have seen many returned to their beloved city with a new- found sense of obligation. when i came here four years ago, one thing i found striking was all of the greenery that had begun to grow back. i was reminded of a book -- a passage from the book of job. there is hope for a tree, that if it is cut down it will sprout again. the work ahead will not be easy

and there will be setbacks and challenges along the way. but thanks to you -- the great people of this great city -- new orleans is blossoming again. thank you, everybody. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. stripes forever" playing] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

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[cheers and applause] ♪ >> president obama is just leaving xavier university where he spoke about the resiliency of the new orleans and stressed the importance of following through on policies and the government commitment to bringing the region back. the president was commemorating the fifth anniversary of hurricane katrina today in new orleans. he is making his way to the

university to speak, stopping at the bakery and tavern, a bad neighborhood landmark. we will show you these pictures t the bakery and tavern, a neighborhood landmark. we will show you these pictures now. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations]

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meredith? i gave her all my money for ice cream. that's whatpo'boy, i was told was the favorite. i'm gonna -- going to try this alligator sausage. some gumbo. >> i'm trying. [inaudible] >> ok. is that right?

tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern, president obama will give an oval office address is thus in the troop withdrawal from iraq and the shift to the focus on the war -- in afghanis. that is tuesday night at 8:00 p.m. here on c-span. >> yesterday, i signed a disaster declaration for the state of louisiana. this morning, i signed a disaster declaration for the state of mississippi. >> as the gulf coast marks the fifth anniversary of hurricane katrina, look back at how the federal government responded to the crisis. online at the c-span video library. all free. every video since 1987. it is washington your way.

>> in 2006, the national press club held a forum on the first anniversary of hurricane katrina. reporters and photographers shared their stories of the storm and flood and assessed the reconstruction efforts in new orleans and along the gulf coast. this is an hour. >> now i know why you guys are always writing on pieces of paper. good afternoon. my name is michael doyle. i am the co-chairman of the national press club committee "newsmakers." before we start the program, i want to tell you about some of our upcoming events. on march 17, members of the northern island -- ireland policing board will be here. on march 23, the mayor of taipei will be here.

on march 28, the foreign minister -- the foreign minister will be here for any event. today, we have people who will -- to have been on the front lines, including news directors from mississippi and louisiana who will discuss the lessons learned from katrina and how they cope with the ongoing catastrophe. as the moderator, we have lake pontchartrain, -- jason siegenthaler. the foundation and the association president is here. merkel hosting the event. >> thank you very much. we're happy to be here. we want to thank the national press club for inviting us to be here today as well as the mccormick tribune foundation for sponsoring this event and our leadership program.

thank you for being here. i am especially proud to be sitting at this table with these people. this is a special group of people. they were on the front lines after katrina. they have some remarkable stories to tell. we have just an hour. i will keep this short perio. i spent some time, after katrina hit, in the new orleans area. i saw some of the devastation for myself. i recognize, although i do not understand the challenges that these people have had to deal with over the past six or so months, that they face those challenges, i believe, with courage and confidence and

grace. they are examples of the best that broadcaste journalism has o offer. that is why we are so happy to have them here today and it is why we are especially proud to honor the gulf coast broadcast stations last night at the radio and television news foundation dinner. it was a moving event. we're proud to expand on that today. that the introduced our guests. first, to my right, ninth ward of -- sandy breland of wwlt. john snell. david vincent, station manager and news director at wlox in biloxi. anzio williams of new orleans. gary wordlaw.

and on the far left bob noonan, director of wgno in new orleans. let's look at this videotape for a moment. ♪ >> this is definitely a monster heading toward us. there will be intense wind. >> we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. >> we were on the air 24/7 when competitors were knocked off the air. >> we're much closer at the station. we are much more caring for our fellow men today than we were. >> when all is said and done, we will have been that much more

victorious over something that was catastrophic. we will have survived this catastrophe together. we will be bonded by an experience that will never be forgotten. >> when every light was out. >> here is a bird's-eye view of hurricane katrina. >> it all began the friday night before the storm hit, when we realize that the past of the storm had changed. >> i said, who wants to stay? >> is the biggest -- it is the biggest story that has come along. >> the challenge is how to cover the story and not be in the actual location. it was a great deal of coordination between jackson, orlando, and the resources of several channels to make this happen. as we were doing all of this, it

was clear that many of the people involved were being very heavily affected by the storm. >> the pride that we have as individuals -- folks that and know they have done something good, not only in terms of broadcasting, but had they have done right by the people of new orleans. >> we will get through this storm. hopefully it will make that little job east -- jog east of the center of the city. it will be too close. we will have a severe impact. >> the inner city has a lot of poor people who are walking around, showing no signs of going anywhere. >> that is what we will focus on this evening -- the ones who have stayed behind. that is a great line -- the die- hards will die hard. this is not going to be a pretty

sight. >> this area has been hit hard. traders overturned. if that isn't bad enough, look over there. chunks missing from the twin span. >> the strong winds are at the heart of the problem. the are pushing more water into the industrial canal and out of the canal. >> there is no telling how many lives have been destroyed by a storm that did this in just a matter of hours. it will take a very long time to clean this up. >> as katrina took aim at the gulf coast, tv stations were well positioned to cover the major event. the hurricane was just the opening paragraph of a story that became much more. wgno had become wall-to-wall coverage when the order came to evacuate coverage.

the partnership allow them to continue serving the community even as they moved to safer ground. after the storm, the real challenge began, as employees turned their focus to what was becoming the worst natural disaster in u.s. history. the story is far from over. the coverage continues, and so does the dedication of our employees to their jobs and their community. >> the water is beginning to recede. >> this dedication in the face of adversity has been an inspiration. >> it is 5:23, monday morning, august 29, a day that may go down in history. >> for hours and hours, our team of meteorologist was on the air every few minutes with the updated progress of katrina. our reporters were in the field bringing you coverage as it occurred. during the height of the storm, the roof over our newsroom

began to peel away. one of the guide wires snap. the tower crashed to the ground. thankfully, no one was hurt. during the height of the storm we were limited 21 camera and one lot of commuter, -- to one camera and one laptop computer, but we were still on the air. >> i know we will all be ok. i feel bad about my cat. my husband could have died. the fact that he is alive -- you just have to think about the good stuff. >> the new orleans radio station stayed on the air throughout the crisis. >> thank god we had a big support staff. there were times when it was just three of us on the air on six stations. we stand on at least four at all

times throughout the storm -- stayed on at least four at all times throughout the storm. >> ♪ >> i guess i would say it should all be about the proud moments that we, wwo radio, and everybody who has anything to do with it, have been the lifeline. >> wwl was the voice of new orleans during this crisis. >> as modern forms of communication failed, one technology functions -- radio. >> this is a cheery -- clear channel emergency response team. sed♪ summer has come and pas the innocent can never last wake me up when september ends ♪

>> just an example that the tremendous -- of the tremendous service that these folks provided to the community. let's start with you, sandy. what challenges do you face now? >> some of the challenges that we face are that we still have a large portion of our staff that is not back in housing. we have staff members whose families are elsewhere because the schools have not reopened. it are not bringing people back yet because hospitals are not reopened -- they are not bringing people back at because hospitals are not reopen. our employees have to do jobs. they are working -- they have two jobs today are working here and are working on putting their lives back together. >> we have a production value talons. approached tv news from a

substance standpoint. -- we have a production valued challenge. you approached tv news from a substance standpoint. here, we approach it from an entertainment standpoint. we're set up on particle boards on file cabinets with laptop computers. it is hysterical. they're bringing all this fancy equipment while they rebuild the rest of the station around us. fewer tapedecks. fewer toys. it dovetails with what sandy says. you are accustomed to having tools to do your job. everything is difficult. the thing about this is new

orleans is not mardi gras. that felt like the first royal day since august 29. it felt like new orleans -- first normal day since august 29. it felt like new orleans. i said that to a mother and she said, you are crazy. the first day was when the kids went back to school. i put a tape into this tape deck. it didn't work. nothing is easy anymore. our challenge is to try to keep up with the big dogs -- or the evil empire. [laughter] just kidding. our challenge is to keep up with our competitors in a primitive environment. bob will tell you abvou -- about his trailers. >> what about the employees?

it is one thing when the adrenaline is going, but how was it different now? >> that is an excellent question. we had a meeting on wednesday with 10 members of our staff on the operations side. last week, we had a meeting with two members of our new staff. next week, we have another meeting. we are having small meetings because everyone's emotions are on the surface. if we have another big storm this year, i did not know. i'm afraid we could lose a lot of our staff. it is not that they are not dedicated. but if something that has happened is so bad that you know the dangers, do you want to go through that? some people have young children. one lady's husband is sick and he may not make it. she would be raising the child alone. that is a big issue that we face. everyone has lost so much.

