If you flip to ‘behind the scenes’ in any encyclopedia, you're likely to find a picture of Diane Newman. Diane rarely makes a public statement, although she’s the one who's responsible for organizing all that chatter you hear on WWL, day in and day out. That remains as true today as it was on August 29th, 2005.
Diane Newman was central in keeping the engine of WWL running as New Orleaneans used it as a lifeline to contact emergency services, reconnect with separated loved ones, and to keep anchors like Dave Cohen and Garland Robinette on air as they demanded that federal and state authorities provide aid.
Diane sat down with Dave Cohen for a rare interview to share her untold story of leading WWL through the chaos, and her assessment of progress in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf 20 years ago.
“We went from a celebration of Saints Preseason Friday to one of the scariest days of all of our lives," Newman says.
Diane Newman was responsible for rallying WWL's troops once Cohen alerted her that the initial NWS forecasts had shifted: Katrina was bound for New Orleans.
“We went on air during the Saints game…We had to activate a lot of people…That’s the hard part when we do these jobs that we love so much: The mission is to serve the community. But to live in the humanity of the people who work for us…That was a tough forecast.”
Most of the employees they asked to stay did so without hesitation.
“I always think of WWL as a badge we wear…When we sign up, we SIGN up…It’s a tough ask, but just about everybody said, ‘We’ll be there,’” says Newman.
“Garland shows up with his bag on his back and says, ‘No birds,’” Newman recalls. “I said, what?”
“No birds,” She remembers Robinette emphasizing. “Di—When I was in Vietnam, and there were no birds, we knew it was going to be seriously dangerous.”
Then, danger arrived. Katrina landed and devastated Plaquemines Parish and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Newman recalls that one of the WWL hosts, Bob DelGiorno, received a text from his neighbor. It said his boat was in a tree, and all that was left of his house were steps.
“We were beaten. We were battered. The city was whipped. Katrina was a bitch of a storm,” explains Newman. “We survived—then went downstairs and were like, ‘What is this water?’”
“I’ll never forget,” Cohen says, “Having to call you the Tuesday after the storm. It was Tuesday, around 7 am, and the water was still rising…City hall didn’t have any information for us…But I learned from Dr. Walter Maestri that there was a ‘Problem’ at the 17th Street Canal.”The bowl was filling, and it looks like it’s not going to stop.”
Half an inch of water became half a foot of water, then a foot and a half of water…
“I just wanted to weep. You knew the magnitude of the pain and agony that was ahead. I knew that my mom and dad, my sister Carol, who lived right near the levee breach…I knew what that meant,” Newman said.
From that point on, Newman made sure WWL stayed on the air as a lifeline for the city and those trapped. Through it all, she refused to lose faith.
“I believe in resurrection. I believe in the power of us. I always have, and I always will. Even in the worst moments, I will,” Newman recalls. “People much smarter than me, like Garland, were saying it was over. I just always believed there’s always a battle to be fought.”
WWL moved to Baton Rouge, where they were able to fashion a makeshift studio.
“I remember when we got to Baton Rouge," Newman tells Cohen, "We had you stationed in New Orleans. Garland was going to be the anchor of our broadcast. My recollection is that he was on from 6 pm to 6 am at first. Nighttime was like drive time. WWL’s signal reaches 38+ states at night—everybody was monitoring WWL, especially at night.”
Newman and Cohen discuss how listeners would tell them they would go out to their cars at night and listen to WWL, because, while national news focused on the sensational and salacious details, WWL remained the one station that could give a detailed description of what their specific neighborhood or block looked like.
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Sticking with New Orleans through the wreckage
“Thank god people love New Orleans,” Newman says. “I remember Ken Beck and me coming from Baton Rouge to meet with you guys here and figure out what we were going to do. It was one foot in front of the other. That’s what we did every day till we got back here.”
There was never a doubt, Newman says, that New Orleans wouldn’t come back.
“Driving from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, I would see the sign for New Orleans and involuntarily cry, just streams down my face. Suddenly, it was the saddest place in the world," Newman remembers. "But I always believed in the guts, the DNA of New Orleans, and the New Orleans people. We’re just a little bit crazy. We’re just a little bit nuts. We feel love, I think, at a deeper level than most. And I always believed in that.”
However, as Newman looks at the state of the city she fought so hard to see recover, she believes that in many ways, momentum has been lost.
“I have 34 first cousins on the Newman side…Our family on the Lanoix side, I have 22…After Katrina, most dispersed. I was so used ot having family 7 minutes away, 5 minutes away, my mom was 8 minutes away…That all changed,” Newman says.
“My dad helped to build this city in many ways. He helped a lot of minorities in this city to buy homes and put their kids through college. For him not to come back to this city was painful. It hurt my dad,” Newman explains.
The story continues to this day.
“We still have a fight on our hands. While New Orleans hasn’t—thank Jesus—suffered another huge storm like Katrina. We’ve felt a different type of storm in the past years. A city we fought so hard for has been neglected," Newman laments. "We gotta start taking care of this town. We need to start feeling the feelings for this city that we had when we were battling after Katrina."
"We need the right people in the office. People who care deeply enough to give the citizens of this city, who stay, who fought, who deserve so much, just the simple things in life that are automatic in other cities. Hopefully, we can grow this city again."
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