Tulane University Sociology Department
Dr. Martha Huggins, 2010
Student Research Project for Sociology 210
Hello. My name is __________________________________ . I’m a student in
Professor Martha Huggins’ Sociology 210 course at Tulane University this semester. For
the course, I’m doing a research paper on New Orleans police response to Hurricane
Katrina: it’s important to get a more balanced picture of what happened by asking those
individual police who experienced Katrina. (Dr. Huggins’ office phone is 504-862-3012.)
If you’d be interested in participating, I’d like to ask you some questions; your answers
are entirely voluntary, and completely anonymous. No names will be associated with any
responses. You can halt the interview at any time.
Thank you very much for participating.
1. Please give me your full name:
John P. Bryson
2. What was your position in the police before Katrina?
Commander of the Fifth District (9th Ward and Lower 9th Ward)
3. What is your position now?
4. Were you born in New Orleans?
No, I wasn’t. I was born February 1, 1957, in a little small West Virginia town called
Welch, West Virginia.
5. Did you spend your childhood and teenage years in New Orleans?
6. Did you get any college?
I transferred to Loyola University in 1977. I graduated a BCJ in criminal justice.
7. If you left New Orleans, when did you return?
8. What was your occupation before joining the police?
9. And when did you join the New Orleans police?
1980
10. Did you have any experience with hurricanes before Katrina?
I think it was Ivan -- in July, end of July -- well, the first of July -- and I was in
Detroit, Michigan when I came up, and it was threatening a Cat 2. Threatening to
strengthen and come ashore, but of course I was handling my daughter’s evacuation
from the telephone while in Detroit. And they were here. And unfortunately it wasn’t
a vacation -- my second to oldest brother passed away and we were there, of course,
with the funeral and everything. And I had spoken with the Chief at the time -- and of
course I had to bury my brother -- and so that precluded me from coming back. I
wasn’t concerned because it was a Cat 2 -- threatened a Cat 3 -- but enough to
evacuate my daughters.
11. What did that teach you that you could use during Katrina?
Importance of an evacuation plan. And I convinced them to go through the family drill,
and they evacuated to Memphis, which is one of our re-location spots for a hurricane.
And, of course, we have three -- one to the east, one to the west, and one north. Just in
case it’s coming from different directions.
12. Where were you when you heard the Katrina hurricane warning?
I was in the 5th District headquarters whne we started getting warnings of the
Hurricane hitting New Orleans on Wednesday.
13. What personal preparations did you make before the storm?
So we started our preparations, at least planning and talking, on Wednesday, and by
Friday we went to full alert. All the officers were notified of their reporting times. And
where we’d be, etc. And all the officers had been notified as to what expectations of them
-- we had our hurricane preparations meetings that Friday, as the plan, and then on
Saturday, early Saturday morning, we started announcing evacuations, of all of the Ninth
Ward, all of the Lower 9 -- literally in the process of begging people -- it was either leave
now or it’s going to be too late. And we did that all the way up until Sunday evening,
Sunday evening, with some success, but very little.
14. What did you take from home to have with you during Katrina?
15. What preparations had the police made for the storm?
16. Where were you exactly when Katrina struck?
Bywater hospital. And we were at a great location because, if you can imagine a
rectangular shaped, six/seven story building, and the storm is to the back of the building,
which is blowing out all the windows on the back of the building, we’re on the front side
of the building, so you are in a vacuum. So, you can stand on the porch and see all of the
destruction going on in front of you, but nothing is actually hitting you because it’s a
seven story building, and you’re in the front of the building, and the storm is coming
from the rear of you. So, it was like a barricade for the wind. So we got to see the storm,
in the storm, without being really affected by the wind.
17. Did you have family in New Orleans before the storm?
18. Did they evacuate?
19. Where did you stay during the storm itself?
20. Did anything suggest to you that this “might be a bad one”?
The CNN projected path had the storm hitting New Orleans, and the fact that it was a
Cat 4 or 5 told me that this was going to be a bad one. And I’m explaining to them
[lower 9th ward residents] what a Category 5 storm is. And I explained to them that, if
we get hit head on with this Category 5, that most structures would not stand. I’m
thinking wind devastation, a lot of rain -- a lot of heavy rain -- and a good degree of street
flooding. A lot of downed trees, a lot of structure collapse, with a Cat 5 hitting us dead
on, but I still didn’t envision the levee breaks.