12 people on our staff lost everything. 60% have major damage to their homes. when you go through something like this, it really affects your psyche. there are so many people in fema trailers. if another storm was to come, i am afraid a lot of people would leave. i want to make a note about the lady with a cat -- the cat. there is more to that story. she was one of our anchors. to occur out to her home -- we took her out to her home. the water washed her house away. she spent three hours in the water. she was a swimmer. she was lucky to be alive. she talked about what meant so much to her in her life.

she did not have any clothes when we found her, she had borrowed some from neighbors. her husband made it. she made it. she wanted her cat back. she did get her cat back eight weeks later. it climbed out of the rubble. [laughter] it meant a lot to her. she was not just being glib. she went through a lot. >> anzio, you've spoken eloquently about the support you have gotten from the companies which sponsored the television station you work for. is there concern that support will not be as strong as it was in the beginning? >> the biggest concern is that the rest of the country will forget about what is going on in the gulf coast and new orleans. i can tell you that these

companies have not forgotten. they get the bills everyday. [laughter] we're still spending quite a bit and obviously not making as much money as we were just because of revenue and commercials and all that good stuff. we're constantly spending. for almost 90 days, we were housing all of our employees in hotel rooms. that is probably $3,500 per month for each. we have a diesel tanker, fuel tanker in our backyard. it is still there. still running. we are spending a lto of m -- a lot of money to make sure that we provide a service to people. i am grateful that i work for a company that has continued to

put money into less -- into us without looking for an immediate return. >> you see the pictures of new orleans and from mardi gras. some people might assume that it is getting back to a sense of normalcy. when i talk to you folks, i get a different story. >> there are two words that describe new orleans right now. there is no permanency that anything. you are here today, gone today. the of 80,000 to 100,000 people who come in -- you have 80,000 to 100,000 people who come in to work and then they leave. people are not accustomed to traffic. there are lots of accidents because people do not know what to do. you go into neighborhoods where real people live, not the french quarter where the taurus arouris

are, and you are struck by the silence. it lobbied that way for a long time. the other word -- it will be that way for all long time. the other word is "hard." the stores all close at 6:00. when the storm came, i have 48 full-time people and today i have 24 people total. it is not that they do not want to work. they do not have any place to live. it is a very difficult situation. there are fema trailers all over. but what about when the winds begin to blow again? those things will blow over. people are holding their collective breath, praying that the winds do not blow back towards new orleans.

these guys certainly deserve a lot of credit. they're people are on the front line every day. the national guys go back to york or washington or wherever they live. you live there everyday. tv, with all of the magic of pictures, does not really show you everything. it does not show you how it smells in most of those neighborhoods. that stench never leaves your lungs. it just does not go away. you drive by those houses and see the dead bodies were found in this want and that one. the little kids who live there who cannot go to school -- what do you do about that? as anzio said, not one of our staff has missed a payday. when the government was not

necessarily there to help, the companies really stepped up. because of the efforts that were made by the company, some of our people actually lived. we would have had people die. there was no way to support yourself. you have your car, your family, what is on your back, and the freeway in front of you. >> we're proud that he is a board member of our organization. have some employees left? have you had people -- difficulty in getting people off come to work for you -- getting people come to work for you? >> that is a great question. new orleans is the place to be. we lost some people. there seems to be a second wave.

deep are seeing that we're not rebuilding as quickly as possible -- people are seeing that we are not rebuilding as quickly as possible. people are realizing they did not buy into this. a lot of people are scared. they want to be able to go to the grocery store at any hour of the day. their lives have been turned upside down. i tried to hire or reporter. i have had three people turned me down. when they look at the city and how hard it is going to be, it is pretty difficult. john alluded to the trailers. we're not in our studio. >> two double-wide trailers. >> yes, sir. our newsroom is on one side, the editor on the other side. we will be there for another three weeks. the tribune came in and said it all up. we evacuated to bat and ruched

-- baton rouge. then we were operating out of a satellite truck at a different location every night, doing live newscasts on the road. we were doing long form pieces. now, we just get the satellite shot. now, we have to jump through hoops. normally, we would just go to our news center and wrote i -- route it in. it is hard, but it is fun. this is what journalism is about -- getting the word out. my staff is hustling. i'm very proud. usually it is such a competitive environment. i love watching what they are doing every day. we are doing different stories. we're bringing news to the

public. not that the competitive fire has died, but it is more of a team effort. my staff come back every day and tell me about the help they get from other reporters. i love that type of journalism at this time. >> sandy, the topic of this panel is leadership. i would like -- you to give us an idea of how -- what sort of skills came to bear after katrina when you were dealing with losing everything, trying to worry about your own family, and still be a lifeline for your community. >> one of the things that is important to recognize is, if you have a plan, people will follow you. that was important to us. we had a plan that had been

developed for some time and was shared with the staff. we knew where we would go. we knew we would split the staff in two between baton rouge and new orleans. would you are in a situation like that -- when you are in a situation like that, people want someone to step up and tell them what to do. if you have a plan, they will follow you. you have to realize it is not only about covering the story. your role becomes different. they will also come to you with their personal issues they're dealing with. you have to keep focused. >> become counselor as well lesbos -- you become a counselor as well as boss. >> i have never hugged anyone so much. >> the staff has all gotten closer together. it is a real family now.

>> it is an incredible bonding experience. it really is. you have to fill that role. one interesting thing we found is that people wanted to work. when we got a couple weeks into the store where we were giving people a day off, people -- storm where we're giving people a day off, people did not want to take the time off. while we were working, we knew what to do. we knew the mission, the focus. when we were not working, we did not know where to start. work sort of kept us going and pushed us through. >> one of the questions that came up last night had to do with how you cover the story and whether or not, because this is happening to you, it affects the way you cover it. is there some bias?

are you going to cover it differently? >> i did not know if there is a bias when it is happening because it is an emergency and you are really -- the national media were almost the first responders. they had satellite phones and had more experience than fema, apparently. [laughter] the short-term issue is housing, the long-term issue is the levees. we just came back from a briefing with senator mary landrieu. we talked about the footprint of the city. for months, at operated under the assumption that we would have to sacrifice neighborhoods -- i operated under the assumption that we would have to sacrifice neighborhoods.

this was a failure of federal levees. i did not know how you get a congressman in arizona to understand that this area is high ground and that, if the levees had held, the only area on the east bank that would not have flooded would have been lakeview. the computer model predicted the final effect that brought this water into new orleans. i was the about the bias this morning. -- thinking about the bias this morning. .

i do not know if we have reached that point yet, but in terms of the e emergency, it was a first- responder type of thing -- in terms of the emergency. >> do you sometimes think, david, that your community is overlooked? and all of the attention goes to new orleans? >> there is no question about it. whether it is right or wrong, we do not think we have been given much attention at all. actually, new orleans had a

major flood. the gulf coast, specifically, had the hurricane. the storm surge -- the city of new orleans really did not have a storm surge like a hurricane. talking as journalists and just as a residence there, the national media -- as a resident there, the national media has not covered this well. there is one person who has given the gulfcoast a lot of attention on "good morning america." cnn did a special about an area where one person grew up. new orleans is well known, and we realize that. i do have to say that the gulf coast received so much damage,

blocks and blocks, they are just gone, a tremendous amount of damage, and a lot of people, really, when you talk about new orleans, about the hurricane on the gulf coast, they do not know about that. >> forgetting about the gulf coast. one of the panel's suggested there is already something " -- onekatrina ifatigue of the panels suggested. >> before katrina, we had murders and car chases and big robberies -- bank robberies, and now, for us, it is about giving people as much information as we can in a clear and

understandable way, and so, we understand that for other folks around the country that that is not always -- they cannot quite understand exactly what is going on in new orleans. is half the city flooded? are people living there? "i thought you left a couple of months ago." getting a real understanding about what is going on in new orleans -- i know that the scale of this, i think gary said this, you cannot touch the television set and get the smell. i went back, and you keep going back to these areas, in your just reminded all over again of

just how bad it is -- and you are just remind all over again. if there is a way we can help the rest of the country understand exactly what the region is going through, it is a tough challenge for journalists to actually tell the magnitude of the story, when you can just ride 4 miles and miles and miles -- for miles and miles and miles people take for granted, and you write down the streets of new orleans, and it is just not there anymore -- and you ride down the streets. where there should be grass, green, it is just brown. you can see cars just sitting in the same place, or boats,

sitting on the side of the highways. they probably rescued hundreds of people. i think it is a challenge for the national media and the local media and the international folks to continue to come back into new orleans to somehow give an accurate depiction of what is going on there. >> gary, last fall, you told the board some of the things going on in new orleans, and the way you expressed it to us, i think it sounded like you want the rest of the country to know some of the things that are going on in new orleans. what is it that the country does not know that they ought to? >> new orleans is the nation's 25th largest city. it is made up of people just like everywhere, good people, hard working people. excuse me. i want the nation to know is

what people want most is to get their lives back, and we cannot do by ourselves. we need help. i think the area got a real black eye, when you saw politicians fighting each other and fighting fema. enough already. we cannot build levees ourselves, and we cannot demolished 300,000 destroyed homes and rebuild them ourselves. we need the help of the country to support the people who live there. it is -- we could talk all year about what is going wrong. there is a lot that is going right, too. people are coming back in. they want to be there. they just do not have a place to live, and until some effort is made to take the mississippi gulf coast and rebuild it, to take the louisiana gulf coast and help rebuild it, to bring people back to want to come back and get their lives back, it is

going to be a very, very difficult situation for that area to grow. louisiana is not one of the wealthiest states in the country, so the state needs help, the city needs help, and, mostly, the people need help. i think america saw the collapse of a lot of things when they saw people on bridges, and they stop people swimming -- saw people swimming. we see it now. we see it in arrears from the videotape. there is something i want to make about a radio station. a lot of journalists had to go back to work. but those guys did a heckuva job. my wife was in the hospital. we literally got her out of the hospital before her surgery because the doctors left, and

we ultimately ended up in birmingham, alabama, some 19 hours later. every inch of that drive, the radio was on wwl, where they came together in shared facilities and so on and so forth, but that radio station -- and shared facilities. people would call in, and it was real helpful to have that kind of approach, and i fell in love with radio again, and i am a tv guy, but i fell in love with radio again. there is a need for radio. there is a need for television. there is a need for print. there is a need for journalists to continue to do their job. everybody has a role to do, and journalists continue to support us by telling us the truth about what is happening in the coast -- gulf coast, and i think america will not get tired of

this story. i think america wants to see that area come back, not just because of mardi gras and the good times that new orleans represents, but these are americans. these are people who are taxpayers, people who are part of the great society. these are us, and i think people want to see us to achieve those things. give us an idea about what it was like to get on the air. >> it was a struggle. we were fortunate enough to have a vehicle there that we could use to get out, but when we got back in the city, and that monday and tuesday, we tried to go live, there were issues with our satellite truck. our satellite truck was 12 years old. our generator went down.

we were in trouble. we just do not have a studio to go back to korea we do not have the acquitted in there to do the double boxes -- we do not have a studio to go back to. we do not have the equipment in there to do the double boxes. we do not have a home. i think we can really relate to a lot of the residents who have nowhere to go back to. we do not. we are a band of brothers out there. one thing, we do not have to pay for parking right now. [laughter] there is a parking lot right behind the superdome. the first game back in new orleans, and it was so need to be hanging out in our trailers -- it was so neat. the last time we saw that was

august 29, when people were trying to get into the superdome war on the 30th, trying to get out. -- or on the 30th. but to answer, it is a struggle every day. i am surprised we have not lost more people, and i think it is a tribute, what they have done for us. when we initially went on the air, we were going through a los angeles station. we sent a crew out there. we had a director, a graphics person, and a producer. our signal would go to ktla, and they were able to put our graphic on the air, and that would go to indianapolis, in indianapolis with then send it out, and it would go out on satellite -- and indianapolis would then send that out. we still do not have any

microwave capabilities. our receivers are down. so we are relying on a satellite truck. i am real proud of the product we are putting out. is it jazzy like the rest of the guys? no, but the heart is there, and we are telling the story of new orleans coming back. >> sandy, you have an emergency plan, but it is one thing to talk about it. >> it is, and they sort of sit on the shelf for a year, and one thing that we learned is that you have to revisit it, and there are things that come into play that you do not think about. you do not think about, what am i going to do what my staff has nowhere to go home to prove those are the things -- nowhere to go home to?

these are the things. but we have a plan in place. it is one thing to say on paper that we are going to hunker down in new orleans, but it was something very different. we ended up, half of our staff went to baton rouge before the storm came in. half stayed in the city. we stayed in the french quarter until we had to move. we were going to the same hotel as the elected officials, and that ended up being the same one as the hyatt, with all of the glass blown out. we stayed on the air from our french quarter facility until we thought we could safely convoy over there, and when we left that night, to actually turn the light out in that newsroom and convoy everyone and say, "we are

going. we are moving out." it is a lot different than seeing it on paper. we spent the night there. the other thing that is so interesting is that you are cut off. you are isolated. you know, all of the information we had was what we were getting from our own eyewitnesses, and that was a challenge, and those are the things that you cannot really account for, basic functions of journalism being difficult, fact checking, and one of the things we were very careful not to do, and, frankly, one of the things that i think the industry as a whole has to be careful of in those situations, not to adhere to rumors, because there was information that we learned out -- learned later was not correct. those would normally be sources of credible information, but we were getting figures that were not right, and we heard that

10,000 people had died, and that was not true, so those are some of the challenges when you put the plan to gather that you cannot account for. >> another hurricane in the region, john, and considering emergency plans again is something you have to consider, so what would you do differently now, and have you thought about that? >> we are owned by the same country that owns a station in mobile, so our plan was to go to mobile with half of the staff. instead of in our concrete building, on the fifth floor of the surest building doing this, so i kind of wish we had stayed back there. back of transmitters come and come in our case, i do not know where they are in the -- back up transmitters, and, in our case, i do not know where they

are. in st. bernard parish, trying to get used -- juice. we are a $4 billion company. it took us three months and a couple of days to get back in our building on a temporary basis. what is the guy with $25,000 in his reserve account who owns a little restaurant supposed to do? so we go, and the way we got on the air is that we have a central operations center where they want our commercials, so we normally send our commercials through orlando. we are working out of mobile, so the way we got our signal on the air, there was a kind of dish network that we would get from, like, best buy. we plugged in. it was either directv or dish.

it was dish, i think. we went to our operation in mobile, which was more primitive than i described. orlando but the signal out from another line to the folks in denver, colorado, at the satellite place, and then it went out over the air using a kind of dish you would buy an best buy. there were people in metropolitan new orleans who could only get us because of the way the transformers were set up. wwl better than you could get us or getting us better than you could get them. one night, we lost our signal because it rained in denver, colorado. [laughter] >> david, would you consider

what you would -- have you considered what you would do if something like this would happen again? n it.s, we are working io we are working with a group that we may try to take part of our staff and put it up there, so we are working on that. we do something almost every day, thinking about what we will do the next time. let me say one thing but i just want to make sure, because we represent people -- let me say one thing. i just want to make sure, because we represent people from around the country. people of come to the mississippi gulf coast -- people have come to the mississippi gulf coast. please come and say thank you to those organizations, because --

police say thank you to those organizations. if it were not for those faith based course, we would not be back as far as we are. -- if it were not for those faith-based groups. doing whatever grunt work needs to be done -- because until all of that stuff is out of there, and there are millions of cubic yards of things that need to be cleared out of there -- that stuff needs to be gone, and the people are doing a great job, and i just want to make sure, if you go back and see somebody, please say thank you. >> we have a few minutes for questions, so i went to stop here and ask you, if you have a question, please stand up and tell us your name. in the back. >> looking ahead, i have a

challenging thought for you. you are all here today in this road, news directors or general managers, most of you -- your odd today here in this room -- you are all here today in this room. so you can provide a service, yes, it will affect your competitiveness, but you all have less resources. mr. noonan does not have a building. i am sure that other stuff your satellite trucks. sure that it -- i am others have fewer satellite trucks. it is something you have to think about. you have the ground rules set up, and you know when to trigger that sort of coverage. otherwise, it seems to me you will be facing major coverage

problems with diminished resources. >> wow, it is not a new idea. we saw the radio station pool their resources together and do it. -- the radio stations pool their resources. it really did us no good to broadcast in new orleans. the majority of our viewers left the area, so it was our intention to see how we could reach those viewers, so we kind of set up will be called a regional network, where art signal was being carried in baton rouge, -- where our signal was being carried in baton rouge and other areas. it is something i am not opposed of. we should probably sit down. >> something we discussed in

our newsroom, if we were not able to get on the air, we would offer our services to one of the television stations or all of the television stations and get our reporters out there and serve the public. that was something that was discussed. the monday night football game, the first of the year, we had problems getting the signal and putting it on our air, so we called wwl, and wwl aired the first monday night football game, and we served the public. that is exactly the kind of partnership you are talking about. you put your egos aside, and the first monday night football game was a big deal to the people in new orleans, trying to get back to some normalcy. >> we do not have a news department, but we have a working agreement, and when anything of any magnitude in our

market happens, we simulcast the signal, so we are already doing that. >> all of the radius stations, all of the radio station groups and the newspaper, -- all of the radio stations, all of the radio station groups, we carried it. that was the first time we had come together. and it did work. >> you do not know which tower might fall, so if you have multiple output during the coverage, you provide a better coverage pattern. if we do not pool our resources, then the market is not going to get served. >> i will be the guy who kind of disagrees. i think there is value if there

are lives at stake, and you are in an emergency -- i wonder if the stations ought not think about putting competition aside and dealing with this huge mayor's race, doing some sort of joint mayoral flynt -- thing, and you have all of the anchors, whatever. i think competition makes us better. we have, in my opinion, the best media in the world, and i think there is room for competition, and as a guy with a smaller staff, i want everybody to stay on the air, and i want to be in on the story. >> talking about when you are on the air, we did not know who was seeing it, and, again, we were so isolated.

one interesting point is the website really came of age in this storm. we did not realize until we got the figures a few days later, we found that 50 million people were watching us on our website. many of them were displaced. >> we heard about it, as well. >> you talk about all of the relevant, vital journalism you did, but at some point, we have to start measuring who is watching, advertising, so forth. is there any concern that the market has contracted so much that you will have to cut back on staff? at some point, the corporate offices are going to say, "get back to reality of what the market says right now"? >> at least november.

