We're nearing the first anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Two Wall Street Journal reporters have a new book out, and it gives some necessary attention to an under-appreciated figure in the debacle: the former director of the Homeland Security Department's 24-hour watch command with the unlikely name of Matthew Broderick.

As head of the 24/7/365 Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC), Broderick controlled the "eyes and ears" of the Department. As reporters Christopher Cooper and Bobby Block point out, administration officials relied on his reports of events unfolding in the Gulf. Focusing on Broderick, the authors attempt to explain one of the key frustrations of the Bush administration's response: Why did it take them so long to figure out what was going on?

The answer: Broderick. (To his credit, Broderick has accepted blame for failing to properly inform his superiors. He resigned in March to take "an offer I couldn't refuse" from a private company, according to CQ.)

The ops center Broderick ran features 24-hour watchstanders, 16 50" flat-panel monitors, and access to real-time information from all over the government and the nation. DHS describes it this way:

The Homeland Security Operations Center (HSOC) serves as the nation’s nerve center for information sharing and domestic incident management. . . . [T]he HSOC provides real-time situational awareness and monitoring of the homeland, coordinates incidents and response activities. . . . HSOC staff can apply imagery capability by cross-referencing informational data against geospatial data that can then pinpoint an image down to an exact location.

As the world has since learned, New Orleans' levees and floodwalls were collapsing in the early morning of Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. However, Broderick insisted for the next 30 hours that no breaches had occurred, and the levees had merely been "overtopped" -- "normal, typical, hurricane background stuff," he later told Senate investigators.

It wasn't until noon the next day when he confirmed news of the catastrophe to DHS Secretary Mike Chertoff.

Block and Cooper write (excerpted by the Wall Street Journal):

Read more »

Oh, videotape is not the friend of George W. Bush today.

Remember this quote, right?

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will." - George W. Bush, Sept. 1, 2005

Only now the AP has unearthed videotape of the president being warned that just that could happen the day before Katrina hit.

Chris Matthews ran the tape just a few minutes ago on Hardball.

See the report on it here.

Late Update: video link here.

Even Later Update: Click here for the link to the White House photo of the August 28th briefing.

The Hattiesburg American reports that the Feds are prosecuting Forrest County, Mississippi Sheriff Billy McGee for commandeering two FEMA ice trucks and giving their contents to locals in the midst of the Katrina disaster, when FEMA was too bolloxed up to order it themselves.

A National Guard trooper tried to stop McGee; the sheriff handcuffed him. Perhaps that was a bit of an over-reaction. But, as one fire chief told the paper, "We had diabetic people who hadn't been able to put their insulin on ice for three days."

Who would you want serving your community after its next disaster, McGee or the guardsman?

(ed note: Special thanks to TPM Reader CG for the tip.)