Brian Williams: We were witnesses

Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005
I think I set my alarm for 5:00 a.m.  I had to get up and report for the “Today” show. And I went to the window that next morning.  And I remember thinking, “What the hell is that?”

There was, as best I can describe it, there were shards of light — going across the street.  Like someone had put up a disco ball over the French Quarter overnight,  And I knew exactly what I was looking at.  That was water.  The levees had given way overnight.  Our story had changed while we’d been asleep.

Later, we heard the first window break.  One of the producers with us was saying, “Don’t make eye contact.  Look away.”  I saw one young man with a nine millimeter coming’ out of his pants.  He had no shirt on.  That was a wake up call.

And, people started unabashedly going inside these stores and coming’ out with eight pairs of Nikes. 

I remember one store across from us sold luggage and sundries.  And I remember thinking, how convenient.  People were stealing the luggage and then using it to load up and cart away the sundries.

And no matter what you read, I’m here to tell you -- because I looked many of them in the eye.  It was people of all races.  Mostly young, but not exclusively.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
The point of Katrina is that because of a natural disaster, one, and because of the government response, or lack of it, two, human behavior degraded in New Orleans that day.

I remember seeing wild eyes that day.  Desperation.  The inability to feed yourself or your family.  Really, the common sense which gets clicked off.  And, we don’t become recognizable to ourselves or our families anymore.

For awhile, we were all in the same boat.  And this should be stressed.  The media had no special incoming helicopter drops.  We had the same problems with food and water supplies.  But our network found a way to get supplies to us.

I remember seeing a box of Slim Jims and thinking, “That’s better than any restaurant meal right now.  That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”  We were desperate for food and drink. But not like the people we were seeing in the streets.

The assumption always was, you know, “They’ll be coming. They must be on their way.  They’ll be coming.  Food and water will get here instantly.  And anytime now, the federal government will name a place, a safe haven, where everyone can go.  This can’t last any longer.” And that, of course, was the assumption every day.

At night, Tuesday into Wednesday, the only lights in the city were red and blue.  It was strobe and revolving lights — on the tops of police cars.  It was clear already there weren’t gonna be enough cops.

And the cops were driving by as people were emptying out these stores.  It was not good.  We started to feel that if we had food, we shouldn’t eat it publicly.  If we had water, we shouldn’t drink it in front of anyone else.

Everywhere we went, every satellite shot, every camera shot, we were at the height of the violence and the looting and all the reports of gunplay downtown, well, who’s bathed in the only lights in town?  It was us.

We had to ask for federal protection service guys with automatic weapons to just form a ring and watch our backs while we were doing Dateline NBC one night.

We made a decision the French Quarter was no longer safe. Things were getting too dicey and we pulled out to the suburb of Metairie, La.  I’ll be candid.  We heard CNN pulled out. That had some influence on our decision.  We had no weapons. We don’t work that way.  That has to separate us as journalists.  But it wasn’t safe.

Cars were king.  If you had transportation out of town to high ground you might eat, you might get some water.  So here we are driving through town in our rental cars.  Eight troopers had to cover us by aiming at the men in the street just to tell them, "Don't think of doing a smash and grab and killing this guy for the car."

I carried a case of Vienna sausage, cans of Vienna sausage, as collateral in case we had a smash-and-grab cracking.  I was gonna offer it to someone in exchange for my life.

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