The lasting impression of much of the world to the devastation of Hurrican Katrina was the Lord of the Flies depredations inside the Superdome, heaped with bodies. Remember? Never happened, reports Newhouse News, parent company of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, quoting Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome.
Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved.
Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron came prepared for a grisly scene, with a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies. The total number of bodies in the Superdome? Six.
Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the handoff of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice.
It's not a surprise that in the chaotic aftermath of the storm, the media easily leaped to report the rumors and exaggerations as "news." And sadly, it's also no surprise that the media are not leaping to correct this slam of the Katrina survivors, victimized once again.
Oh, I'm not copping to the too-common "because they were black" explanation of the media's behavior. Given the 24/7 news cycle, underfunded news staffs and the pressure to be "first" and to grab an audience, news outlets large and small jump in front of the facts even in well-to-do white suburbs. Remember Columbine? The "trenchcoat mafia," the Marilyn Manson connection, the girl killed just because she was a Christian? All phony or at least seriously misrepresented, but part of the legend, neatly deconstructed in Slate and CJR Daily. But the mythology of the Columbine killings is part of national "memory" now.
The sloppy reporting, and especially the lack of followup, are less excusable now. Much of the law-abiding citizenry of a great American city has been maligned. Part of "making them whole" should be the restoration of their good names.
Update: The Times-Picayune's site has a much more thorough account of this story. The false reports of mayhem damaged not only the city's reputation, but also recovery efforts:
[Police Chief Eddie] Compass said rumors had often crippled authorities' response to reported lawlessness, sending badly needed resources to respond to situations that turned out not to exist. He offered his own intensely personal example: The day after the storm, he heard "some civilians" talking about how a band of armed thugs had invaded the Ritz-Carlton hotel and started raping women - including his 24-year-old daughter, who stayed there through the storm. He rushed to the scene only to find that although a group of men had tried to enter the hotel, they weren't armed and were easily turned back by police.
Another update: The Los Angeles Times has its own story today on how New Orleans in general, and the Superdome in particular, "morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done." A few other media outlets have picked up the LAT or Times-Picayune story, but thus far there has been no rush to correct the record.