During the last interview with the Mayor - I did not hear one word of ANY plan for the people who can not drive to get out of New Orleans. I assume there are some on the ground plans, but they certainly are not being adequately communicated to the press,
And just now a WDSU reporter is reporting seeing kids, as young as six and seven year old - on their own - with all their belongings in a plastic bag - begging drivers to take them out of the city. And when his news team left on the one bridge still open, there saw a line of the very old and the very young - people in wheel chairs - even more incredible - people being pushed on hospital gurneys - fleeing for their lives over the last bridge out of New Orleans.
The same reporter also gave an account of the gangs roaming and terrorizing the city.
We should all be asking - after all this time - why have buses and trucks not been commandeered to get the poor out of the city?
Why are the residents of New Orleans not being told HOW to get out of the city instead of just being told that they must get out of the city?
And when Mayor Nagin announced the new flooding of much of the rest of New Orleans in his latest interviews - why did he not offer any plan to get those with no resources of their own - to get out of the city?
UPDATE.
Person at Tulane hospital gave an interview to WDSU describing a fishing boat filled with looters armed with guns patroling the streets and then she describing how looters were breaking into the doctor's cars in the hospital parking garage while they are trying to save lives.
But, Mayor Nagin still needs another night before he decides if it is appropriate to call for martial law citywide rather than in just some areas.
UPDATE
UPDATE - While I would like to move past examining the behavior of Mayor Nagin - it was just announced that a major hotel has been set afire - possibly by looters - after extensive coverage of the wide spread violence and looting in New Orleans. With that announcement, the newscasters continue to express bewilderment at why the Mayor has not yet called for martial law.
UPDATE
Mayor Nagin finally declared Martial Law last night as he always has had a right to and long after adjoinng parishes had made that declaration. And now that an organized evacuation is finally starting and troops are coming in to start what will be a very long process to regain order, there is nothing to say about this situation. Appropriate actions are starting - and only just starting - to protect the people of New Orleans. Now all we can do is make certain our local state and federal governments will be there for support during the many years it is going to take to rebuild New Orleans and the surrouding areas.
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27 comments:
I just heard a replay of the WDSU interivew with Mayor Nagin and he needs to get some sleep. He made absolutely no sense. Not to try and be funny, but he sounded as if he was on drugs. Besides the whole helicopter rant, he tried to claim there had been no fires at all in NO, but then he said there were fires, but that they had nothing to do with looting.
I just pray that he can get it together by tomorrow.
Heard interview on WDSU by Nagin last night when he said that all the people stranded had been rescued, but now on WWL they are saying that there are still hundreds of people waiting to be rescued, and that there are not enough boats.
Why is it a surprise to those in government that a hurricane might hit New Orleans?
This port accepts supertankers. It never occurred to anyone that we might need oil after a hurricane?
This area has oil refineries. Couldn't anyone surmise that our need for gasoline wouldn't end with a hurricane?
What about planning for the inevitable? Or was this the plan?
Don't judge Nagin too severely -- you may not be familiar with his pre-hurricane record, but it is excellent; he has done more to clean up corruption in New Orleans than anyone else since the Huey P. Long days. He is coming across as tired and angry, but then, he probably hasn't slept in five days and like as not has lost his home as well. Nobody would be at their best in those conditions.
I completely agree that the evacuation situation down there is completely disorganized, but that is as much or more the responsibility of FEMA, the National Guard and the governor as it is Nagin; there are a lot of different parties over there with overlapping authority, none of whom have the resources to do an ideal job.
I definitely agree that New Orleans should have had a better evacuation plan in place. On the other hand, Nagin told everybody in the city to get the hell out; my sympathy is with the people who could not, but not very much with those who WOULD not. I say this as a former resident of the city and one whose stubborn uncle is still down there. We are worried sick, but so far he is safe.
--- "he has done more to clean up corruption in New Orleans than anyone else since the Huey P. Long days" ---
If that's true than I'll give Nagin credit for not being merely one more version of those government officials or bureaucrats in general who are responsible for screw-ups along the lines of (and closer to home) the MLK-Drew Medical Center in south LA. I at first suspected he was the end result of people in mostly poor urban areas such as New Orleans gravitating to, and voting for, exceptionally bad, incompetent or corruption-prone politicians or decisionmakers.
I fully agree with the poster who praised Mayor Nagin for cleaning up corruption in New Orleans. Everyone I have talked to in - and from - New Orleans - has mostly good things to say about him and his pre-hurricane policies (though a couple posters on other sites are now saying that he property interact with the various disaster agencies in months/year before this event).
