Nagin speaks
The Times-Picayune publishes/blogs a lengthy interview with Mayor Nagin by reporter Gordon Russell. Lots in there; judge for yourself:
: On the buses:
Federal officials have also faulted Nagin’s administration for not marshaling its own buses and those of the School Board to start ferrying the tens of thousands of evacuees stranded at the Superdome and the Convention Center out of town.
Nagin said perhaps some of the criticism is fair. But he said there were various logistical hurdles that made it hard to use that equipment, and the buses would have hardly created a dent in the size of the crowds anyway.
“It’s up for analysis,†he said. “But we didn’t have enough buses. I don’t control the school buses, and the RTA (Regional Transit Authority) buses as far as I know were positioned high and dry. But 80 percent of the city was not high and dry. Where would we have staged them? And who was going to drive them even if we commandeered them? If I’d have marshaled 50 RTA buses, and a few school buses, it still wouldn’t have been nearly enough. We didn’t get food, water and ice in this place, and that’s way above the local level.
“Our plan was always to use the buses to evacuate to the Dome as a shelter of last resort, and from there, rely on state and federal resources.â€
Those resources took way too long to arrive, Nagin said – in fact, much of the help didn’t arrive until after the mass evacuations from the Dome and the Convention Center had occurred.
Well, there’s the first FOIA I want to see: Let’s see the plan. Let’s see all the plans: city, state, and federal. Who was supposed to do what?
On the federal and state response:
Nagin’s biggest frustration, and his biggest source of puzzlement, is the slow pace with which relief arrived. He said state and federal officials made repeated promises that weren’t kept….“All I saw was a huge two-step, if you will, between the federal government and the state as far as who had the final authority. Promises made that weren’t really kept. It was frustrating. We’d analyze things, double-check them, and then, later in the afternoon, we’d find out that someone was changing the plan, moving resources around.†…
“ I think the government ought to be asking itself, ‘What happened to the resources?
Why were people promised resources and they didn’t show up? Where were the military resources? Where was the National Guard? Why were we left with a city on the verge of collapse, fighting for the soul of the city, with 200 National Guardsmen and 1,200 police?…”
On the SuperDome and Convention Center:
The city’s hurricane plan calls for portable toilets at shelters, but none ever arrived. Nagin said his understanding was that the National Guard was in charge of providing them.
Also, he added, “Our plan never assumed people being in the Dome more than two or three days.â€
On the worst he saw:
“I saw stuff that I never thought I would see in my lifetime,†he said. “People wanting to die. People trying to give me babies and things. It was a helpless, helpless feeling.
“There was a lady waiting in line for bus who had a miscarriage. She was cleaning herself off so she wouldn’t lose her place in line. There were old people saying, ‘Just let me lay down and die.’ It’s bull…., absolutely bull….. It’s unbelievable that this would happen in America.â€
On whether people will return:
“I think some people will probably not come back,†he said. “You know, Texas is treating people very well, probably much better than we treated people.’’
On blame: Nagin acknowledged…
…that he may have made some mistakes but said that he hopes others in positions of authority – including President George W. Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco — are scrutinized as closely as he and his staff have been.
“I’m not pointing any fingers at anyone,†Nagin said. “But I was in the fire. I was down there. Where were they? I’m confident the truth is gonna come out. But I want everybody’s record analyzed just as hard as mine….“It was a serious breakdown,†the mayor continued. “Make sure that whether it’s Ray Nagin or the governor or the president, we take a serious look at this and make the changes that need to be made. I’m afraid some of this was a tug-of-war about who gets to spend the money at the end of the day. And I don’t appreciate that….
“Analyze my ass, analyze everyone’s ass, man. Let’s put the facts on the table and talk turkey. Why was there a breakdown at the federal and state level only in Louisiana? This didn’t happen in Mississippi. That’s the question. That’s the question of the day.â€
Nagin told the T-P that he bought a house in Dallas and that his child will go to school there. He will live in New Orleans but doesn’t know where; his house was in a bad flood area.
Tags: neworleans
September 10th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
This is a joke right? Mayor Disaster and Governor Total Disaster, can they be impeached? Have to check my civics.
I want to scream. SAd, sad, sad. I am actually crying. Thank God for Jeb Bush, Mayor Penelas, and all of Florida. man.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Jeff,
There’s no need for an FOIA request to get the New Orleans emergency plan. It’s online at http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=3 and http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf
The details of locations for shelters and staging areas are left out, as they should be (since you don’t know what areas will be safe during planning, only what areas are likely to be safer.) Note that local transportation mobilization is explicitly part of Stage III.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
No need for FOIA this time, Jeff. The material is on the ‘net.
The City plan states:
“The thorough identification of at-risk populations, transportation and sheltering resources, evacuation routes and potential bottlenecks and choke points, and the establishment of the management team that will coordinate not only the evacuation but which will monitor and direct the sheltering and return of affected populations, are the primary tasks of evacuation planning. ***
“Authority to issue evacuations of elements of the population is vested in the Mayor. By Executive Order, the chief elected official, the Mayor of the City of New Orleans, has the authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.
“Evacuation procedures for special needs persons with either physical or mental handicaps, including registration of disabled persons, is covered in the SOP for Evacuation of Special Needs Persons.
***
“Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the Mayor of New Orleans in coordination with the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and the OEP Shelter Coordinator.
***
“The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed.
***
“Transportation will be provided to those persons requiring public transportation from the area.
***
“V. TASKS
A. Mayor
* Initiate the evacuation.
* Retain overall control of all evacuation procedures via EOC operations.
* Authorize return to evacuated areas.
B. Office of Emergency Preparedness
* Activate EOC and notify all support agencies to this plan.
* Coordinate with State OEP on elements of evacuation.
* Assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas.
* Assist ESF-8, Health and Medical, in the evacuation of persons with special needs, nursing home, and hospital patients in accordance with established procedures.
* Coordinate the release of all public information through ESF-14, Public Information.
* Use EAS, television, cable and other public broadcast means as needed and in accordance with established procedure.
* Request additional law enforcement/traffic control (State Police, La. National Guard) from State OEP.
C. New Orleans Police Department
* Ensure orderly traffic flow.
* Assist in removing disabled vehicles from roadways as needed.
* Direct the management of transportation of seriously injured persons to hospitals as needed.
* Direct evacuees to proper shelters and/or staging areas once they have departed the threatened area.
* Release all public information through the ESF-14, Public Information.
D. Regional Transit Authority
* Supply transportation as needed in accordance with the current Standard Operating Procedures.
* Place special vehicles on alert to be utilized if needed.
* Position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses.
* If warranted by scope of evacuation, implement additional service.
E. Louisiana National Guard
* Provide assistance as needed in accordance with current State guidelines.”
***
The state plan provides that:
“The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. However, school and municipal buses and, where available, specialized vehicles will be used to transport those hurricane evacuees who do not have transportation.”
As noted above, the city plan called for the Regional Transit Authority to supply transportation as needed, position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses, with the Mayor retaining overall control of all evacuation procedures. The RTA emergency plan dedicated only 64 buses and 10 lift vans to move people somewhere; whether that means out of town or to local shelters of last resort would depend oÂn emergency planners’ decision at that moment.
New Orleans had about 360 city buses at its disposal. At the link you can also see those inreasingly famous pictures of another 200-250 school buses that went unused. The school buses could have been commandeered by Gov. Blanco, who got around to buses on Sept. 1st. In contrast, FEMA got Greyhound buses moving on Aug. 31st, within hours of the request.
As for the supposed difficulty in rapidly mobilizing the city buses before the hurricane hit, a satellite photo shows that the city bus yard was 1.2 miles from the Superdome.
So there were at least 500 buses that could have driven around 30,000 poor people out of the city.
As Chris Rock noted on Friday’s telethon: “Why didn’t these people just leave when they had the chance? But now we realize that not everybody can just jump into their SUVs and drive to a nice hotel. These people depend on public transportation and these people can’t afford a nice hotel, because some of them work there. Now it’s your chance to help them.”
The Mayor and Governor could have provided that public transportation, but did not.
As the Washington Post reported:
“[T]he federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts oÂn the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period.”
On July 24, 2005, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a story with the following lede:
“City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans’ poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you’re oÂn your own.”
Read the whole thing; the only reference to a federal employee is the National Weather Service.
In January, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that local official knew of the inadequacy of the Superdome as a shelter of last resort.
Nevertheless, on Monday, Aug. 29th, as 10,000 arrived at the Dome, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported:
“By 3 p.m., more than 10,000 people were either outside the Dome in long, deep lines or had made their way inside. Those with medical illnesses or disabilities were funneled to oÂne side of the makeshift shelter, equipped with supplies and medical personnel. The other side was a place to ride out the storm.
“‘The people arriving oÂn this side of the building are expected to fend for themselves,’ said Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director. ‘We have some water.’”
The Office of Emergency Preparedness — immediately below the Mayor in the city plan — had no plan for sheltering the general public except for Red Cross shelters outside of the city, but there was no plan to help people get to those shelters. And the state Homeland Security Department kept the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane.