>> at least november, so there is a rating book. in terms of the market collapsing, if you have 300,000 people leaving the market, you will have a smaller market, but for the people living there, they will still need news, and the companies to own the stations in new orleans are pretty well grounded companies. these are not the type of companies that are going to leave the market high and dry. that is never going to happen. >> some of the companies would have done it by now before shelling out of the money, putting people up in apartments and hotels, giving bonuses to employees just to keep them alive. "tribune" did that. >> we can be a successful market at 142, 143.

maybe we have two light trucks, versus six or seven, whatever -- maybe we have two live trucks. >> some cannot get employees. not getting the burger kings, mcdonald's, and some others because they can get a employees -- cannot get employees. >> advertisers are advertisers. they want to make sure they get their brand out in front of people so that when people made their selections, and they are there. you do not find any old automobiles in new orleans right now. they have been shipped out to where you are. [laughter]

>> there is a lot of money being spent because people have to put their lives back together. we talk about people who have left the city. a lot of those people stayed in the region, so i think the jury is out on how big the city is going to be. a lot of people stayed in the area, it just not the city. -- in the area, just not the city. >> and there is nothing else to do in noreen's -- new orleans, right now. >> we probably have time for one more question. go ahead. >> adding new people to the staff, i am just wondering if that is happening at their stations? >> we have had some staff turnover. as far as attracting new people,

it has been interesting. a couple people that i interviewed for jobs, they had families with young children, and they were very interested about coming to new orleans. we have had an easier time getting single people to come to the city than we have people with families, and i understand that, for obvious reasons. >> finding a place for the person to live. we lost thousands and thousands of apartment complexes, so right now, unless they have a relative or a friend that they can live with in terms of bringing a person into the market right now, i think it would change in the next six months -- >> on the internet? >> at the height of it, we had about 17 positions open, and i found a fairly easy to fill those positions, folks who want

to move to new orleans for one reason or another, whether they are from the area or have family members there. there were some who wanted to come back and help their moms. cleveland, ohio, and one woman had her husband who was transferred there, and otherwise, i would not have gotten hurt, at all, so there has been some benefit -- i would not have gotten her. we have jobs that we are posting in local newspapers and online and all of the of the things that you would normally do, but folks still have those questions, "is there anywhere for me to stay? can i go to mcdonald's?" >> give us a call. [laughter]

>> if you are looking for a job, and you really want to work, come to new orleans. they are giving bonuses to people to come to new orleans to work. that is the side issue. >> journalism has a whole new meaning. we truly understand the we are a lifeline for a lot of folks, and i hope, especially with the folks who are sitting around this table, that we will continue to put up a good product, is selling a product, and continue to raise the bar of journalism -- we will continue to put out a good product, selling a product, and continuing to raise the bar of journalism. i think the competition is good

in the sense that the people on the receiving end are benefiting from it, so i would hope that we will continue to compete against each other in that spirit, but the user or the viewer is the one who really benefits from it. >> that is a good note to wrap it up. we are out of time. i want to thank our panelists. they are a lifeline to their communities, and we should not let this story die. [applause] thanks to the national press club for having us today and for c-span covering us. have a great afternoon. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] thank you very much. thank you.

>> now, an event with journalists who covered hurricane katrina. this is one of many events marking the fifth anniversary of the storm that led to widespread flooding in new orleans and elsewhere. from the neweum, this is about one hour -- from the newseum. >> good evening and welcome. chairman andverby ceo of the newseum. most of you know the newseum and

have been here many times. our try to help you experience the first draft of history. we are about news, but we are about history and the first draft of history that is journalism. tonight, we are here to commemorate the five-year anniversary of katrina, the worst disaster, i believe, to hit this country in our lifetimes, but maybe in the history of the country. it is such a dramatic of and. it was almost beyond belief, and our exhibit upstairs shows the drama, the danger and despair that company-as told through the eyes of reporters from newspapers and television tonight three very distinguished journalists. before i introduce them, i want to take you back. i know that the memory of katrina is seared in your mind

from five years ago, but let's set up with a clip. >> just unbelievable. >> people are dying.

>> as it was said there, just unbelievable. we are accustomed here at the newseum to having very good journalists come here. tonight, i would add the adjective brave. i'm not accustomed to using the word brave with journalists who do their jobs here in the united states. maybe abroad or in a war setting, but the journalists who covered katrina were brave in a personal sense and in a larger sense of what they did in covering that tragedy. we have with us the editor of the "new orleans times picayune ." he has been editor since 1980 and is a hometown boy from new orleans. he knows that city like the back of his hands and under his peggyship at of the "* in" they won four pulitzer prizes. next to him is stan tiner, the editor of the "son harold" at

biloxi and gulfport. i've known him for a long time. he was the editor at shreveport, mobile and oklahoma city. his city was completely devastated and you will hear how he reacted to that. and we have shepard smith. all of us remember your reporting from five years ago. he was the main man at fox news and is the anchor of the signature news program each day. plus, he does "shepherd smith from a studio b." our good fortune, "studio b." was that the fed newseum -- was at a newseum museum today. before i asked your question, i would like to set this up with a video that we did with you.

>> the key venture for us was to reporters and they both had bicycles at the newsroom that day. so they took their bicycles together and decided to explore the area to the north of the city near the lake. they looked down from the railroad bridge and what used to be a quiet residential street is now a river that is rushing pass them under this bridge toward downtown new orleans. in that flash of a moment, they both realize they were doomed. the water has broken through the flood walls and the oceans are rushing into the city. >> five years later, it is chilling to me to hear you say we are doomed.

how on earth do you begin to think about covering something when you say we are dimmed? how did you go about getting it done? >> one of the things that's most admirable about a journalist from new orleans and the gulf coast that covered this storm, is the way in which they were all personally affected by the various stories that were covering and to these bicycle riders we are just hearing about, one of them had at the moment he is jotting things down in his notebook, he is realizing that his house is completely under water. he pauses for maybe a minute to absorber that fact and takes up his notebook again and continued writing because he is a journalist.

it is a mission. i think all of these reporters realize that that mission came before everything. >> that is amazing. those bicycles are upstairs as part of the exhibit. when you realize that's what it took and they were the first to discover the levees have broken -- >> they were and they had the great advantage of being hometown boys. they knew the city like the palm of their hands and they knew what they are looking at. they knew what it meant to see water coming from that direction, namely that the lake was about to inundate 80% of new orleans. with that kind of authority, they were able to write a story that made this clear to millions of people on the internet before anybody else could put the pieces together. that kind of combination of firsthand observation and deep

knowledge of the community is what distinguishes newspapers. >> before you heard that news, did you think new orleans had dodged a bullet? >> that's a good question. even after i heard that news, i knew intellectually that we are doomed, but emotionally, you cannot grasp it and you think i'm going to wake up tomorrow and everything will be routine again. it takes awhile for anybody to absorber that kind of -- for anybody to absorb that kind of drama. >> you had a harrowing experience as far as how long to stay and when to leave the offices. tell us about that. >> the storm hit monday morning , landfall at the mouth of the mississippi about 6:00 on august 29th. the winds did not begin to die

down until about 2:00. it was very difficult to be outside and all. about 200 of us, including women and children who were relatives of our journalists were in this fortress-like building that is our newspaper, thinking that is where we would report about the storm. we had generators. we had a computer power and the ability to write on the internet. the first thing that what was the presses. but in the end, that did not matter because there were no households to deliver to. we were, in a way, thinking this was going to be our two week at most fortress from which we report the storm. that night, after our reporters came in from having seen where

the breeches had occurred, we started seeing the water rise in front of our building. we should have known what we were observing, but we thought how could the water rise? the storm is gone and the wind has died down. gradually, overnight, it rose at a rate of about 1 inch every seven minutes. by the time i woke up, it was clear that our reporters were not going to be able to come and go. the prism across the street was being evacuated. there were about a dozen inmate escapes right in front of our building. we realized if we did not leave then in there, we would not have the ability to get through the water, so we loaded into these trucks that could for about 4 feet of water. >> there is a picture upstairs of your staff in the back of this truck. it is so dramatic. he never covered a lot of hurricanes and you figured you

had this down pat about how to cover hurricanes. >> hurricanes, you never know how they're going to come out you peer -- how they're going to come at you. there may never be another katrina, but coming from a different direction, i don't think you can ever have a hurricane down pat. you always have to be flexible in reacting to whatever the quirks of this particular disaster are. i don't think anybody in new orleans expected the federally built canal walls would collapse and that would be our demise. >> stand, the devastation in biloxi and along the mississippi gulf coast was unbelievable. we have a clip from our interview. let's go to that clip.

