The Great Deluge Quotes

“Salt Lake City has a monument to the seagulls, which in 1848 swooped down from the sky to devour a swarm of locusts, thereby saving Utah crops. They were known affectionately as the “Mormon Air Force.” Someday New Orleans should likewise honor the dragonfly. With their large multifaceted eyes, two pairs of strong transparent wings, and outstretched bodies, dragonflies frighten most people. On Tuesday dragonflies blanketed New Orleans, hovering just inches above the smelly floodwater, eating every mosquito in sight.”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“Unlike the Marines, who are given macho monikers like “jarheads,” the Coast Guard had long been denigrated in military circles as fey “puddle jumpers.” But just as 9/11 brought a newfound respect to firemen, Katrina did the same for the reputation of the Coast Guard. At the peak of rescue operations they had 62 aircraft, 30 cutters, and 111 small boats stepping up in rescue and recovery operations. They did it all one person at a time.”
― Douglas G. Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“A crooked peace officer is just a damned abomination,” McCarthy wrote. “That’s all you can say about it. He’s ten times worse than the criminal.”48”
― Douglas G. Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“One reason Zumbado was determined to film everything in Memorial, regardless of its TV value, was that back in April 2000 he was the first cameraman in when the INS agents seized six-year-old Cuban Elián González. “The INS kicked and beat me, grabbed my camera, made me turn it off,” Zumbado recalled. “They later lied that they had roughed me up. And because I had turned my camera off, as ordered, I had no footage of what they did. They later tried to deny their actions. From that moment onward I decided to film everything. No more shutting off. Let the truth be seen.” 20”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“By Thursday, in fact, Katrina had become one of the half-dozen moments in American television that not only revealed events but actually defined the community of millions responding to it on television. It joined the Army-McCarthy hearings (1954), the Kennedy assassination (1963), the Apollo 11 moon landing (1969), the Watergate hearings (1973–74), and the attacks on September 11, 2001.”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“John McPhee’s 1989 book The Control of Nature, for”
― Douglas G. Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“History will remember the Superdome debacle—caused by the dearth of evacuation buses—as “Nagin’s Folly,” mayoral incompetence of the first order.”
― Douglas G. Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“help, social workers there had traced”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“president,” as LBJ had done during Hurricane Betsy. He chose a more”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“originated with a telephone call. On”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“Is America what it says it is if the military refuses to help its people?” 33”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge

“Former state senator Joe Neal of Nevada, a political commentator, concluded that the heroism of De’Mont-e Love proved “that a six-year-old demonstrated more leadership than the President of the United States.” 14”
― Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge