Inside a city in crisis
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Honoré, the former commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, headed military relief efforts in New Orleans for the six weeks following the hurricane. He was brought to campus by the University chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student-run think tank.
"Katrina was one of the most devastating disasters to ever hit our country," Honoré said in his thick Louisiana baritone.
Honoré said that the deadly storm resulted in "one of the largest migrations to affect our country since the Civil War and was probably one of the most changing things to happen to our country since the Revolutionary War."
He asked people to raise their hands if they have at least three days worth of food in their homes, a quarter tank of gas in their cars or at least 30 days of their prescription medicine stocked in their cabinets. When virtually all the hands in the room went up, he remarked that it "looks like a pretty educated crowd out there, or are y'all lyin'?"
He went on to point out that there is a direct correlation between people's economic means and their level of preparation for disasters like Katrina.
The majority of those in the Ninth Ward - one of the hardest hit areas - were poor. "Katrina revealed a level of poverty that most people didn't even know existed," Honoré said.
Honoré discussed the logistical problems that exacerbated the situation on the ground. There was no running water or even portable lavatories at the Superdome because they had to be ordered from Indiana.
"They got there, but they got there two weeks after the storm," Honoré said. "And you know what? They put them up."
Honoré also described how the government had to import pumps from Holland and Germany to get the water out of the city.
Honoré confronted the argument that Katrina victims got what was coming to them by not following the mandatory evacuation order that was issued before the storm hit.
He pointed out that Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005, three days before government assistant checks - which many of the New Orleans victims depended on - were set to arrive. This meant that the city's poorest residents likely had no means to evacuate, even if they wanted to.