BullKurtz
Gold Member
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In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast, a seasoned hotel manager realized she needed to think fast. As the general manager of a mammoth Ritz-Carlton at the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans, Myra DeGersdorff was in charge of more than 1,200 people.
DeGersdorff’s comments provide a glimpse into what transpired at a hotel sucked into a controversy over now heavily scrutinized claims that Williams has made. The NBC crisis was touched off last week when Williams conceded that a military helicopter he rode in during the Iraq War didn’t take fire as he previously claimed. Williams has since declined repeated interview requests — a surprise given his eagerness to hold forth on his reportorial trials, whether in a low-tech chat with a student newspaper, or in a video talk with Tom Brokaw, or a conversation for a book on the media and Katrina.
Those interviews, in which he boasted of the dangers he faced while pursuing truth, are now the subject of criticism. Three individuals told reporters that gangs never infiltrated the Ritz-Carlton, despite Williams’s claims. And DeGersdorff agreed.
“There absolutely was looting in the French Quarter,” DeGersdorff recalled. “But I wouldn’t say they were gangs. … They were primarily individual looters or two or three buddies attempting to break into camera stores; it was unpleasant.” She said that “on more than one occasion,” the looters tried to get inside the hotel. At one point, they did “breach a door” but were “immediately” chased out. There were “maybe one or two of them,” she said.
This contrasts with Williams’s recollection, as recounted to historian Douglas Brinkley for his 2007 book, “The Great Deluge.” According to Brinkley, Williams told him that “armed gangs had broken into the 527-room hotel, brandishing guns and terrorizing guests. Williams, in fact, had seen his first corpse floating down Canal Street from his eighth-floor window earlier that day. Then fever consumed him.”
At some point — it’s unclear when — Williams said he camped out in a stairwell on a mattress. That surprised DeGersdorff. “I can tell you that at no time did any of my people report any sightings of any bodies,” she said. “I witnessed no bodies floating. … He may have simply misremembered. But I can tell you no one broke out in the hotel with dysentery. I did have mattresses in the stairwells, sure. Did he walk into a stairwell and lay down? He could have, but Ritz-Carlton doesn’t invite its guests to sleep in the stairwell, so we certainly didn’t give him access.”
Brian Williams perhaps 8216 misremembered 8217 dangers of Katrina hotel manager says - The Washington Post
DeGersdorff’s comments provide a glimpse into what transpired at a hotel sucked into a controversy over now heavily scrutinized claims that Williams has made. The NBC crisis was touched off last week when Williams conceded that a military helicopter he rode in during the Iraq War didn’t take fire as he previously claimed. Williams has since declined repeated interview requests — a surprise given his eagerness to hold forth on his reportorial trials, whether in a low-tech chat with a student newspaper, or in a video talk with Tom Brokaw, or a conversation for a book on the media and Katrina.
Those interviews, in which he boasted of the dangers he faced while pursuing truth, are now the subject of criticism. Three individuals told reporters that gangs never infiltrated the Ritz-Carlton, despite Williams’s claims. And DeGersdorff agreed.
“There absolutely was looting in the French Quarter,” DeGersdorff recalled. “But I wouldn’t say they were gangs. … They were primarily individual looters or two or three buddies attempting to break into camera stores; it was unpleasant.” She said that “on more than one occasion,” the looters tried to get inside the hotel. At one point, they did “breach a door” but were “immediately” chased out. There were “maybe one or two of them,” she said.
This contrasts with Williams’s recollection, as recounted to historian Douglas Brinkley for his 2007 book, “The Great Deluge.” According to Brinkley, Williams told him that “armed gangs had broken into the 527-room hotel, brandishing guns and terrorizing guests. Williams, in fact, had seen his first corpse floating down Canal Street from his eighth-floor window earlier that day. Then fever consumed him.”
At some point — it’s unclear when — Williams said he camped out in a stairwell on a mattress. That surprised DeGersdorff. “I can tell you that at no time did any of my people report any sightings of any bodies,” she said. “I witnessed no bodies floating. … He may have simply misremembered. But I can tell you no one broke out in the hotel with dysentery. I did have mattresses in the stairwells, sure. Did he walk into a stairwell and lay down? He could have, but Ritz-Carlton doesn’t invite its guests to sleep in the stairwell, so we certainly didn’t give him access.”
Brian Williams perhaps 8216 misremembered 8217 dangers of Katrina hotel manager says - The Washington Post
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