>> it came out of a sense of outrage that will not getting help quick enough. we had to speak with a louder voice and in the first week, we had a headline that said "help us now." we did need help tomorrow, we need it right now. for many of us, one way reflect on those days, one of the most righteous jobs we did was to deliver the paper. people would be their getting ice and water and we came up with the paper and people would leave the line looking for sustenance to get a newspaper and gas because they cannot believe the paper had gotten there. in the midst of all this, if you can get a newspaper, were probably going to be ok. >> was it difficult to move opinion to the front page?

>> no. you are aware of any need to do it. journalists spend a lifetime absorbing generations of tradition and understanding about what our role was. you don't think you are going to be put in a moment like we found ourselves after katrina. , as it became clear, the enormity of what we were dealing with, and as jim's newsroom dealt with it, we'll understood we had to speak for the people of south mississippi. that was an important role that we add and while we did not always know what was happening on the networks and other places, we quickly became somewhat media-savvy in understanding that if a little paper in biloxi and gulfport could say something with that

kind of authority, that we had not done, that it was important that the people of america respond to what was going on there, i think they did in many ways. >> you think your headlines and editorials had impact? >> i do. our case was much different. what happened on the mississippi gulf coast was dramatically different from what happened in new orleans. jim has described what occurred there dallas so devastating to the population -- what happened there that was so devastating to the population was a man-made failure of engineering. hurricane katrina, the savagery of this storm and the power of water to get our coast the way on that horrible moment -- of that horrible morning. many of you will understand that the storm surge in places like

where jim's family lost three homes -- like the people in mississippi, they keep rebuilding and nature keeps knocking it down. but there was a storm surge of about 34 feet. on top of the storm surge was a wave action have again that high. so waves as high as 50 feet battered much of the coast of mississippi and very little could stand against that. the only thing that would be a celebration would be elevation and there's just not that much elevation in our -- would be elevation. when you talk about the ability to know where you are going -- there are no street signs or landmarks in many cases to even see. so you had -- to try to grasp given your knowledge of the place where you were and what happened in that place because

there would be literally block after block after block of nothing where homes and communities had stood before. as our people began to go back to their homes, it was very much like the situation jim described. about one-fourth of our newspaper lost their homes that morning. the journalist would go out and discover where their homes had stood and come back. i think of one man who was a naval officer and a very strong human being came and sat in my office and wept as he told the story. he dried his tears and went back and did what the rest of the staff did. one of the things i think was so important to us in this days was we had something to do.

we quickly came to grasp that it was important, what we had to do, to tell the story both to the population that survived and put a newspaper in the hands of the people truly crawling over piles of debris, to put it in the hands of somebody surveying what had been their home and telling to the world both on the internet and through the paper we see through the eyes of other media of what was happening in those precincts. >> you called the delivery of those newspapers a righteous act. what do you mean by that? >> journalist mostly think of ourselves as someone gathers information and tells stories. it goes through a process we all know very well. but everybody at a newspaper company has their jobs delineated.

somebody's in the business office, somebody is selling ads, somebody is making a press run and putting it on paper. after katrina, everybody did whatever was necessary to get done. every person literally became a delivery woman or delivery man. whenever we went on our rounds, and we are trying to get a story or go to city hall or to the emergency center to get information, everybody had a stack of papers were filled the trunk of their car with papers. where you would see people gathered, you would put the paper in their hands. as you did that, the organic feeling of the importance of news, most of us got into the business thinking journalism major difference. there is a particular nature to those who choose to do it. you don't do it because you

expect to get rich or anything like that, but there's a sense that journalism would make the world better place if there's something you can do that is important. in all truthfulness, and last 10 or 15 years, this sense has been lost a lot in our business as we have been drawn down by the hard facts of what has happened. as we go through the transition from one way of telling stories to another, most people in this room and someone know that has impacted our business in a dreadful way. we have gotten, as editors and the journalists have had to deal with that as well. those who work in newsrooms, the fact we have lost some of this sense of what the true mission was. katrina brought that back in a very graphic way and allowed us to understand what we did was important and it gave us

something to do. the fact is, most of the people who remained and who survived did not have anything to do. their jobs had been swept away by the storm surge. but for us, we had something to do that kept us busy. i see one of my colleagues here who is now living in virginia. cat knows about as much as the heart and soul of our community as anyone. the business of telling the stories of people, not just then but over the five years has been an important role, i think. >> we were preparing behind the scenes video for our web site on this exhibit. carry christophersen, the director of our collections department talked about putting up a map that was in your newsroom.

as you will see, if you haven't already seen it, it is a death map. i want to go to this clip and ask a question about that. >> one of the most resonant objects or people i met -- the newsroom map. it was a map nude -- that journalists' use to find things there are looking for and they began to track stories of people had died. it is a newsroom tool, it is an artifact. at first, it was a daunting job. then, at one point, as i'm putting items into the bag and riding my notes, i realize that i've made a note about the red pens, john, and marjorie -- all the sudden i put four pins into a bag and i realize i put a whole family into a bag.

>> how did you come up with the idea of a map and what affect it at in the coverage and understaffed? >> -- what affect did it have on your coverage and on your staff? >> if you look, you see the entirety of our coast was swept away. so, there was a real understanding of where the most deadly part of the storm surge was as you placed -- you could find a great relationship between elevation and death in the coast. one of the things folks in south mississippi, as you indicated, we have endured a lot of storms over the years. camille was always thought to be the worst. the mayor of biloxi's said camille killed more people today than it did in 1969

because every believe if you survived camille that where your home was, you would be safe from anything that would come in the future. and many died thinking that. but the map gave us an understanding. there was a real correlation between where you live and who died. you will see the clusters of those who died and i appreciate the respect thomas that was given their when she understood that those were people that we lost that day. >> newseum has tried to tell the story of katrina in three ways, the eyes of the editors and reporters in -- reporters and editors in new orleans, the eyes and editors in biloxi and gulfport and then the national media.

nobody embodies that better than shepard smith. i remember just like yesterday your reporting from new orleans. let's get a glimpse of that in a clip. >> the government said it you go here and you will get help. you go in the superdome and you'll get help, and didn't. >> there is a motion in the story and you try not to be emotionally yourselves. and normally in stories, i'm not one who goes there. but when you come to the very stark reality that you are the information stream between the people who are dying and the people who can do this saving, it takes on a new level of importance. >> over there, there is food and water, but you cannot go -- >> the government will not allow you to do it. >> i want to get some perspective here. >> that is all the perspective you need. >> the government is here to save those people and should have.

it's not a republican thing or democratic thing, it's not right thing or laughing, it is about success and failure. hurricane petraeus is a story of great american failure. -- hurricane katrina is a story of great american failure. have we documented it better as individuals, the government that failed would have been forced to act and we did not succeed in the same way. that is a powerful thing. >> rarely do you see that kind of emotion on television. five years later, how do you feel about that? >> it's tough to look at and tough to remember. i don't get like this. this was an unusual -- i'm a son of the region but it did not have as much to do with that as it did, you prepare yourself mentally before you go to cover something without thinking about. i'm going to a war, here's how it's going to be. i'm going to a hurricane, here

is how it's going to be. you cannot anticipate the collapse of society around you. you don't think of fires and shots -- you just don't -- you're not ready for that. you are also not ready for the times when they say this is happening and you hear them say it, but you can see that it is not. it was very jarring. we would easily collect ourselves in the middle of the night -- i don't have the perspective these men do. they were covering the entire city and entire region. i only had one little thing that could move. so we were covering along the superdome and they would come out of the water and sit there. some of them needed insulin. some of the needed formula. some of them needed drugs, some of them -- they needed what they needed. and there they were all together. and there was nothing we could do except tell people here they are. and they didn't come for a long time. it was very frustrating and frightening.

