Katrina falsehoods
But in one area the Katrina parallel works: the news media. This was anything but the press' finest hour. Many outlets reported that rape gangs were rampant in New Orleans, that snipers were keeping the feds at bay, that the Superdome was littered with rotting bodies, that poor black people were left to die in disproportionate numbers. None of that was true, as several newspapers admirably reported after the frenzy dissipated. Meanwhile, most outlets either missed or downplayed the efforts by the federal government, particularly the Coast Guard, which conducted heroic air and sea operations soon after the storm passed. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's efforts were certainly lacking, but the focus on Michael Brown's "heckuva job" — in the infamous words of President Bush— often had more to do with editorializing than the facts on the ground.
Once again, many people are eager to turn a Gulf Coast catastrophe into something more apocalyptic, this time not to tear down a president but to discredit offshore drilling. It most certainly is a horrific disaster, but the "worse than Valdez" theme, hyped on the Drudge Report and cable news, hasn't been validated. Estimates of how much oil has been spilled have varied wildly, in part because satellite imaging is great at capturing the "sheen" from a spill but not so good at measuring its thickness.
Even if the higher estimates turn out to be true, the spill so far is relatively minor in size compared with others in history. (For instance, the Exxon Valdez spill— though certainly disastrous — isn't anywhere near the Top 10 spills of all time). Obviously, that's hardly reassuring given the sensitive location of the spill and the fact that it could continue indefinitely if not contained. But it's worth remembering that the damage from previous, and much larger, spills wasn't nearly so lasting as people had feared. For example, if the Deepwater spill is releasing 5,000 barrels a day, as the government estimates, it would take several years to spill the 252 million to 336 million gallons Saddam Hussein released into the Persian Gulf during the 1991 Iraq war.