21. Did you make contact with your family after the storm and before the flood?
22. How?
23. And were you in contact with them after the flood began, or later?
24. What did you see or hear that told you there might be a post-storm flood?
25. What did you do about that possibility?
26. How did you know the levees had been breached?
And, back to that, when I realized that this is not just a levee breach, this is a catastrophe,
is when I stood over -- that morning, on Tuesday morning -- and I looked over, in Lower
9, [garbled], all these people coming out. I knew we had a levee breach
27. What did you see or hear that showed the city was in fact being flooded?
I’m in the 9th Ward, and I remember vividly Captain Fletcher over the radio saying,
“What is your circumstance?” “We have a major flood.” And he repeated, “What is your
circumstances?” “We have a major flood.” I’m trying to think of any other way to explain
to him: major flood. I couldn’t. You know, like, you’re seeing this happening,
28. What were your biggest challenges during the storm and the flood?
So, as I’m pretty sure you’ve figured this out, but, at the brunt of the storm, all of the
electricity went out, all the power went out, and of these people, 20 were on respirators,
and then the generator that’s supposed to last seven days without diesel, happened to be
on the ground floor. Well, we had six feet of water that drowned out the generator. Now,
why put a generator on the first floor, I have no idea. But that’s where it was. It should
have been installed on the roof of the building -- for -- like most people would have it on
the roof. But that drowned out, so we have no power, no electricity, we have 20 people
on respirators, our fleet is on the -- parked on the first floor -- that was another plan we
had, at the brunt of the storm, right before, between 12:00 in the morning, putting all the
vehicles in the Superdome, for safekeeping, so that we’ll have these vehicles, and they
won’t be destroyed by flying debris, and, if there’s rising water -- well, the officers stayed
out so long and -- doing the rescue operations, and they had to park them at the hospital
to get to safety -- well, they all flooded. I lost 97, 98% of my fleet right there. We could
only evacuate about 13 vehicles -- up to the Superdome, at the time.
29. Did any police get trapped in their homes?
30. How did you help them?
31. Was the police station flooded?
We had evacuated the police station to set up command at the bywater hospital,
where we stayed until Tuesday morning. By Tuesday, it had started flooding
inside the hospital and had become uninhabitable because of infectious
conditions.
32. Were you trapped there?
33. For how long?
34. What did you do then?
Early Tuesday morning, around 4:45 AM we moved the command to the point of
embarkation at Dauphine and Poland Ave.
35. When did you sleep?
My men were up Sunday morning at 6:00 AM and did not get to sleep until
Tuesday morning when we reached the Port of Embarkation (second command HQ).
36. For how long?
We’ve been up for more than two days. My officers have to be able to lie down and get
some sleep. And we were there, roughly, eight hours at the most, and we were gone again
37. What did you eat?
38. How did you get food and water?
39. If you needed to move your police operations, what did you do to find a new place?
I had sent out two more lieutenants to find a place of lodging down -- let me back up a
second -- at about 2:30, 3:00 that day, I did send out two lieutenants and other personnel
to find us a place to relocate to. And any good commander will not move a unit unless
you know where you are going to first, and the mission was to find food and lodging.
Like, now, because we either have no food, we have no where to sleep. And the hospital
is just too dangerous, infectiously, to stay. And we -- they couldn’t find a place, or
couldn’t get back to us -- whatever the reason was, we had communications systems
down, phone systems down, radios down, the water’s deep, so they could have been
locked out somewhere. And so we -- two sergeants found the Port of Embarkation. They
said we could come, so we relocated there. But we were only there no more than eight
hours. And two other lieutenants went out and found the Sheraton Hotel, which is the
general manager, and the direct security, and if it would not have been for them, we
would probably have been sleeping on the street. And we took up residence in the
ballroom on the second floor. And that’s where we ran operations out of.
40. How did you get out?
41. How did you get transportation to use?
We only had a total of 4 vehicles to use from the 5th districtl, which originally had
about 90 vehicles before the storm. But intermittently running these U-Hauls to the
hospitals and the Superdome with these patients who had to get on respirators, we were
still evacuating people from the Lower 9 and Ninth Ward, and we only had three U-Hauls
to work with.
42. Where did you end up?
43. What were your next steps once you were settled in?
44. Were you able to get information about what was going on in the rest of the city?
45. How?
46. Were you all able to keep in touch with other police stations, headquarters, and other
agencies?
It really did. And, once the communications went, that meant that -- not that we’re on
our own -- as Commander, I was still in full control -- I knew what we had to do -- we
could only do what we can do with what we have. And improvise and overcome these
battles as we come across them. Well, I -- if one of my officers got in trouble, and, let’s
say, they are up in the 6th District, well, my God, they’re on their own; I can’t get to
them. So, that contingent up there would have to deal with that. We can only worry
about, and deal with, the lives that we could save right there, where we were. And,
believe it or not, it was life above property. Life above property
47. How?
48. Who else were you in touch with?
49. Did 9-1-1 calls come in?
50. What did the people say?
51. What did police do to help the 9-1-1 people take their calls?
52. What could be done to help the people calling in?
53. What did you think to yourself about their situations?
54. What did the police do to help them?
55. How did you use your transportation in your operations?
56. How did you know where you were when familiar landmarks were covered in water?
57. Did you rescue people from their houses?
58. Did citizens help you rescue people?
59. Where did you take the rescued?
60. How did you evacuate people out of the city?
61. Where did you send them?
62. What did you do with dead bodies?
I’m just looking at all the carnage, the people, even the guys dragging what appears to be
their mom down the middle of the street in the middle of the water, dead. You know, I
mean, we’re seeing these things, but we had a major flood. You know. You can’t call for
EMS because they can’t get to you.
