Before you go off to read this story and view the video, take a few minutes to read what I have to say about it, then click on the picture. I invite you to then return here to read my account by clicking on Introduction to "In the Eye of the Storm" Sonny Hoffman's recent Waveland Mississippi group survival saga.

Nine months after Katrina, MSNBC located me on a Navy base at Corpus Christi, Texas, flew in a crack crew from Washington state and went about "finding the story." After fourteen hours of interviews and two hours of video that got the U.S. Navy all in a Homeland Security titter, they left with an idea for a story and stuck me with a $40 boat bill and a Public Affairs Officer still wanting some answers.

They went to Waveland, met with four disgruntled survivors and (no doubt) showed them what I wrote and said about them. Kari Haus got her story, and maybe the story she tells is more interesting than what really happened, maybe it plays better or sells more consumer crap, but I expected journalism and a reporting of a newsworthy event.

I will say only this about her story, "Quarreling through Kartina." Had there been ANY quarreling during Katrina, there would be only one survivor to tell what happened to those quarrelsome, poor, storm-ignorant, abandonded, pet-burdened indigents from the weekly rental Texan Motel. There was NO quarreling, because the ex-Green Beret hurricane suvival expert in charge commanded there be NONE, warned that none would be tolerated, and threatened the group with abandonement if there was any.

I did tell Kari that I pushed, dragged, pulled, bossed and bullied those poor, dumb, drunk, coonass bastards all through Katrina after first being a nice guy to win favor and pull them into a survival group that I could command and lead. I knew that I left those people very confused with mixed feelings about their saving and their savior, but I was not trying to be their hero, was not running for office, and frankly didn't care much for them before, during, or after the event. They were not my kind of people, nor was I theirs.

They are lucky I showed up and elected to stay and share their fate. Few if any would be here had I not, but it is possible they all would have by doing it some other way. I still maintain that I did not save them but simply guided their survival effort. They did it my way, and my way is scary and very difficult as my way is to get out in the storm and be in the deadly storm surge.

My way is not at all a popular way and were my way to fail it would be easy to say that way is a very dumb way and Sonny Hoffman is a very dumb man. They are saying that even though it did work and almost all who were south of highway 90 in Waveland and stayed in a structure perished along with the structure or drowned in the attic. I had the benefit of knowing what usually happens, and lots of experience surviving hurricanes by doing everything my way. I sure as hell would not be trying their way. They all elected to do everything my way, but that unanymous election didn't go down until the water came up. This was sea water that I predicted would arrive. That did very much impress them at the time.

When Kari found out what they were confused about, she made those "issues" that appear to be points of contention that were argued about. They were just points of confusion, because I wasn't explaining anything to anyone during the several crisis points when I needed barked orders blindly obeyed without question or discussion. Kari must have placed a dozen calls to me and had me on her cell phone speed dial, but doesn't make one call after getting these very curious points of contention. Getting those "issues" cleared up would kill her story and result in a charge of investigative reporting journalism. I will never acuse her of that.

Enjoy: