Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré sees shadows of Tulsa Race Massacre in Hurricane Katrina Devastation
Randy Krehbiel | Updated May 17, 2026
Lt. General Russel L. Honoré speaks during a USDA Veterans Day event in 2014. Honoré, who led recovery efforts in New Orleans in 2005, is presenting the Greenwood Rising Resilience Leadership Luncheon in Tulsa on June 1.
Bob Nichols, USDA via Wikimedia Commons
Among the most enduring impressions of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath is of Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré barking orders and chewing up bureaucrats as he oversaw cleanup and humanitarian work in New Orleans.
"He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving," then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said.
Now 78, Honoré seems about as feisty as ever. During a phone conversation ahead of a June 1 Tulsa appearance, he lit into both the Biden and Trump administrations over their disaster response and gave a typically blunt assessment of the U.S military's current leadership.
"We've always had (bleeps) in the Pentagon or in the White House that we put up with, but eventually they leave," Honoré said. "We've survived this for 250 years. So these, too, will leave. This is not a lifetime job.
"That's the only good thing about being in the Army. You can run into bad leadership, but the Army will still be there for services. So we're just biding our time till this group leaves, and the next group will come in and be just as bad.
"Each administration," he said, "comes in with dumb (stuff)."
Honoré is presenting the Greenwood Rising Resilience Leadership Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. June 1 in the Vista at 21, 21 N. Greenwood Ave. Tickets are $100 available through greenwoodrising.org.
The retired general will be speaking on the 105th anniversary of the destruction of Greenwood during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Honoré noted that while the massacre was a manmade disaster, there are similarities with natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
"People lost their lives (in Tulsa). They lost their infrastructure. Their culture was challenged," Honoré said. "Same thing kind of reminiscent of what happened in New Orleans with a natural disaster. I would remain resilient and build back and maintain our culture, maintain ownership of our land."
Since his retirement, Honoré has maintained an interest in disaster recovery. He criticized the first Trump administration's response to extensive hurricane damage in Puerto Rico ("embarrassing") and the Biden administration's reluctance to deploy troops and helicopters from nearby military bases ("I was yelling at the White House") after a storm hit North Carolina.
Honoré has also gotten involved in environmental disasters in his native Louisiana.
"You make your fossil fuel, you keep it in the pipe," he said. "You clean up after yourself. You clean your mess. You clean the abandoned wells. Don't mess up our aquifer. If you mess it up, you clean it up."