frightening after a few days. >> in the beginning, you think help will be here quickly and it will all be ok? >> hurricane hugo was a story of when the entries. all of the pine trees snapped as far as you could see. your like toothpicks. once that trees out of the way, they're the help was. in andrew, it was a win the story and no street signs, no markers and it was hard for authorities to get around, but they got there. with katrina, they told you they are on the way or they are right there, and they were not. the next day, they still were not. then you start reading help us now, save us now, that's how i felt about the thousands of people living on that road. where is the help? why isn't it here? i didn't understand it then. >> was the emotion spontaneous or did you say i've got to do

something different here? >> what you do is suppress the motion in an effort to get the facts out. emotion will sometimes twist a fact if you let it. you have to deal with emotions later when you're covering tragedies. >> you said you didn't understand it then did you understand it now. what do you understand? >> i understand every level failed and every level lied to us. >> when you said you understood -- wanted to get clear. >> that's what i thought. the parish said, the city said, the mayor said, the governor said, the president said, and i was looking and they were wrong. >> what has been the reaction of the public to the reporting you did in katrina? >> everybody sees things through his or her own experiences.

sometimes through his or her own ideological prism. sometimes, when events and, those would like to quickly write history, would like to suggest you did something nefarious or what you said it cannot be proved or whatever. but, all you can really do is try very hard to report the trees and then afterward, if they want to be angry with you for the way you reported, that's them and i don't really worry about it. there were a lot of things i could have done better in my tiny little part in that tiny little area, but i did the best and you how to do that time and that's all you can do. >> if i understood your comment correctly, i think you said the news media failed. do you mean that? >> people watching tv don't realize i couldn't see tv. i did not have a phone. i could not read a newspaper. i did not have any communication

except the isp. all i knew is what i was hearing and seeing on the other end. in some ways, i wish we turned up the volume earlier. but initially, when literally bodies are floating down the streets and there are fires in the distance and gunshots are going off and drug addicts are looking for their fix and you are in the middle of all, it's hard to get it to come together. maybe if we had made a little more noise earlier, i don't know. i wish we could have made more noise earlier and affected more change earlier. i feel like a lot of people died between the time these people needed help and the time i got there and that's unfortunate. >> is that the hardest story you have ever covered? >> 9/11

was hard because i lived there. but katrina was like the default capital. maybe didn'ts twho know poverty before. these people do not have cars. they need buses. the buses did not come. we knew what was coming on some level, and it was hard in the that you knew it was coming. you knew they knew. it had been presented to congress, and they did not act. i am forever sad about it. >> jim, did you ever find out why they did not act sooner?

>> is still a baffling and appalling to think that this storm happened on monday morning, and on friday morning, we and various other businesses had set up all kinds of convoys for getting supplies to the people, and on tuesday morning, at secretary chertoff said he was not aware of any reports that levitt had been -- that levees had been reached. this is after having been seen by 50,000 viewers of our internet report. i do not understand it. >> we are going to have questions from the audience. come up to the microphone.

in the meantime, how has this affected your staff? are they stronger? does the trauma still lives? how are they now? >> if i could say something to people here tonight and those who might view this, katrina has not gone away. katrina is a continuing story in the lives of many people across our region in a very, very painful ways. it was kind of interesting. i was on the ground in mississippi for the longest time. i do not know, someone here mike remembered -- might remember, what it was like getting out of the place. i saw some of the headlines you had in the exhibit here.

we had not seen the media. we were the same in the perspective as everybody else. the most asked question that i got within the first month was, "are you back to normal yet?" [laughter] we were not back to normal then, and in many ways, we're not back to normal now. the five-year span has involved many important stories within the story. the insurance the woes of people who were knocked down continue for a great number of our population. it is very hard to rebuild, so of the population cannot be restored as a consequence of that. that has been tough. the national recession has hit us like it hit everybody else, just about the time you think

you might be making some progress and that makes it difficult. and then this latest unfortunate thing is the oil spill into the gulf. those things together aggregate to have the end result of being very traumatic to a vast part of our population. i think that is one of the stories that is ongoing. we have had to become expert on some aspects of the story. we did not have an insurance reporter before katrina. now two newspapers have two of the best in the country because they have had to learn how that works and to tell the story in a professional way. we have learned to do that. we thought five years out we would be at one place, and we are not there yet.

>> it is not as raw as five years ago. you can see little clumps of people in the back to ruche -- baton rouge weeping or talking on to their sons very intensely. -- their cell phones very intensely. a lot of these old, remembered fears are right at the surface. a lot of us, myself included, just a little token of this is that i would not dream of going on a weeklong vacation in the summer anymore, nor what my wife. we want to be closed by -- we

want to be close by, because there is some warning that has come loose that never existed before. >> historically, we know a big hurricane will hit new orleans again. will it be different? >> if the exact trajectory of katrina happened again, i think it is fair to say that we are better protected. the water from the lake would not rush up the canals because big floodgates have been lowered. i think there is some slightly better protection, but we still in this country do not have the congressional will muster to make this major american city protected from the strongest storms. we just cannot bring ourselves to do that.

that leaves us all feeling queasy. >> stan mentioned the oil spill, and i would be derelict if i did not ask how you're doing with that. did you say, oh no, here we go again? >> i think there are a lot of other ways we would have liked to have spent this summer. [laughter] again, we are a small newspaper. we had the fifth anniversary coming, and there are news people who know that you do not quit telling the story about crime, the schools, educational testing, health problems in the community, all of the news that you covered before. then you have the five-year anniversary coming, which for us

was a great commitment of staff time to try to dig into and examined and tell where we think we are and where we think we are going to be in the future, looking five years forward from now. so when the oil spill came, that was one more layer of news reporting that we had to do. we had to try to get ourselves up to speed and understanding what is the science of such a thing in the gulf. it has been a very big story. those of you who have paid attention know that it has been treated as a national story, but again, it is lapping up on our shores. it is affecting the fishermen and people of our communities. it is something we have had to understand. jim did a great job of explaining the way you feel about things in the summertime.

when you combine, what is it the storm going to do? it has been projected that this will be a big summer for hurricanes. we have an oil rig that is spewing millions of gallons of oil into the gulf. combine that with this other chemical, what is that going to mean when it gets into the richest areas where this nation's fisheries are spawned and located? what is that going to do to our people? it certainly has engaged us in a new topic. it is just one more thing that we have had to learn to do. >> hour outdoors writer -- our outdoors writer has written about the louisiana wetlands and the coast for decades. the way he puts it is that the oil spill is a temporary

disaster on top of a permanent tragedy. the permanent tragedy, for louisiana at least, is the gradual banishing of our coastline -- a vanishing of our coastline in a way that destroys the wetlands, in a way that destroys the buffer zone that used to protect new orleans from hurricanes. since 1956, we have lost 25% of the wetlands that used to protect new orleans from the hurricane's. one of the main reasons we have is that the oil industry, up with the connivance of louisiana politics, has dug canals all through the coastal louisiana and occasioned the destruction

of the wetlands by bringing salt water into them. that is something that this nation has to do something about. >> let's go to the audience. >> you are coming right to my question. you have painted a rather pathetic picture of congress, the government, and louisiana government. what can people like us do to try to get them -- inspire them to get on the ball and do what needs to be done when this next emergency comes our way? do you have any recommendations? it is kind of a hopeless picture that you have described? . >> that is so easy, i think even jim can answer that. [laughter] >> the picture, overall, in

2010, is of a nation that is tired of caring about katrina. katrina fatigue is a symptom almost. it is something i think we perhaps do not want to think about because it exposes a united states we do not want to be in. we think of ourselves as a kennedy nation, a nation that sees our problems and addresses them. this flies in the face of that. politicians think that their own constituents do not even really care about it. that is not helpful. however one can make noise as an ordinary citizen. >> one element of that story that i want to make sure is hard -- is heard is that the people of america have done a lot to help us. our gratefulness for that can

never properly be expressed. we have had 1 million volunteers, and gunmen, help us dig out, put their arms around a -- volunteers, come in, help us dig out, but their arms around us, fed and clothed us. amidst all of the-that happened, there was an enormous amount of good -- amidst all the bad that happened, there was an enormous amount of good that happened. people of every religious and ethnic group put their shoulder into it. some people ask how to be better organized. i say, asked the homage people who do this over and over again with -- the amish people to do

this over and over again with great competency. within the american people is something that we saw in new orleans a that was inspiring. we will never forget that, and we thank all of you who have come and done so much. >> even today, you can see the writing groups of, usually young people, of all religions -- you can see the arriving troops of, usually, young people, of all religions. many of them stay and make a permanent home phere. >> well before katrina hit it was acknowledged that new orleans would not be able to withstand a direct hit from hurricane a serious magnitude.

