This day in WND history: Gov’t rescuers demand Katrina survivors flash breasts

Gov’t rescuers demand Katrina survivors flash breasts

Sept. 5, 2005: British tourists recounted how female survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were urged by government rescuers to flash their breasts in order to receive help in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

Ged Scott of Liverpool was on his annual vacation at New Orleans’ Ramada Hotel with his wife, Sandra, and their 7-year-old son, Ronan.

“I could not describe how bad the authorities were, taking photographs of us as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own personal photo albums, little snapshot photographs,” Scott said.

He said there was a group of girls standing on the lobby’s roof, calling out to passing rescuers for help.

“[The authorities] said to them, ‘Well, show us what you’ve got’ – doing signs for them to lift their T-shirts up. The girls said no, and [the rescuers] said ‘well fine,’ and motored off down the road in their motorboat. That’s the sort of help we had from the authorities,” he said.

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Factor this! Bill O’Reilly joins WND

Sept. 5, 2000: Bill O’Reilly, former host of the hugely successful “O’Reilly Factor” on the Fox News Channel, joined WND as a regular columnist.

“I had other offers to write columns for other newssites on the Internet,” said O’Reilly. “I chose WorldNetDaily because of its commitment to independence and fearless investigative reporting.”

WND Editor Joseph Farah said at the time: “We’re thrilled to welcome Bill O’Reilly on board as a regular weekly columnist. I don’t always agree with him, but he is a unique and forceful character in television journalism. O’Reilly, like WorldNetDaily, is fiercely independent — another reason this is a great match.”

When O’Reilly joined WND, his TV program on Fox was second in the ratings to CNN’s “Larry King Live.” But within several months of writing for WND, O’Reilly’s ratings soared over King to become the No. 1 program on any cable news channel. He was forced out at Fox in April 2017 following claims of sexual harassment.

Read Bill O’Reilly’s very first column on WND, “It’s the education, stupid.”

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