Thursday, September 02, 2010
The hidden Katrina timeline
Here's a part of the Katrina timeline, five years after the fact, that you won't see anywhere else:
- Tuesday, August 30, 12:45 p.m.: Cuba contacts the U.S. State Department and offers to send no less than 1,100 full-equipped and disaster-trained doctors to the Gulf Coast immediately (within 24 hours).
- Friday, Sept. 2: Cuba reiterates its offer publicly on Cuban television.
- Sunday, Sept. 4: Cuban President Fidel Castro speaks before a group of 1586 Cuban medical personnal (up from 1100) who have volunteered to serve on the Gulf Coast, and who are fully equipped and ready to go. MSNBC becomes the first U.S. network to make note of the Cuban offer.
- Tuesday, Sept. 7: Cuban offer is brought up at a State Department press briefing. Press officer McCormack hems and haws.
- Wednesday, Sept. 7: A prominent U.S. medical group urges the U.S. government to accept the Cuban offer, saying there is a clear need for more medical help for Katrina victims.
- Monday, Sept. 12: MSNBC profiles two of the Cuban doctors who are still waiting to be given permission to save lives in the United States.
How many American lives were lost because those Cuban doctors were never given permission to enter the U.S. we'll never know. What we do know is that that same group of medical personnel, the Henry Reeve Brigade, would go on to serve with distinction, and save countless lives, in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Haiti after earthquakes in those countries, and probably some other disasters I've forgotten about.
