Though there’s been some revisionist reporting lately on the degree to which New Orleans was plundered by its own residents during the lawless days after Hurricane Katrina, vivid scenes will always stay with Bob Woodruff, who covered the aftermath for ABC News.
“It was a ‘Mad Max’ world,” he said. “I’ve never before seen such open looting. We can all understand people taking water and food, the basic necessities.
“But bags of shoes?”
Like many journalists in the outlaw zone, Woodruff witnessed open ransacking.
He did so by walking into besieged stores with a camera running and talking to the perpetrators.
“There seemed to be no shame,” he said. “They had no fear, either, of us documenting them doing it.
“One looter came out of a store and I asked, “Do you realize that’s wrong? To steal things like bags of shoes?’ He said he didn’t speak English.”
Commentary in recent weeks has recognized a flowering of passionate reportage in much of the post-Katrina coverage. Woodruff said the nature of the story made for simple line-drawing.
“I think people in journalism felt good about the mission,” he said.
“Most stories are complex, with many sides. This is one of those stories that was essentially one-sided – people were in dire need of help.
“To me it was almost like covering a forest fire. There is evil – a fire that needs to be put out. The good guys have hoses.
“This is not the Iraq invasion. There’s a lot of complexity to a story like that.”
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