But it is that very confidence his citizens had in him that made his refusal to order mandatory evacuation for so long (even after the governor and the president had asked him to) so inexcusable. And during the interviews I saw in the morning/afternoon before the story hit (and I did not see the announcment of him and the governor making that mandatory evacuation), he was asking people to leave, but he did not plead with them or demand that they leave. It was all very low key
And his statements - even after he made that belated declaration - that it would only take New Orleans a week or two to recover from the hurricane undoubtedly convinced many people that if they stayed, the city would become liveable in a very short time, making them less likey to leave.
As for his failure to provide the organized removal of the people who could not leave the city by cars, now that the feds are in place, that problem will be taken care of and there is no need to continue to talk about that.
Nothing can be done to fix the mistakes of the past, and the new team now in place is starting to deal with a disaster far beyond anything this country has ever seen.
Now all we can do is enough out own lawmakers to provide New Orleans - and the rest of the Gulf Coast - whatever assistance they need for not just the next few months - but for the next few years.
What the people of New Orleans and surrounding areas is far beyond what any of us can imagine.
You're fingerpointing is wrong. As soon as the disaster area declarations are made Nagin is really not in charge - FEMA is. And they were made before the hurricane hit.
The decision to call a "voluntary evacuation" (strongly worded to be close to mandatory) to clear the suburbs, then evacuate the city was sound. He tried to prevent gridlock on the roads which could have caused even bigger problems. At least most people got out.
As far as Nagin's demeanor now, he is trying to stay calm. I bet he is very tired, frustrated, and sad. Do you want your mayor showing fear and panic?
I am guessing his race is the cause of as much of the anti-Nagin blogging as anything else.
Also, I can't help but remember that Giuliani's progression on 9/11 and thereafter was to consistently overstate the loss of life and property and consistently understate the environmental hazards. The only reason he came out looking so good was because things were never as bad as he said they were. Nagin must be given credit for ramping up the rhetoric as the situation became more dire, but he was hamstrung by geography, time, and federal interference. Plus, it's his city too, and he's standing there having to calmly describe how his hometown is being swallowed in a toxic soup. You just try and do better. He just doesn't have what he needs to save his constituents and no one is giving it to him.
I voted Nagin and I fully support him. He has made a few poor decisions in the past few days but I am confident that he will find his and and lead us out of this disaster. I am posting here and everywhere I can to urge everyone to ask him to declare martial law as soon as possible.
At this point, people need to be forcibly removed out of the city. Asking people to leave it asinine. Telling people to leave is asinine Telling people where to go is futile. Send in buses, manned by National Guard, and round up people.
If the mayor of this city isn't getting any help, he needs to get on the air and plead his case to embarass those people who are withholding.
Everyone needs to get out of there, rip them out of they aren't getting out at this point. No I'm not talking about those who just refused to leave when the mandatory evac was announced. I'm talking about those who refuse to leave even today when the police and first responders are telling them to get the *bleed* out of Dodge.
I don't think you can blame anyone.
When was the last time New Orleans was completely flooded like this? Not in living memory.
How much warning did they have? About 3-4 days. But how many times in the past have hurricanes been hyped in the media only to fizzle?
And then when it first seemed to have fizzled (at least according to early reports on the damage), I think a lot of people let down their guard.
Still, they tried to evacuate most of the city. It was declared a disaster area before the hurricane actually hit.
And the National Guard has been mobilized and there are several Navy ships on the way. I realize people want them there immediately, but just how do you get all these National Guard people there? Fly them in? When the airports are largely closed? Drive in? How, when the roads were all going the other way (and many are washed out).
And bear in mind, many of those that stayed pretty much had to stay. If you don't have a car, how exactly do you flee a city? And where do you go and stay? Chances are good, if you don't have a car, it's because you are poor, which pretty much puts staying in a hotel out of the question.
"As soon as the disaster area declarations are made Nagin is really not in charge - FEMA is. "
This is simply wrong. Declaring the area a disaster area is standard procedure before a hurricane strikes. The only thing it does is free up the federal funds officially that they will need for recovery. It does not transfer authority over to FEMA - the state authorities are in charge - until they can't handle it.
The people responsible for the safety of NO citizens is the mayor, the governor and the people themselves.
To claim this is FEMA's fault or the Feds fault is just wrong. Frankly, blaming anyone for this is just wrong. Disasters happen - we try to be as prepared as we can - but you can't fully prepare for devastation on this scale.
We will all have plenty of time to bitch and moan later - and those who find it necessary will have plenty of time to blame the evil Bush . Right now - how bout we all just send help to these poor people. This is a catastrophe of immense proportions for this country. I think most people have failed to figure out how bad this is.
I disagree about Nagin. He's been very calm and very direct. He did get 80% of the city to evacuate (which, granted, left a hell of a lot of people in the city, but can you name anybody, anytime, anywhere who manage a 100% evacuation of a major metropolitan area in 4 days?)
And what good is "declaring martial law" if there are not enough police, and the police can't communicate?
I don't think Nagin has been slow to react at all. He has been quick to react, but he's been getting bad information (particularly about the levees). Under those circumstances, I think it's wrong to fault him.
What good is declaring "martial law" when, according to the state Attorney General's office, there is no such thing under Louisiana law?
Where is the National Guard? Where are the Armed Forces? Bush is asleep at the wheel, as usual. The system should be able to respond to this without immediate leadership from politicos, except budgets have been slashed because God is on our side.
It takes a true idiot to blame the Federal Government or President for what occurs in a city after a natural disaster such as this. Well, either that or someone who is too fucking stupid to look past his ideological blinders. Than again, these are the same uneducated fools who blame or heap praise on a President during/after an Economic boom/recession. My advice to you, get a refresher course of Government and Civics.
If you want to put blame on someone put blame where it belongs; the people that refused to leave, the predators that prey on thos who stayed, the local government for not preparing better and issue better, clearer evacuation orders and/or mandatory evacuation notices, and the state government for not proclaiming martial law earlier, so as to maintain law and order prior to it failing apart completely like it now has. It is not about polituical ideology, its about bad choices by people.
Given that this is a disaster of unparalleled magnitude for this nation, I won't comment on the disorder of the rescue and recovery effort. How could there not be some? We are in uncharted waters, no pun intended.
People here say the evacuation plan for the city was sound. I can't comment there either, as I have little knowledge of the city and its management.
However, given that this scenario was well publicized and inevitable, I cannot help but wonder about the planning that was done to assist those who wished to leave but could not. There seems to have been no plan to help these people, get them to central points, and evacuate them on city busses, or what have you. There seemed to be no consideration given to their plight in an evacuation plan that said to the most vulnerable -- see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.
You can't stop a hurricane. You can't stop the flood. You can't even prevent many deaths from occurring in such circumstances. But you can make some sort of effort to minimize them. And it does not seem to have been done for the poor and vulnerable of New Orleans. And that's a travesty.
LaurieK
If you know some people are going to stay behind because they were too poor to leave, as has been stated, why didn't someone (the gov't)provide the means by chartering the transportation to evacuate before the hurricane hit? Was it the cost? Well, people are being 'chartered' away after the fact, and someone is still footing the bill! But even the best plans can go awry when some stupid idiot shoots at the very ones trying to help. There could be a convoy of help coming, but if they are going to get shot at by a bunch of ignorants, they may turn and head for Pascagoula!
I pulled the below piece from Reuters.
The pictures of the catastrophe -- which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of crises in the world's poorest nations such as last year's tsunami in Asia, which left more than 230,000 people dead or missing.
But some view the response to those disasters more favorably than the lawless aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."
It seems to me that when it comes down to it. It is all our faults. We are losing our compassion to help others. Everyone is out for themselves. I keep hearing the NO residents say help us! They should also be saying we need to help ourselves. They need to get rid of the Thugs in NO and in all other cities. Gangsters at all levels (whether it be in the street or in the business sector) need to be dealt with. People should always be prepared. Everyone who reads this better go and buy emergency supplies (extra water, food, medicine, and other essentials). This kind of disaster can happen to any of us. I personally think that NO officials showed have had more of a plan. They have know for years that the levees could not hold a major storm, but no one has ever done anything about it!
So please everyone be prepared. Gather your emergency supplies in case of a disaster. You also might want to make sure you have a gun (locked up of course) to protect your family.
This man has been the ultimate do-nothing mayor. He has utterly failed the people. He is not a leader.
Beware, the government can't help you. You must help yourself and your neighbor. Do not expect more from others than you do yourself.
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared a state of emergency, and ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Some of those who remained behind were too poor to escape via normal public or private transportation. The poorest residents had no way out of town. Photos have shown fleets of school buses still parked in their flooded lots. Why those buses were not pressed into service, no one knows. The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan clearly states, "The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas," and "Transportation will be provided to those persons requiring public transportation from the area." Part II, Section B, paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan (supplement 1A) states, "School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles, and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."
Public buses only took people to the Superdome, which was clearly not outside the threatened area. The school buses were never used at all. Emergency plans are created for a reason, and need to be followed in order to ensure the safety of the citizens. Perhaps Mayor Nagin, if he was so concerned about evacuating the city of New Orleans and save all the poor black residents who people like Randall Robinson, Jesse Jackson, and Kanye West believe were slighted by the President and the Republican government, he would have used the over two-hundred school buses at a depot in New Orleans. It is estimated that each bus could have carried around sixty-six people. At a round number, if there were two-hundred buses that could carry sixty-six people at a time, that's 13,200 people evacuated to safety - on just one trip. Now those buses are under water and are mostly useless. But instead of doing what he could have done at a local level to save his residents, Mayor Nagin sat on his hands and waited for the federal response, then proceeded to bite the hand that is trying to save his city.
Days later, Nagin complains to CNN, "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses." You had them, Mayor. You chose not to use them, and now you blame the President and the federal government for your mistakes.
I don't know if Nagin broke city ordinance or state law in ignoring the emergency plans, but his failure certainly makes him morally culpable in the deaths of the people he failed to provide a way out. And his failure likely cost hundreds, maybe thousands of lives.
Its his responsabilty go to the NEW ORLEANS WEB SITE!
He made things alot worse then they it should...
he should trailed for murder!
mike268.
To the poster that said Nagin should be tried for murder, several thousand counts of criminally negligent homicide sounds right on the money.
Your comments are absolutley correct. His obvious incompetance is criminal and what is so infuriating is the media is helping him swing the blame on the Bush administration with the one sided reorting and remarks.
I have observed many who have voiced an opinion on tv/radio/blogs are all screaming how slow the feds response was to this tragedy and how our President doesn't care because these evacuees were predominatley black. Over and over you hear/read the federal government did a terrible job in responding to this tragedy. All of this is being broadcast loudly and relentlessly to take attention away from the fact New Orleans has a Mayor and Louisiana has a Governor and the emergency preparations/precautions begin at their level.
It was Nagin's job to make sure those who could not get out on their own had a way, and if he could not or did not the Governor should have had assistance on standby just in case she had to step up in those 2-3 days before the first raindrop fell.This hurricane was no surprise...they ARE on the coast and the flooding was no surprise...the city has been BELOW SEA LEVEL SINCE IT WAS FOUNDED. They should have had serious 'what if' scenarios in place for years. A diaster of this magnitude was not an 'if it would happen' but 'when it does'.
MAYOR NAGIN AND GOVERNOR BLANCO BOTH BEAR A LARGE PART OF THE RESPONSIBILTY OF THE LIVES DAMAGED AND LOST IN THIS TRAGEDY.
...and this has NOTHING to do with race. Incompetance has no color.
I watched Mayor Nagin demand Mandatory evacuation on CNN 4 or 5 timnes...NEVER...NEVER did he even mention the poor folk who lhad no way out.......I was shocked AFTER Katrina hit....to hear there were thousands of poor who had no choice....and Nagin showed ABSOLUTELY NO LEADERSHIP in New Orleans in the days that followed...He sat up in the Hiltonb drinking Bottled water until he saw an "opportunity" which was his infamous idiotic (all for show of course!) demand for the Feds to "get off their ass"....a couple of hours later he was on CNN lovingly carressing Bushes shoulder.....A real hypocrite...He should have been at the dome sharing his bottled water or giving pep talks and HOPE to his people......A Leader...Nagin is not....He should be kicked out of the State of Louisiana!!!!
In case you aren’t familiar with how our government is SUPPOSED to work:
The chain of responsiblity for the protection of the citizens in New Orleans is:
1. The Mayor
2. The New Orleans director of Homeland Security (a political appointee of the Governor who reports to the Governor)
3. The Governor
4. The Head of Homeland Security
5. The President
What did each do?
1. The mayor, with 5 days advance, waited until 2 days before he announced a mandatory evacuation (at the behest of the President). The he failed to provide transportation for those without transport even though he had hundreds of buses at his disposal.
2. The New Orleans director of Homeland Security failed to have any plan for a contingency that has been talked about for 50 years. Then he blames the Feds for not doing what he should have done. (So much for political appointees)
3. The Governor, despite a declaration of disaster by the President 2 DAYS BEFORE the storm hit, failed to take advantage of the offer of Federal troops and aid. Until 2 DAYS AFTER the storm hit.
