Echoes of Conyers

In August, an explosion at Smitty Supply, a lubricant manufacturing facility in this predominantly black town, swept through a 15-acre complex that housed half a million gallons of flammable material.

A retiree stands up from the back pews.

Because the biggest lie ever told is there a fire and the state police say nothing went beyond the fence.

Or nothing is toxic.

Biggest lie ever told.

But somehow they proclaim that nothing went toxic, went beyond the face line.

With all due respect, I mean they do great work in giving tracking tickets, etc.

But when it comes to any disaster, they have a tendency to err on the side of there's no toxics beyond the fence line.

This retiree is no other than former three-star Army Lieutenant General Russell Honore.

You remember him.

Sunglasses.

The cigar hanging from his mouth.

When Hurricane Katrina smashed into New Orleans in 2005, he commanded the nation's military response.

Right now, we're still in the crisis phase of this because we have not gotten the people out of the destroyed area because we're still looking for them.

There are still people hiding in the top of the houses.

If we could see them, we would go to them.

And in some cases, we're getting phone calls from them, and they're telling us where they are.

And we're going after them, and we're getting them.

That's what my focus is right now.

We might be in the halftime in this game.

We might be losing 50 to nothing.

But I'm going to focus on this next half

That is to say, he knows about disasters.

And he knows this place.

Born and raised in Lakeland, Louisiana, the general now lives in Baton Rouge, 60 miles east of Roseland.