from in vantage point -- from my vantage point, most of what we have heard is a story of great poverty, sadness, and the failure of the government to respond after the fact. what about the failure to prepare? that story -- how do you think the media did in handling that story before the event and after the event? >> of the thing that you have to understand about new orleans is that topographic way it is vulnerable. not because of c levels. sea levels, at which they talked about a lot, have very little to do that. we have the mississippi river on one side and lake pontchartrain

on the other. the golf is lapping at our backyard. -- the gulf of mexico is lapping at our backyard. if a storm surge drives the water from the gulf of mexico into the lake, the city is automatically vulnerable to water pouring into a double -- into the bowl. that is a big problem, but it is not an insurmountable problem. i think, regardless of the poverty or wealth of new orleans, the united states ought to have the ability -- and only federal government can do this -- to build the kind of infrastructure that would protect a great city. >> one terrible aspect of this

story was race. is it any better now than it was during katrina, the whole issue of race relations and caring, concerned over the poverty- stricken situation there? >> i think in many ways at the storm and the aftermath of the storm brought people together of different ethnic groups, black people and white people, who made common cause in rebuilding the city. you see examples of that all over, whether it be church groups or social gatherings. it also changed the demographic s of the city somewhat. it is still a majority african- american city, but it went roughly from 67% african-

american to about 60%. it changed racial politics. it would have been hard to imagine 20 years ago that new orleans would have a white mayor, a white police chief, a white district attorney in the year 2010. and yet, that does not seem to have become a big issue. what people want right now, black or white, is competence, energy, almost regardless of race. >> so some good has come out of katrina? >> i think some good has come out of katrina. >> what would be the one thing that you have lost that is irretrievable from the storm? what has been the most remarkable thing that you have

recovered? >> two sides of the question. i think we have irretrievably lost a fair amount of our culture. a city cannot suffer the loss of 100,000 inhabitants and not have that just make it a slightly lesser version of itself. i think, ironically, the thing we gained, is a deep, visceral feeling that all of the things we took for granted we cannot take for granted. when we got them back, ed they became so, so precious. as a new orleans resident, when things came back, you just celebrated them.

celebrated them. >> this kind of hobby for americans to hate the press. it is part of their god-given freedom. do you think that the coverage of katrina helped people have a better regard for the press? >> i did not see the coverage of katrina as it happened. [laughter] i have since seen it. i thought that we came -- we felt the gravity of the moment, realized how important it was to what we were doing, especially when the response was not happening. really, there were very few live within it, because of logistical reasons. some people got flooded out.

thempeople's editors made leave. they said, you will take $5 million worth of equipment out of there instantly. we do not care about the people. we got a message to go to mississippi, realized it was going to flood, turned around and apologized later. i think many people realized that this was a big deal. this is why we got into this business in the first place. it is a very heady thing when you realize that the government is getting information from you. the government does not have its act together enough to realize what is happening here. when that happened on tuesday, our jaws dropped. what are we doing wrong? why are they not watching? i thought we did a pretty good job as a group. i thought we did a good job with hurricane andrew.

i thought we did a good job with katrina. i thought we did a good job with 9/11. when think we have seen with journalists overtime in this country is that it may become a money show at times, but when tragedy arises or when the need is greatest, journalists seem to rise to the occasion. i hope america is a better place for it. >> the local newspaper situation was probably a little different. did you find that the citizens of your community are now more supportive of your newspapers than they were before katrina? >> five years ago, a lot has happened to take people off again since then. [laughter] there was a period, i think it lasted about three months or so, when we could do no wrong. honestly, i think that the

reader's -- and i am sure you have had the same experience -- felt like they had gone through it the most dramatic lives -- dramatic moments of their lives together with the newspaper, and that created a bond. >> i think readers are real smart. they pay attention. it is like everything else in life, how well did we perform today? they are constantly evaluating and reevaluating, but i think maybe the more important connection came in how close we got to them. there was something that will never be taken away. it is not to say that we were not involved in the community or did not know the community. we felt like we knew it. but there is a respect and admiration that we have for the people of our region that almost

transcends anything that i have ever seen. i swear that i am not going to use the word. we have tried to use the word -- we have tried to keep the word "resilience" out of our five- year coverage. it has been overused. it is a good word that describes people from our region very well, but what they came through and what they did is something i will never forget. the question was asked, what did we lose and what did we gain? we lost, in the case of the 65,000 homes and businesses that were wiped away, a person can write eloquently about the little things that meant so much to her, the things that make up

our memories of life. all of that is gone. you can say it is still in your head and you can still tell your children and grandchildren. but what we gained is an understanding that we are pretty tough people. we can endure and survive something as tough as katrina. we can do just about anything. i think that is one of the driving forces, the reason that i feel that the mississippi delta is going to recover well. it may take longer than we thought, but it is the human capital that is there. for those who have state, by gosh, they are tough people. they're going to make it. that theearlier said deb only access to the outside world you had was what came in from your ifb.

i am curious, when something like this happens, what communication happens between networks or newspapers? you thought the communication failed, but if the idea is that the coverage was not as adequate as it could have been, what could have been done? what happened between different networks in order to more accurately portrayed the story to the people who were watching? >> i remember a few times when collaborations' have happened. they happened after 9/11. there was a local collaboration in florida after the events there. there may have been some collaboration after katrina. it is not the normal thing. print people see us for what we are, and we wish we were print people. [laughter]

sometimes, if you realize what the story is off the bat, you might be able to act in one way, but with this, even as the weather was rising, you really could not grasp it. it was not what we thought it was going to be. i remember explaining to someone that if he wanted to cover this past today, tuesday, we were going to have to have water, food, shelter across the coast for months. certainly, two thousand miles away there was no way to wrap itself around it. we could barely collaborate ourselves. [laughter] >> we have a lot of volunteers that came to be a part of our newsroom, primarily colleagues. they were wonderful. they slept on the floor and eight spam and did all of the things that we did together.

but there were other journalists, people i have known across the years, retired folks -- they saw something in this moment, that thing that they always wanted to do, and they were able to come and be a part of it. they said, you have done something for us. he reminded me why i did it the first time and why it may still be worth doing. >> i am sure we all had the same experience which was having a lifeline for information. when the parish president walked up to the levees and they were collapsing, that is where we heard it. that voice giving people a way to vent and a place to go, i

thought that they were spectacular. >> both of your papers won the pulitzer prize for distinguished public service. i do not believe there has ever been a time when they awarded two newspapers in one year. have you done all you could possibly hope to achieve now, and has a pulitzer prize changed your life? >> i think that the story changes one's life. in this case, it has changed everybody in my newsroom who lived through it, but i think made them better journalist, better reporters and photographers, copyeditors, editors, graphic artists. it has been astonishing to see the energy that we felt in those early days never seem to fly.

you would think that people would get exhausted and say, i am out of here. it stayed. i saw it again during the oil spill days. this week, when we are writing nonstops stories about the anniversary, it is still there. >> i think the pulitzer is bigger than all of us. when we were kids, you know, you knew about it. the thought, there is a worthy goal to work for. it is in some ways like a hoosiers' game. there were people who tried to talk about the newspapers as it got close to the pulitzer time. we never talked about it.

i did not want to jinx anything because there really was not something that you thought about, because that was not what you did it. it was almost like a hoosiers' game played out, and a big team is playing, and at the end of regulation is tied and somebody gives them both a medal. [laughter] it felt good to me to be recognized, and for our newsroom to be recognized in the same way that the great times picayune and jim's leadership and all that they had done, and we were very aware of what they had done, but our little guys were working hard every day and doing everything they could do to tell their story. they really were two different stories, and when you put them together, they really represented katrina. we read somewhere that somebody

had a pulitzer stolen. ours has been in the estate because we did not want to have something bad happen to it -- then in a safe because we did not want to have something bad happened to it. the editor at the clarion ledger won it for his exemplary reporting about the educational problems in the state of mississippi. he tells a story that he used to carry his around in his pocket and pull it out and show it to people. [laughter] >> most people have never seen a pulitzer prize gold medal, so both of them are in this

exhibit. it is here for the next year at the museum -- newseum. you have s >> now a look at population changes in new orleans since hurricane katrina. this portion is 25 minutes. cceed. that is a powerful thing. host: with more on the region, we are joined by allison plyer, the co-deputy director of the greater new orleans community data center. thank you for being with us.