63. How long did your rescue operations continue?
64. Did you see looters?
Mass looting was going on. Literally mass looting was going on. It was chaos. And
we took control of the 4, 5 and 600 blocks of Canal Street. And, when we got to the
Sheraton that was pretty chaotic.
The ones who were not looting -- and I’m going to say looting -- and I’m not going to
say that they were looting for profit -- they -- most of the people that I
encountered had food products, hygiene products, a pair of shoes and ladies that
looked [garbled]. She was soaking wet. She needed shoes. I mean, how can you tell,
my God, this water’s filthy. I know what we we’ve just come out of. How can you
take shoes from them? She had one pair. You just -- I mean, there’s a -- something
that’s -- humanity here. You know. The conditions made this lady do things that she
normally wouldn’t do. Now, there’s no doubt in my mind this lady would not go
shoplift anything. Middle aged, very presentable. You know a couple of kids with
her. You know, probably grandchildren. I’m not sure. But she wouldn’t go into a
place and take anything, unless she needed them to survive
65. What did you do about them?
There was nothing we could do to stop the looting, only try to curtail it. But the point
is, is that our central lockup is under water. We barely have a place for us to stay. Where
can we lock up prisoners? So, all we could do is get their information and let them go.
That’s all we could do. Make peace and move on.
66. Was there any shooting?
And what we had was to continue the evacuations -- we couldn’t stop the looting, but
curtail the looting -- we disarmed anyone that we found with weapons, or who were
actually shooting.
67. At or near the police station?
68. What did you do about it?
But the point is, is that our central lockup is under water. We barely have a place for us to
stay. Where can we lock up prisoners? So, all we could do is get their information and let
them go. That’s all we could do. Make peace and move on. And secure the areas where
we were. Because we didn’t have the mobility to get around to actually go on patrol.
Which is the normal way you do police work. Well, normality went out the window. It
was not a normal situation. It was a battle situation.
69. What security measures did you all take to protect the police station?
70. What rumors did you hear?
The majority of them, the ones we evacuated, did not want to leave. And, by this
time, the rumors were the Convention Center and the Superdome were out and they
didn’t want to go to the Superdome or the Convention Center. They would rather just
roam the streets, which they couldn’t do.
71. Who did they come from?
72. Did you believe any of them?
73. What did you do to confirm them?
74. What did you do about them?
75. Did you see or meet or hear any of the local or national media people?
76. How did you calm yourself during your disaster work?
77. How did you get through the crisis?
a. Did you pray?
b. Did you reason with yourself?
c. What else did you do?
78. After a while did you all develop and use any new ways for dealing with the flood
situation?
But all of the females in the district wanted to meet with me. And the first thing I thought,
they are going to ask permission to leave, or just leave. And I’m thinking in my mind,
yes, I’m going to let them leave. And when I got in the bedroom -- and it was a blessing
because it wasn’t all the females -- I’m guessing it was about maybe nine or 10 -- and you
know what their complaint was? All they wanted was clean underwear and a shower.
That’s all they wanted. And we made that happen. And we didn’t loot. We didn’t loot.
We went to the Wal-Mart. We told them what we had -- what we needed -- and they went
in and they got clean underwear. And we -- we had to get them to a place to get them
showers. And then they were right back out there fighting, doing their jobs.
79. Were there any new strategies that police and others came up with?
80. What sort of help was there from outside?
81. Which if any agencies or people provided help in your efforts?
The first federal agents -- now, they were sparse, don’t get me wrong -- I’d have -- as a
matter of fact, I had one ATC agent who was on the ground, oh my God, after the storm
ended -- agent Miller from ATC, who just did some incredible things for the Fifth District.
Organized a lot of great things early on. Then there’d be an agent from the FBI would pop in.
But the bulk of the assistance came in about that Friday. We started seeing federal agents hit
the ground Friday and Saturday, along with the military. But, still mind you, my officers
never stood down. They hadn’t -- the most they’ve gotten so far, as a break, was the five days
that we had about four or five weeks after. And the most amazing thing, you know, the most
amazing -- they still have not stopped.
I was very impressed with outside agencies: the New York State police, the New York City
police, Chicago. We had them coming up from everywhere. Off-duty and on-duty. Just to
assist. That’s incredible. It just made me a stronger person.
82. What challenges did you have after rescue work was finished?
83. When did the water finally recede?
84. When did you have a chance to get back to your own home?
85. What did you find?
86. Where is your home now?
87. Is that where you lived before the storm?
88. During the storm and flood, did you ever consider not returning to your home
neighborhood?
89. Or to New Orleans?
90. Are you still assigned to the same police district?
91. How is your old/new police district now?
92. What challenges does it face?
93. What preparations have the police made for another storm?
94. What are you yourself doing to prepare for another hurricane?
95. What else have you learned from the storm?
And I think it’s made a lot more people realize that we spent all our time planning on
how to prepare for these disasters, how to prepare for a terrorist attach. You can’t. It’s the
response. It’s the response. Its preparation or we’re just wasting our time.
96. How are you yourself coping with the aftereffects of the storm?
97. Do you ever have nightmares about the storm and flood?
98. Did any other officers have a hard time adjusting after the storm/flood?
99. Anything else you’d like to mention?