Those who experience hurricanes on a regular basis have their “hurricane kits,” or the items they have set aside to prepare for whatever a hurricane in our area could bring. For many families, a radio is an essential part of their kit. When the power goes out, service is spotty and you can’t get on the internet, you turn to the only connection to the world outside your home: radio.
When thinking back 20 years to Hurricane Katrina, many remember the voice we all heard over the airwaves: Garland Robinette. For some, he is the voice of hurricanes. A strong, steady presence that – until retirement in 2017 – was with you through whatever the storm was bringing our way.
Is it true that you weren’t supposed to be on air the night Hurricane Katrina hit?
No, I was filling in the day of Katrina. Oh my gosh, I had no intention of being on radio. I had a friend on the radio named David. It was his show I was on. He had cancer, and was getting treatment. He said he couldn’t get anybody else sit in, so, could I sit in just for that night? He died, and I stayed there nine years.
Obviously you’d been through hurricanes before. You were on the news, you know the whole protocol. But did was there a different vibe? Did y’all know or feel what was going to happen?
No. I’d covered hurricanes for 20 years, I had done probably 15 documentaries every year all over the world warning that New Orleans is going to flood because of loss of wetlands. So to me, it was just here we go again. But when I knew something was up: I spent a little time in Vietnam, and when David asked me to come in, I told my family goodbye, and I was at CCs [Coffee] on magazine, and I walked out with a cup of coffee, and they had a palm tree that was full of parakeets or parrots that somebody had let grow and they had multiplied, and there were no birds. I walked to the end of the street and I saw there were no dogs or cats or birds. And in Vietnam, when you were going to get a firefight, everything in the jungle went quiet. I called my wife and I said, hunker down. This can be bad.
WWL radio ended up being one of the only way that people were getting news at all. At the time did y’all realize that that you were kind of the only one that was that was the connection to either people that had left or people that were still here trying to be saved?
No. The night of Katrina, I was on the air, and we had a giant window overlooking the Superdome, and it blew out, and it tried to pull me out. It was pulling equipment through the window. And we were, I think, seven or eight floors up, right next to the Superdome, and two engineers belted themselves together, came in, dragged me out, put me in a closet. So, I spent Katrina night in the closet, thinking, “well, this is dumb. Nobody’s listening. The storm’s over. What the hell am I doing in the closet?” So, I was kind of oblivious to what was happening,
You had been in Vietnam, but being in that situation, fighting for your life at one point – did that change your perspective on your job and what you were doing at time?
Well, I was never much of a journalist. I had been a janitor before I was a TV anchor. I lied about my experience. They put me on. The guy that was on TV at the time got drunk. They put me on temporarily. I was on 20 years later, but I wasn’t a journalist. I was just kind of skating to make sure nobody noticed I didn’t know what I was doing. And so that, especially in the beginning, when you’ve been in real combat, that I think people that work with you, will tell you I was eerily calm for the first few weeks because I knew that when things get bad, you’ve got to make sure you stay calm and think so for me, it didn’t feel like journalism and didn’t feel like I was doing anything special?
Once you eventually got out of the closet, and then everything with the levee happened. Did you feel like, ‘OK, we have to keep going, no matter what?’ Y’all were right by the Superdome. You saw what was happening. What was your thought process in those days following?
First of all, my wife had just bought a car that was a hybrid, combination Gas and Electric, and I took it and there’s eight people we crammed into that car. We were the only ones able to drive, drive out of the Superdome, because it’s all water up to where the rearview mirror was, and the engine shut off, but the battery took over. So, we were the only ones that made it out, and we had people hanging on the car. It was a nightmare, and we eventually got out, got to Baton Rouge, and the engineers got the signal going, but the exit from the dome was nightmares. There were people hanging on the car, hanging on the windshield, and we couldn’t put anybody else in there, and it was chaos. it was almost like, who’s gonna live, who’s gonna die. Because, at that time, we didn’t know how bad it was going to get. We knew it was bad, the flooding was already there, but we didn’t know about the nightmare coming. But we were very concerned about people we had to leave behind. But it was either that or we stopped the car and got out with them,
Speaker 1 11:38
following that. I know you had, you know, I don’t think you prepared for this, but you had a very famous interview with Ray Nagin happen after that. What other kind of like stuff came? I mean, yeah, it all had to be unexpected at the time. Everything that happened just wasn’t planned, wasn’t anything.
Speaker 2 11:58
Give it a little humor once we got Baton Rouge Diane, Helen ruled me like a mob boss. And Helen gum them one day and says, all right. Line three is Australia, line two is Netherlands, and then you’ve got Tokyo on the other line, I said, Helen, I’m tired, don’t I don’t time for humor. So what do you mean? I said, What are you talking about? And she said, she told me again. Said, how can that be? She was screaming on the internet. And I said, What’s that? A dog pissing on a computer? And she said, Oh, my God, you are. You’re a disaster. That was part of the funny part with Nagan. What happened was it took me ever to forever to find my family. I don’t know where they were, and I eventually got them to Alabama, went to make sure they were okay. And that took like, two days or more, and driving back. I’m listening to radio, and same thing. No movement. Nobody’s come. And I was pissed, say the least. And when Ray got on, I think I unleashed him, because I said, what the hell I was in Ajay Indonesia, when the tsunami hit, and a day later, the US hospital ship was there, and here we were, six days out and no help. So I went nuts, then he went nuts, and President Bush hurt
Speaker 1 14:00
us really? How did you find that out?
Speaker 2 14:04
Because he called Helen and said, I’m coming in. I want to talk that asshole by himself. Nobody else. I met in a hotel room, and he and the first lady had three hour interview. No secret service, nobody.
Speaker 1 14:22
How was that? That must have been a crazy experience, too.
Speaker 2 14:26
He knew I was angry. Good, well, at
Speaker 1 14:30
that point. I mean, did you really, like, you know, you were basically a voice for everybody in the city. I mean, you know, did you were it was just you being angry and not even thinking about everyone else.
Speaker 2 14:43
I have the temper, so I lost it, but I think I was I couldn’t watch CV or anything, but my people were telling me of people in boats and rescuing. And movie stars coming in and well known people trying to help. So I kind of thought I was minimal. I thought I’m in a air conditioned studio with food. I The boys they are, but,
Did Katrina and your experience influence you in decision to stay in radio?
It did. I remember telling confessing to [producer] Diane when I was in TV I thought radio was trailer trash. I had no intention of being in radio, but when I begin to see the scope of it… TV, I think we broadcast about a million people a night. Radio, without the internet, was 2 million minimum, because we went all the way to Florida, Arkansas, so forth and so on. And I begin to realize – I call my show “Think Tank,” because I’d open up telling everyone here’s the subject, and what we’re going to do is prove me wrong. And I spent nine years being educated like I’ve never dreamt of, and I found that exciting, because about 80% of the time I was wrong.