Whatever FEMA’s failures are determined to be, I think it will be hard to top the locals’ failure to use those buses to evacuate people out of the city to the Red Cross facilities (or to Baton Rouge) before the hurricane hit. It’s obviously much easier to drive buses out of the city — even with the massive traffic jam an evacuation creates — than it is to try to rescue people and deliver aid by air and boat after it hits.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
Sal_M beat me to it, but you can surmise I was typing longer!
September 10th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
Folks, don’t waste your time responding. Jeff decided that this was FEMA’s fault–even with the information you provided available on the net.
Just waiting to read how the folks not allowed to cross the Crescent City bridge was due to FEMA’s mismanagement. *Munches popcorn.* Should be a pretty good read.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
And pardon the typos and sentence construction problems… how I miss the “preview” button!
September 10th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
klarkin,
Jeff’s post suggests he hadn’t seen the city and state plans. In my experience, JJ is not the type to reject info out-of-hand. It may not change his opinion of FEMA’s performance, but I suspect Jeff will at least entertain the notion that some of FEMA’s supposed screw-ups may be related to having to adjust to additional problems created by the Mayor and the Governor.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
In fact, if you use the neworleans tag and scroll a bit, you’ll find that JJ is on record as saying he doesn’t trust Gov. Blanco.
September 10th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Thanks, EverKarl.
Yes, karlkin, methinks he doth protest too f’ing much: too quick to defend one side vs. another.
Every side, every level screwed up New Orleans and lives were lost as a result.
Every side, every level should take responsibility.
And yes, that includes FEMA.
Are you saying they are blameless? Are you saying they did a great job?
September 10th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
I don’t think many will try to make the case that FEMA and the feds are blameless — that impression comes from the automatic defensiveness caused by the quick barrage of attacks and misinformation.
I don’t think your outrage was quite as politically motivated as most, JJ. But I think you were responding to much early information that was skewed because of an over-eagerness to lay the blame as close to Bush as possible.
Still, it’s hard not to get a little annoyed at Nagin’s interviews. At this point, he’s still asking *these* questions? “Where would we have staged them? And who was going to drive them even if we commandeered them?”
He seems to suggest those are rhetorical questions… conundrums with no possible solutions. To the contrary, deploying city employees to determine staging areas and drivers is just what he should have been doing the minute he issued the evacuation orders, while there was time! I heard him deliver the evacuation notice live on TV, long before the disaster actually hit… was he not taking his own order seriously?
Not to defend FEMA, but is it not their job to step in *after* a disaster, not before? FEMA’s very nature is to be “late”. The mayor was responsible for the poor performance *before* which made the disaster that much worse *after*.
September 10th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Carson:
I think that every level and every side messed up and if every level and every side does not admit that, we will get nowhere.
September 10th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Jeff,
No one, including FEMA itself, has argued that its performance has been flawless. No, far from it.
However, I am still waiting to hear definitively on what FEMA could have done on its own (remember, there’s no such thing as FEMA Special Forces) once the state and city of NO governments completely failed and all semblance of law and order broke down.
If you want to blame Bush, that’s fine. Thus far, he can be blamed primarily because he refused to violate the Posse Comitatus and Insurrection Acts. As we have now learned, due to Blanco’s obstinance and incompetence, the only option the federal government could have exercised for at least 48 critical hours last week would have been to violate federal law to have the US military defy lawfully (purportedly) elected state officials and take over NO.
Maybe Bush should have taken the clear risk of impeachment and done so. He certainly would have had a good defense argument.
If there’s one thing that we’ve learned from this, it’s that the century old laws that prevented quicker federal action need to be revisited for crises such as this.
I’ll wait until a deliberate and considered analysis of FEMA’s actions can be made to pass judgment on their actions.
September 10th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
Police seal a bridge in order to stop evacuees. They confiscate supplies. Shoot over their heads. This kind of thing I see popping up on the left wing blogs — this one from Atrios in particular — they seem to think that all levels of authority emenate from Bush and Republicans, even the local police, while their guys (Nagin, Blanco, and now Dallas mayor Laura Miller who refers to “the government” as an alien entity) have no responsibility, no power, no connection, no jurisdiction. I guess this is left over from the 60s when everybody else was The Man. Never us. Always them.
Some of these police were from Jefferson Parish, the source of a laundry list of complaints from a local official about the feds that keeps getting posted. What’s the responsibility of the local officials for the behavior of the police force in this crisis? Any at all?
September 10th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
I think that every level and every side messed up and if every level and every side does not admit that, we will get nowhere.
Thanks, JJ. I think that’s actually pretty constructive. Most of the sources of early complaints, though, were monstrously one-sided.
September 10th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Carson - just one point of correction. You said “Not to defend FEMA, but is it not their job to step in *after* a disaster, not before? FEMA’s very nature is to be “lateâ€.
