HOME > Virtual Exhibit: LBJ, Louisiana, and Hurricane Betsy
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WhiteHouseTapes.org: LBJ and the Response to Hurricane Betsy
Published August 29, 2005
On the evening of September 9, 1964, Hurricane Betsy came ashore near Grand Isle, Louisiana, as a Category 4 storm, with the National Weather Service reporting wind gusts near 160 mph. As the storm tracked inland, the city of New Orleans was hit with 110 mph winds, a storm surge around 10 feet, and heavy rain. Betsy devastated low-lying areas on the eastern side of the city and eventually led to the expansion of an already impressive levee system to protect a city that lay mostly below sea-level. After the storm passed, Louisiana Senator Russell Long, the son of the legendary Senator and Governor Huey Long, called President Johnson to get the President to tour the devastated areas. In Long’s unique style, he let the LBJ know that the Betsy had severely damaged his own home and had nearly killed his family.
LBJ arrived in New Orleans five hours after talking to Senator Long. Reporters noted that he was shocked by the suffering and in particular by thirst of survivors in one shelter. He immediately announced that the “red tape be cut,” and he took personal control of operations, which he continued—according to the Washington Post—“day and night.”
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A few minutes after talking to Senator Russell Long, Johnson made arrangements for a trip to New Orleans with Buford Ellington, the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning. Ellington, an old friend of Johnson and former governor of Tennessee had been in the job since March, 1965 and had played a vital role in Johnson’s handling of problems related to the Selma-to-Montgomery march. At the time of the call, no deaths had be reported. The death toll would ultimately be 74, with most of those from New Orleans.
President Johnson followed up his pledge to cut bureaucratic “red tape” in this call to Robert Phillips, the Director of the Government Readiness Office of the Office of Emergency Planning. On the ground on the Gulf Coast, Phillips had also been serving as a spokesman on relief efforts for the Johnson administration. Here, Long told Phillips, “We’re not trying to make you violate the law, but insofar as you can find a way to make the law bend to the problem, well that’s what we want you to do.”
