What Did Happen at the Bridge?

What Happened and Why at the Gretna Bridge

. . . "initially Gretna police commandeered buses and used them to ferry more than 5,000 evacuees to a rescue site. But more and more kept coming, and after a day of this shuttling, he says, his small police force became overwhelmed."

Added Harry Lee, the sheriff of Jefferson Parish: "FEMA didn't have any food for those people in Gretna. They didn't give me any food. I didn't have any water. My obligations are to the people of Jefferson Parish."

Concluding the explanatory narrative, Burnett reported that Gretna officials had already been put on edge the day before by a mall fire set by "hooligans from New Orleans," leading to their decision to shut down the bridge to all pedestrian traffic.

Burnett did report the full story, but by doing something basic -- focusing on Lawson and Lee's point of view -- he illuminated a crucial aspect of a convoluted, touchy incident. Perhaps the easy answer of race -- or racism -- is not the only viable explanation. Perhaps Gretna officials, already having taken in thousands and fearing that things were getting out of control, felt they simply had no other choice.

At report's end Burnett asked, "Chief Lawson would like to know without communication, food, water, enough buses and gasoline, how long would it take another American city to reach the limits of its compassion?"