Tonight, from what I understand, I’ll be making some sort of an appearance in “Act I” of Spike Lee’s made-for-TV documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, which airs on HBO at 9:00 PM Eastern and Pacific.
I met with Spike on January 27, he interviewed me for over an hour, and apparently I am the first interview featured in the film. (I haven’t seen it yet, but according to a commenter who says she watched its premiere in New Orleans last week, “a prophetic quote from your web log scrolls across the screen, setting the tone for the first act.” I’m not clear on whether my face or voice is actually featured. We shall see.)
I assume that some viewers of the movie will find their way to my website, so I wanted to post this message and say, Welcome to my blog! :) I also thought I’d try to briefly explain, for the uninitiated, why this humble blog became sufficiently prominent that Spike Lee felt it should be included in his movie about Hurricane Katrina.
First, though, I want to give some link-love to Margie Kieper, who is doing an excellent day-by-day rundown of the utter devastation all along the Gulf Coast (not just New Orleans). Definitely worth checking out.
Now then, about me. The Irish Trojan’s Blog covers a wide variety of topics — basically, anything and everything that interests me — from politics to sports to movies to astronomy, and much more. At various times, I’ve gotten a decent amount of attention for each of these areas, and others. But it was my coverage of Katrina last August that really earned me my 15 minutes of fame. How did it happen? Well, on Friday evening, August 26, 2005, two-and-a-half days before the storm’s landfall, my Katrina coverage was Instalanched. I seized the opportunity presented by the newfound audience, and kept blogging vigorously about the strengthening storm. This attracted an ever-growing audience, and more links from major blogs followed, and then more, and more. People started bookmarking me as a go-to source of Katrina-related info. The next thing I knew, I was the Internet’s #1 Katrina blog, with 30,000 unique hits a day (compared to the ~1,250 that I was getting prior to the storm). Before long, the mainstream media took notice — especially as my “get the hell out” pleas began to sound prescient in retrospect — and I wound up on the AP wire, in the New York Times, on MSNBC, in the Washington Post, and more. It was crazy. Ultimately, the whole thing got me nominated for Blogger of the Year — and, of course, it got me a free trip to New York for an interview with Spike Lee.
Having said all that, I want to reiterate one important point that I’ve made over and over again in various TV, newspaper, radio and movie interviews about my Katrina coverage: I didn’t “predict” the hurricane. I merely “sounded the alarm” at a time when publicly available information — computer models, National Hurricane Center forecasts, and years-old scientific doomsday scenarios — made it crystal-clear that New Orleans was in mortal danger, yet the MSM and the government seemed to be asleep at the switch. (Matt Drudge, for example, was still calling for a Florida landfall well into Saturday! And of course we all know about the idiotic statements by government officials.) As I told Tucker Carlson in September, “The real story here isn’t that I ‘called it.’ It’s that the local officials and federal officials, all up and down the chain, didn’t seem to be taking it as seriously as they should have. I don’t think I said anything extraordinary. What I was saying was pretty obvious: ‘This thing is headed towards New Orleans, if the forecast comes true, and we’ve always known that a storm headed towards New Orleans would be absolute disaster.’ And I, frankly, don’t quite understand why more people weren’t as alarmed as I was.”
I certainly wasn’t the only person who was alarmed, however. I owe a great deal of credit to Dr. Jeff Masters and Charles Fenwick, both of whom (unlike me) are meteorologists, and both of whom had excellent Katrina coverage from the get-go. Indeed, it was this post by Masters and this post by Fenwick that inspired my now-famous post declaring that “we could be 3-4 days away from an unprecedented cataclysm that could kill as many as 100,000 people in New Orleans.” (And yes, I was off by two orders of magnitude on the death-toll prediction — but only because we got very lucky at the last possible minute. Katrina could have been much worse. Tens of thousands, at least, could have died, with only a slight change in the track and/or intensity of the storm. More here.)
Anyway, I’ve gotten most of the praise, but Masters and Fenwick were most definitely “sounding the alarm” as well. Various other weatherbloggers (see list at right) were also very much on the ball, as was the National Hurricane Center, whose forecasts were downright excellent. The point is, in no way should the attention that I’ve received be seen as detracting from all of those folks’ amazing efforts. If I provided anything unique in my coverage of Katrina, it was that I served as a central clearinghouse of information where people could read the latest from the weatherbloggers, the meteorologists and the mainstream media, as well as see for themselves the latest data from the computer models, satellite maps, tidal gauges and so forth, all in one place. Bryan Woods of The Storm Track told the Washington Post in October: “Brendan really acts as a distribution point for disseminating information. He is like the middle man between the weather experts and the public.” I think that’s pretty accurate.
One final point, since I’m not sure whether this will make it into the movie or not: Ray Nagin is an incompetent idiot. Here’s a detailed explanation of why. Two days before landfall, I predicted that he would be “the mayor who fiddled while New Orleans drowned,” and I was right. Yes, there were massive failures at all levels of government — local, state and federal — but the single person who bears the most blame, in my view, is Mayor Nagin, for failing to make even a halfway-serious effort at implementing the city’s evacuation plan, even though it was 100% clear by the Saturday morning before landfall that if there was ever a time to do it, now is the time. Spike, I gather, intends to focus on Condi Rice’s shoe-buying tendencies in tonight’s movie, and while that might score political points, it’s not the Secretary of State’s job to protect American citizens from hurricanes. It is, however, the mayor of New Orleans’s job to protect his city’s residents by putting long-held evacuation plans into effect when a mortal threat to the city’s survival is less than 48 hours away, and he failed utterly to do so. In my opinion, it’s an absolute travesty that he was re-elected.
Anyway… thanks for stopping by my blog. Please have a look around, and if you like what you see, come back and see us again, y’all hear? :)
UPDATE: More thoughts on the movie in a new post above.
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Categories: Hurricane Katrina, Website News
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August 21st, 2006 at 6:50:46 pm
Welcome Citizens.
Please remain calm. All is well.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:55:56 pm
I think it’s time for you to start thinking about getting an agent/
August 21st, 2006 at 7:22:11 pm
I think Josh Weinstein is available…
August 21st, 2006 at 7:42:58 pm
We have the Popcorn ready to, Sodas cooling in the Fridge, Tivo all set up.
I am SOOO glad you are in the first part because I have a feeling I will turn it off when the Bush/Rice/Republican hating gets to thick.
Good luck Brendan I hope they show your USC shirt!
August 21st, 2006 at 8:22:46 pm
Welcome back, Coach.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:08:36 pm
We saw you!
So COOL and you looked great…
hope they have more clips from your interview!
Very Cool
August 21st, 2006 at 9:10:12 pm
Hey Hey Hey…very first interview, not bad! BTW: glad to see they cut off the USC on your sweatshirt—I don’t want Southern Cal taking credit for any nerdery that occured while you were at Notre Dame. Congrats bud
August 21st, 2006 at 9:15:13 pm
Brendan,
Just checked you out in that Spike Lee Joint. Congrats! When are you going to get your SAG card?
August 21st, 2006 at 9:22:37 pm
Brendan,
You looked cool, buddy. For a self-described weather nerd, you had a certain panache in your clip.
You may have missed your calling.
Money quote, from Nagin:
“By Friday, August 26th, we were in evacuation mode”.
(Meaning, Nagin, his family, his friends…)
August 21st, 2006 at 9:49:10 pm
Yeah, they zoomed Brendan’s shot in post, it looks like to me. My guess is they decided they had to cut the USC sweatshirt because it would have been incongruous with the lower third. But the framing is way tighter than any of the other interviews. But Brendan merited B-Roll, way to go.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:49:18 pm
I thought this was great for you Brendan because you have got the fire
just need to see both sides of the fence.Go get’em Brendan Loy!!!!!
I will still back Ray Nagins an I don’t
care if God came down from New York
the South has alway been shafted since
before you was concieved.I thought
Spike Lee did a amazing work as always.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:53:11 pm
Spike Lee is the Greatest!!!!yeah
August 21st, 2006 at 11:36:53 pm
Brendan I think you can give Ray Nagin
and interview now. Then Spike Lee
can make another movie call Nagin vs
Brendan thiller of vanilla H.B.O.
August 22nd, 2006 at 3:05:29 am
fusc
August 22nd, 2006 at 1:08:32 pm
I watched it and it brought back lots of bad memories. I think it came across that many people blame Nagin for not doing enough. But many blame higher ups. And, let’s face it, the comparisons with the tsunami response were factually devastating.
On the conspiracy theories: I think Spike did a good job putting them in perspective, frankly. First of all, people did hear an “explosion”, or at least a loud boom. I have heard concrete breaking under stress and it does sound like an explosion. In addition, the “explosion” theory is not unfounded, seeing as levies had been dynamited in the past (1920s) which led to the theories that in 1965 (at the height of the civil rights era, mind you) they were dynamited again. So, no, he did not “debuke” the theories totally, but he basically did!
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:35:47 am
Brendan,
A congradulation to you for your part in Spike Lee’s film. My wife and I lived in Lakeview. Should you ever make it to N.O. please let me know, we’d be happy to show you first hand the devestation of our home, our lives, our dreams. In a few months our home will be demolished. We figure it will be at least five years before it’s safe to rebuild. If ever. I watched Mayor Nagin on the news in New Orleans before the storm hit. I hate to defend him but the sense we all had was that his hands were tied. He may have even said as much before the storm. Why I hate to defend him is because as Mayor he should have been more prepared. His behavior since the storm-well faced with the events its understandable why he snapped.
If there’s a way to express to everyone involved with this project our sincerest thanks. The spirit of New Orleans was there in the film. It expressed the trials we’ve been through on all levels, so much so that I felt that the collective story was our story as well. Thank you all-everyone of you without exception contributed to define what everyone- everyone in New Orleans has been through. All of you touched my heart. I hope in someway I can personally thank you.
Brian Nolan
August 24th, 2006 at 3:03:17 am
your blog is so fine, thanks a lot
August 30th, 2006 at 12:41:30 am
Congrats on your wedding and people should take more initiative like you in supporting their fellow Americans, especially when there are lives on the line. The documentary was deep and moving. You can let Spike know he might get 40 acres and a documentary award. I missed your part in the movie b/c I only caught Act 2 through the end, but I will On Demand it just to see what you had to say. You inspired me to be a better American and I can imagine many others as well.
September 1st, 2006 at 8:13:08 pm
Hello,
Thanks so much for being a part of such a great work and spending your time informing us on the real deal.
You and those in the film help us to realize we all need to support each other and have more compassion. I’m sure comment Anonymous is from EW-C-L-A. Figures that person wouldn’t give a Trojan their due. Thanks again. Fight ON!
September 26th, 2006 at 2:41:30 pm
Brendan,
I just finished watching the Spike Lee documentary. I watched it off my DVR in parts. I had to stop at certain points because it was too much. I found your words to be very poetic & moving. I found the overall story line to be heartbreaking, but true. There just doesn’t seem to be any good words to put to use here to explain what that film says about America. It’s a trajic case unlike any other. I saw your part of the “credits” and had to check out your blog. Thanks so much for your part in that moving film.
Sincerely,
Katie