Aaron Broussard

Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, intervened publicly in the post-Katrina emergency through radio appeals for boats and armed assistance. His brief appearances connect two pressures that increasingly shaped rescue efforts: the need to reach people cut off by floodwater and officials’ fear that worsening deprivation would lead to violence.

Calls for Rescue

As officials sought boats to evacuate people by water, Broussard told a radio host, “We desperately need these boats, we’ve got deputies that need to be rescued.” The appeal placed stranded law-enforcement personnel among the urgent rescue needs, while the surrounding crisis also made water evacuation relevant to hospitals. Boats were requested at a Sam’s Club in a suburb of New Orleans, but by evening Sandra LeBlanc saw boats still lined up on the interstate, resting on trailers.

A volunteer dispatched from Baton Rouge to meet fifty-five boats and evacuate Memorial and Lindy Boggs Medical Center later reported that he had never connected with them. He had been told that the boats were stopped because of darkness and reports of snipers. The account does not establish that Broussard’s appeal caused this deployment; together, the episodes show the gap between urgent requests for rescue and the difficulty of coordinating it.

Warnings About Disorder

As reports of danger circulated over the radio, Broussard appealed to the governor for more armed military police. He described conditions among people without basic necessities: “The hunger, the anger, the rage is growing among people who have nothing, and if they have nothing they get violent and they get angry.” He linked the prospect of violence to the lack of food, shelter, and a decent environment, presenting public security as inseparable from the conditions in which survivors were being left.

The radio reports surrounding his appeal included alarming claims about hostage situations, prison breaks, and looting. The narrative later distinguishes genuine lawlessness from rumors that had been magnified: many of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened, and some people described as looters were searching for food and water. Broussard’s warning therefore belongs to a moment when officials were responding both to material deprivation and to an uncertain, rapidly circulating picture of danger.

Role in the Crisis

Broussard is not portrayed as directing the hospital evacuations or resolving the failures that obstructed them. His importance in these scenes is as a local official using radio to ask for resources and describe the risks he saw. The juxtaposition of his pleas with boats immobilized on the interstate gives his interventions a larger significance: in a disaster defined by need, the existence of potential rescue capacity did not ensure that it could reach those who needed it.