NBC anchor Brian Williams' Katrina account challenged by ex-French Quarter hotel manager

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune ^ | 2/8/15 | Jessica Williams

[BBell]

The former general manager of the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, where embattled "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams reportedly roomed during Hurricane Katrina, said Sunday (Feb. 8) that neither mass flooding nor floating human remains were near the hotel after the levees broke. Her statement raises questions about Williams' stated Katrina experiences and could add to a pool of public skepticism regarding his tale.

Williams recounted his time reporting on Katrina in a 2006 interview with Disney CEO Michael Eisner. "When you look out of your hotel room window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country," he said.

As critics have pointed out, much of the French Quarter stayed dry after the storm, due to its position on high ground. However, there were rising waters as far up as Bourbon and Royal shortly after Katrina, geographer Richard Campanella said Friday.

But Myra deGersdorff, the ex-manager of the Ritz-Carlton who works as a chief human resources officer in Scottsdale, Ariz., questioned the claim Sunday that such horrors occurred anywhere near her former hotel.

"There is no physical way the water was deep enough for a body to float in," she said.

[Texas Eagle]

Walter Cronkite: And that's the way it is.

Brian Williams: And that's the way it was......ish.

[ChildOfThe60s]

Where were these people when Lyin Brian was shoveling this bovine excretion in the beginning? How many years later is it?

Where are the ones that know about the lies the other esteemed journalists (and politicians) are telling now?

This is all crap. They all knew he was making this up then, but no one had the gut or morals to say anything them. How brave is it to come out with the truth now??

[BigEdLB]

Brian is there.. Tomorrow an interview with victorious King Aragorn

[BBell]

There is a new channel called OAN. It’s really pretty good. Just the news without all the B.S.

[jean michael]

The “ex-French” in the headline bothers me the most!

[MeshugeMikey]

disonfotainment!

one must suspend one's disbelief to enjoy entertainment....thus ...the happy talk news style being entertainment at its base....can make some really inane claims and present unthinkable positions.....that BYPASS one's critical facilities rather easily

thus was born.....

[abb]

NautiNurse kept all those threads. She used to have links to all of them.

[nascarnation]

http://www.oann.com/

[blackdog]

Isn't Free Republic great?!

Thank You, kind sir.

[abb]

Here’s one of the threads.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1472974/posts?q=1&;page=1#1

[Chode]

and the RATS, take another one in the.........HA ha!!!

[jtal]

Cronkite was just as deceptive IMHO; maybe even worse.

Perhaps not in his personal life but in the way he manipulated the “news.”

[BBell]

A lot of people here did not know what was going on. I stayed and I was flooded out. We had no clue what was going on around us and the radio stations were of no help. All our T.V.s and generators were flooded. We had plenty to eat and drink though.

When I went up north about a week later people were asking me all kinds of questions and I could not answer them. They seemed to know more about what happened then I did.

[Baynative]

It's all over the place ...and then some

[nascarnation]

Yes that was an era when network news was accepted as gospel by 90% plus of the population.
I believe today that percentage is much lower, although still enough to allow them to get Democrats like Obama elected.

[Chickensoup]

No, I am looking for the posts here on FR about what Brian Williams said at the time. I recall Freepers disputing it.

[BBell]

I actually like OANN.

[nascarnation]

I agree.

[Political Junkie Too]

At this point, Williams' only option is to insist that it happened, and stick to it.

-PJ

[Baynative]

Oh, I get it. Maybe we can find the thread using the dates around Katrina as keyword... hmmm, I off on another hunt.