4. The Director of Homeland Security positioned assets in the area to be ready when the Governor called for them
5. The President urged a mandatory evacuation, and even declared a disaster State of Emergency, freeing up millions of dollars of federal assistance, should the Governor decide to use it.
Oh and by the way, the levees that broke were the responsibility of the local landowners and the local levee board to maintain, NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The disaster in New Orleans is what you get after decades of corrupt (democrat) government going all the way back to Huey Long.
Funds for disaster protection and relief have been flowing into this city for decades, and where has it gone, but into the pockets of the politicos and their friends.
Decades of socialist government in New Orleans has sapped all self reliance from the community, and made them dependent upon government for every little thing.
Political correctness and a lack of will to fight crime have created the single most corrupt police force in the country, and has permitted gang violence to flourish.
The sad thing is that there are many poor folks who have suffered and died needlessly because those that they voted into office failed them.
For those who missed item 5 (where the President’s level of accountability is discussed), it is made more clear in a New Orleans Times-Picayune article dated August 28:
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin
Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.
The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding. (emphasis mine)
The ball was placed in Mayor Nagin’s court to carry out the evacuation order. With a 5-day heads-up, he had the authority to use any and all services to evacuate all residents from the city, as documented in a city emergency preparedness plan. By waiting until the last minute, and failing to make full use of resources available within city limits, Nagin and his administration SCREWED up.
Mayor Nagin and his emergency sidekick Terry Ebbert have displayed lethal, mind boggling incompetence before, during and after Katrina.
As for Mayor Nagin, he and his profile in pathetic leadership police chief should resign as well. That city’s government is incompetent from one end to the other. The people of New Orleans deserve better than this crowd of clowns is capable of giving them.
If you’re keeping track, these boobs let 569 buses that could have carried 33,350 people out of New Orleans–in one trip–get ruined in the floods. Whatever plan these guys had, it was a dud. Or it probably would have been if they’d bothered to follow it.
As for all the race-baiting rhetoric and Bush-bashing coming from prominent blacks on the left, don’t expect Ray Nagin to be called out on the carpet for falling short. You want to know why? Here’s why:
It’s more convenient to blame a white president for what went wrong than to hold a black mayor and his administration accountable for gross negligence and failing to fully carry out an established emergency preparedness plan.
To hold Nagin and his administration accountable for dropping the ball amounts to letting loose the shouts and cries of “Racism!”. It’s sad, it’s wrong, but it’s standard operating procedure for the media and left-wing black leadership.
Mark my words: you will not hear a word of criticism from Jesse Jackson Sr., Randall Robinson, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, or Kanye West being directed toward Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. Why? Because he is just another black politician instead of a responsible elected official who happens to be black. In the mindset of more-blacker-than-thou blacks, black politicians who are on their side can do no wrong.
I live in Columbus Ohio. We also have an idiot of a mayor like Nagin. God help us all. Stop playing the race card.
Mayor Ray Nagin, All of City Councilmembers, The Orleans Levee Board, Senator Landrieu and Governor Blanco should be jailed for the murder of over 1300 innocent people. I hold them personally responsible for squandering the pilfering the money that was collected to repair and inspect the levees. Millions of dollars are collected each year and the greedy politicians steal it and does nothing for this dirty trashy city. Unkempt lots, abandoned apartment building, piss poor schools, broken streets, etc is the norm in New Orleans.
One question that I would like to ask Mayor Nagin is: How did his son beat a seven felony count in New York city three years ago? Man, that must have been some favor?
I am a black female whose home received 5' of water. I personally blame Marc Morial, Ray Nagin, The orleans levee board, the city council members, senator landrieu and the idiotic governor Blanco. All should be arrested and carted off to jail for murder, misappropriating federal and state funds, and being just plain dumb.
The city of new orleans is one of the most corrupt cities on the planet. They take in millions of dollars in taxes monthly and distributes it out to their cronies. The city streets, the schools, and residential areas look like a third world country.
Mayor Nagin has a black face but is clearly controlled by others who put him in office. He is a punk with no balls. One question I would like to ask Mayor Nagin is: How did his son beat a seven felony count in New York City three years ago? With whom do you owe this favor? Why is your family living in another state? Where does all the money go that is collected by the city? Why weren't you monitering the money that went to the levee board? I hope that the over 1300 people that died because of you will come back and haunt your ass.
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