you keep track of a lot of stattics over the last five years. what is the most interesting or compelling? guest: what surprises people the most is that katrina cost about $135 billion in damages, and that is six times larger than the next largest disaster. 9/11 cost $20 billion in damage. when you think about the scale of it, it was completely unprecedented. all the other statistics cannot really be surpring because there is nothing to compare them to. host: one of the statistics is in the lower ninth ward. there was a story in "washington journal" this past week about how your mayor is trying to slowly remove many of the homes that were damaged as a result of the hurricane and the flooding. this is an area of the city that had an estimated 30,000

residents. now is down to 6000. guest: the lord ninth ward has maybe 24% of the households -- the lord high court has made 24 percent of the high salt -- the lower ninth war has maybe 24 percent of the households than becauseefore. you have less to start with. host: does that explain, this from friday in "the washington post", a tale of two recoveries. "the result has been an uneven

recovery, with whites in the middle class more likely than blacks and low-incomeeople to have rebuilt their lives in the five years since this storm." guest: the extent ofamag in the lower ninth ward was more severe, but what explains the difference is that from the first year, the insurance companies did not pay anyone. so, even folks who were insured could not start to rebuild unless they had money and the bank. can you imagine having $100,000 that you could use to start rebuildi? obviously, that is a small group of our citizens in new orleans, in any city. rst, it was the wealthier folks who were able to rebuild. then in the second year, the insurance companies started to pay, but some folks were under insured. some folks did not even know their homes were in flood zones, so they did not even have insurance. then the federal program to supply grants to homeowners who

are underinsured kicked in and the third year. the problem with that program was that it was based on the pre-katrina home value. in the low income neighborhoods, your home might have been worth $50,000. maybe you got something less than $50,000 from the government to rebuild. there is not a house in this city that could be rebuilt with only $50,000. so, yes, the lower income neighborhoods disproportionaty have had a hard time rebuilding. on top of that, we had rampant instances of contractor fraud, which is not unusual in a post- disaster situation when contractors do not live up to their word about what they will rebuild on. so all those factors have made it incredibly arduous for low- income folks and l income neighborhoods to rebuild. the wider, wealthier neighborhoods have come back more strongly. the neighborhoods that are

predominantly african-american have come back less strongly. host: along the rust belt, cleveland and detroit -- the unemployment rate anywhere from 10% to 14%. nationwide is 9.5%. in new orleans, it is around 7%. why the difference? guest: the difference is the rebuilding that is going on here. we received about $45 billion, the gulf coast has, from the federal government in fines. about $10 billion in flood insurance payments. and then a variety of infrastructure rebuilding grants. we were allocated finally the other day, five yrs after katrina, the federal government announced an additional $1.8 billion to rebuild our schools. when you have the numbers with a "b" in them, that is a lot of money. in contrast, we got $5 billion

from the economic stimulus package. other states had similar amounts, but we got $40 billion for katrina rebuilding. obviously, the katrina stimulus is a significantly larger than the economic stimulus and is helping to buoy the economy host: our telephone lines are open. we have one line is set aside for those who live in the gulf coast -- 202-628-0184. if you lived through hurricane katrina and returned to the region, we are interested in yo stories. if he moved on, why? why are you know longer in new orleans? 202-628-1084. long-term, if weere to sit here five years from now, what issues do you think we will talk about? guest: it is going to be the economy. katrina funds have buoyed our

economy. then we were hit with a recession. we lost 1%, compared to 4% nationwide. then we had the oil spill. it points out the unfinished business of katrina. one, are wetlands ve been eroding. congress approved a plan to rebuild it, but they never funded it. this is a state that has a budget of $14 billion, so to allocate $1 billion for rebuilding wetlands demonstrates a strong commitment. it will take multi-billion dollars. they have been hurt because of the with the army corps of engineers build levees and kept it from flooding and replenishing the wetlands over time. we need to rebuild them. i think the country is aware of the importance of our wetlands as the breeding ground, th nurturing area for the who gulf coast and our seafood and

wildlife. we are hopeful that there may be some funding after the oil spill from bp to help rebuild our wetlands. any number with a "b" in it might come from bp funds. our economy, the oil spill is potentially affecting tourism. tourists have the misperception that the oil is affecting your lens, which it has not. it is 100 miles away -- they have a misperception that the oil is affecting new orleans, which it has not. it is affecting our oral and gas industry, our ship building. what we need to do it in new orleans is to diversify our economy, thinking about the industries of the future. we will be drilling for oil for as long as americans need it, which will probably be a long time, but can we also be developing other sources of

power like hydropower? host: from "the advocate," "a look at katrina then and now." this is your callackn 2005, a few months after the storm hit -- this is her home. this is your home completely built today. by the numbers. 38,008 under 62 -- the number of housing units lost in new orleans. 11, 510, the number of housing units lost and st. bernard parish. thes figure -- 93,00800, number of jobs lost. . .

>> to every person >> to every person who sacrificed in this emergency, i offer my gratitude. i also offer this pledge of the american people. throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes. we will stay as long as it takes to help the citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. all who question the future of the crescent city need to know that there is newt -- there is no way to imagine america without orleans and this great city will rise again. the challenges that we had.

the damages. we got about $30 billion in private insurance and $6 in charity blt to be clear, this is actually normal in a they worry that one neighborhood is getting more, another is getting less.

on friday, asking both of them if he saw in the short term immediate recovery. both agreed and said no. that think in

in terms of response, if something should happen, we will not know until something happens. host: the democrats' line, good morning. caller: good morning. i cannot understand how no one understands that these people needed help. if you were standing next door and your neighbor's house was on fire, would not go put it out? help these people. let's go back to common sense. it does not make sense to me. i do not understand it. host: are you still there? do you have a question? caller: yes. i do not understand why these

people do not have common sense. these people needed help. i would rather have common sense rather than a ph.d. today. host: thank you. guest: the caller makes a good point. at the city level, at the city level, at the state level, even in the long term recovery, the nation may not realize what a vacuum of leadership there was. despite that unfortunate situation, sociologists who have studied the situation concluded that they created their own rise in civic engagement locally. there may be a silver lining. you would be amazed to see increased social cohesion. these folks were struggling to rebuild their homes. neighbors helped neighbors. we have more neighborhood

associations in new orleans. folks said, hey, there are a lot of things wrong. we do not like our city hall, how our schools are working, how they are supervising the army corps in the levee construction. citizens gathered to reform a lot of the not functioning systems that we had in orleans pre-katrina. we had arguably more systemic reforms going on simultaneously in post-katrina in new orleans than in any other modern city in the united states. we have major reforms going on with health care delivery through primary clinics in neighborhoods. we have major reforms in our criminal justice system with an overhaul of the public defender system and how the police monitor themselves and the public -- and the department of justice is working on corruption issues. there is a large number of areas where there is large reform.

a lot of that has been grass roots. new orleans said, we want change and have worked very hard for that. >> in this year of the senses, how did you and others look at how the census takers would keep track of those living in new orleans and along the gulf coast region. >> there was a lot of debate about that. they said they would hand deliver forms to every household along the gulf coast. they did not rely on the postal service. we have 55,000 unoccupied housing units in new orleans itself. of course, there are more across the gulf coast. our folks working with homeless know that we have double the homeless population in orleans right now. it went from 6000 people to 12,000 people. the housing units are quite

belated, but there are people living there. blighted, but they are living there. it took >> -- it took the homeowners advocates to get the people to fill out the paperwork. everyone here being counted is that the census did that footwork. host: richard, good morning. he is a resident of guest: the: -- he is a resident of the region. guest: i want to correct the record. we had a hurricane on the east side of slidell, louisiana. new orleans, especially, flooded because of the high tide and because the levies were

not capable of handling the water. after five years, the press has hollered new orleans, new orleans, new orleans. we got the hurricane. they got the flood. we went to work. we did not go for the government handout. all you hear is how the government has not done, has not done, has not done. the government has hammered us since this thing started. if the government would go on and get out of our lives, leave us alone, we would fix this problem. new orleans has been run by one political party for 50 years. look at the mess. the truth hurts. nobody will tell the truth. thank you, sir. host: thank you, richard. allison, any response to that? caller: the caller is right.

along the mississippi gulf coast, it was a natural disaster. a hurricane wiped out those areas. it was tremendously devastating. new orleans was a man-made disaster where the levees broke and flooded the city. they should have withheld and there would not have been a problem. one thing that folks need to understand is that there is a lot that we can do as citizens, obviously, to rebuild their homes, it's a trendline -- to rebuild our homes, etc. we need to have saved communities. somewhere, government intervention is always appreciated by all citizens. host: then-senator barack obama was traveling back from russia. on his return, senator obama joined george herbert walker

bush and president clinton to hear the harrowing tales from those rescued in new orleans. today, the president will be hearing about the shared sacrifices of the people in the region. we will have live coverage of that speech just past 3:00 p.m. eastern time. we have a rebroadcast later on c-span radio. walter joins us from baltimore on the independent line. guest: good morning to c-span and your guest. first of all, i think that justice for the indictment of the murders police officers on the bridge. my concern is the educational system which has been ripped off by turning a public system over to a for-profit charter system. has there been anything but profiteering done by that corrupt system?

the charter system is an experiment that has been turned -- as anderson, more than 80% of new orleans schools are charter now. has there been a reasonable gain by those students as compared to the reasonable profits that have been gained by the charter system? host: we will be focusing on schools later. caller: the caller -- guest: the caller makes a very good point. the transformation of our schools has been significant. there have been some measurable gains in the performance of the students. that is a good sign. the data indicates that very few of the charter operators are for-profit. some of those have not performed