A reminder of Katrina, Public Officials led the population (mostly Black) to believe that the damage would be slight. Call to action came very slow.
President Harry Truman arrived June 11th, 1948.
40,000 lived in Vanport. The flood hit at 4:05 PM on this day, May 30, 1948
It took Truman almost two weeks to come to Vanport but GW Bush was lambasted because he didn't go to NOLA almost immediately after Katrina? How's that work?
Posted by: Joel | May 30, 2017 at 10:26 AM
it always amazed me with the amount of people affected, that only 15 people died.
Posted by: john | May 30, 2017 at 11:59 AM
Valuable piece of history and circumstances to be reminded of on today's date. Thanks for the notation. Had Vanport been incorporated I believe it would have been Oregon's second largest city at the time.
P.S. One of the reasons Shrub was so "lambasted" in 2005 was because Katrina happened while he was on vacation at Crawford, TX, and he was so uninterested that his staff finally made a DVD four or five days afterward so he could watch it and see the damage and devastation. It was the only way to get his attention, apparently. (In 2017 some might construe this as 'fake news' by the lying media, do you think?) Incidentally, this was reported by more than one network in the days and weeks after Katrina.
Posted by: curojo | May 30, 2017 at 01:26 PM
I think we can all recall the photo of George W Bush checking out the damage to New Orleans from a window on Air Force One 2 days after Katrina hit on his way back to Washington after spending nearly a month in Crawford Texas. White House archive of 9/12/05 detail George W Bush's on the ground tour of New Orleans on 9/11/05, 13 days after Katrina, which hit on 8/29/05. As the photo caption of Harry Truman indicated he visited Vanport on on 6/11/48, 12 days after the flood on 5/30/48.
The answer as to why Bush was lambasted for Katrina starts with his Air Force One fly over, and the photo of him looking at the destruction, but not stopping, plus slow Federal aid.
Posted by: D Gibson | May 30, 2017 at 01:57 PM
Obama never made impromptu visits to any Sections of Arlington National.... President Trump did to Section 60.....
Posted by: Lance | May 30, 2017 at 02:27 PM
Lance: Apples and Grapefruit! your posts make no sense, are you on drugs?
Posted by: UrbanGent | May 30, 2017 at 06:36 PM
President Obama has made unscheduled visits to Section 60 at Arlington Cemetery, and interacted with families. If you look you can find news stories, and YouTube videos. President Trump visited the grave of his DHS Secretary John Kelly who's son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010
Posted by: D Gibson | May 30, 2017 at 07:20 PM