This is a flashback to 2005.

It was hard to believe then – and it’s still hard to believe now – that several thousand people were sent to the Convention Center before the storm and then left there after the levee failures for days without food, water, medical attention, security or support of any kind.

Yet it did happen.

It took NBC news cameraman and hurricane reporter Tony Zumbado to discover the situation and bring it to light. Amazingly, no one in government seemed aware – or concerned – about the situation.

Note well: Zumbardo who was on the scene said the people there, though in dire need, were orderly and peaceful. Who created the myth that they were dangerous?

Little known fact: During this entire time, there was two full battalions of National Guard troops (350 armed soldiers) locked in the Convention Center with their own adequate supplies of food and water. They did nothing to assist.

The story of the National Guard troops who were in the Convention Center follows…

“The 769th and 527th engineering battalions of the Louisiana National Guard… were housed at the Convention Center when that building became an island of deprivation, chaos and lawlessness.

The 350 armed soldiers knew enough about what was going on to barricade their part of the building against the mob, and to come and go from a side door so as few people as possible would know of their presence. Later, they said no one had told them to restore order in the convention center. That’s bad enough (and I know this is the know-it-all reporter talking). What’s worse is that they didn’t do it without being asked.

“The idea of helping with the convention center never came up,” said the 769th commander, Maj. Keith Waddell, according to an account in The Washington Post.”

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002547076_sundayrisk09.html