According to the stuff I’ve been reading (the actual Stafford Act, not summaries) their job is both. Direct reports of the Hurricane Pam exercise, for example, show that at a minimum the planning process was truncated due to budgetary constraints at FEMA. Their funding was cut. The budget at DoD for interoperable communications systems was cut. It appears that FEMA may have overpromised and underdelivered.
I don’t say this to blame or defend anyone. Both political parties have contributed to the situation. To me one lesson is that our budgeting systems - and hence our ability to prioritize - is seriously broken at levels ranging from Congress, through departments, through the agencies, and down to the operations level. This is probably true at state and local levels as well in many cases, certainly in some.
I’m not familiar enough with the National Incident Management System to discuss if it was used appropriately or not. There are many, many questions, some of a highly technical nature, that won’t be resolved or answered for a long time, if ever.
But I can answer your question about FEMA’s role - they are supposed to be engaged both before and after the event.
September 10th, 2005 at 9:31 pm
>> think that every level and every side messed up and if every level and every side does not admit that, we will get nowhere.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:07 pm
However, I am still waiting to hear definitively on what FEMA could have done on its own (remember, there’s no such thing as FEMA Special Forces) once the state and city of NO governments completely failed and all semblance of law and order broke down.
If you want to blame Bush, that’s fine. Thus far, he can be blamed primarily because he refused to violate the Posse Comitatus and Insurrection Acts. As we have now learned, due to Blanco’s obstinance and incompetence, the only option the federal government could have exercised for at least 48 critical hours last week would have been to violate federal law to have the US military defy lawfully (purportedly) elected state officials and take over NO.
Probably, if FEMA hadn’t been so addicted to red tape, they’d be more effective. Also, while history will show Blanco to be higly culpable, it probably didn’t help that FEMA was squabbling about org charts and lines of authority when she was asking for resources like food, water and helicopters (national forces aren’t barred by Posse Comitatus from engaging in search and rescue actions as far as I can understand).
September 10th, 2005 at 10:10 pm
Without the screwups by Nagin and Blanco, the FEMA problems would scarcely be noticeable. It is directly because Blanco and Nagin, for reasons of both politics and incompetence, left tens of thousands hanging in NOLA that FEMA’s efforts to play catch-up look so bad.
However, it it always the role of “moderates” to pretend that everybody is equally to blame.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
roger,
Looks like you’ve already made up your mind less than 2 weeks after the events.
That’s fine, but I’d like to hear more about the squabbles about org charts and lines of authority. Can you provide some verified info on that? It seems that most of what we’ve been hearing is based on rumor or off the record calims by those who have the most to lose politically from the truth coming out. Thanks.
BTW, i’m not sure that search & rescue could have been provided without enforceing the law at the same time. Your EMS types need protection when civil society completely breaks down. I believe that if the feds did that without authority from the gov (authority that she refused to provde), then they would have been in violation of the law as I outlined above.
September 10th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
national forces aren’t barred by Posse Comitatus from engaging in search and rescue actions as far as I can understand).
No, they aren’t. But Fema leaders don’t send their “trained for rescue not for battle” people in as unarmed fodder for rapists, thugs and jackals , nor should they. FEMA needed the military in those critical hours. Bush had FEMA present in a timely manner - he had the military there in a timely manner to clear the way for FEMA. He had it all there.
Who prevented the military team from making it possible for FEMA to do their search and rescue?
September 10th, 2005 at 11:14 pm
On the Posse Comitatus and Insurrection Acts from U.S. Northern Command:
***
“The PCA generally prohibits U.S. military personnel from direct participation in law enforcement activities. Some of those law enforcement activities would include interdicting vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities. Prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement is in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the military’s role in domestic affairs.
The United States Congress has enacted a number of exceptions to the PCA that allow the military, in certain situations, to assist civilian law enforcement agencies in enforcing the laws of the U.S. The most common example is counterdrug assistance (Title 10 USC, Sections 371-381). Other examples include:
The Insurrection Act (Title 10 USC, Sections 331-335). This act allows the president to use U.S. military personnel *at the request of a state legislature or governor* to suppress insurrections. It also allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal laws when rebellion against the authority of the U.S. makes it impracticable to enforce the laws of the U.S.” (Emphasis added.)
***
http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.factsheets&factsheet=5
September 10th, 2005 at 11:53 pm
Jeff asked me:
Are you saying they are blameless? Are you saying they did a great job?
Since you asked…
My initial post assumes there are some failures by FEMA. However, I think Jeff Goldstein has a point in writing:
“For those of you who are spreading the blame around to include the reaction of FEMA (and not simply Michael Brown’s presentation of the situation), be specific. Simply insisting that they ‘didn’t do enough’ or ‘didn’t do things fast enough’ is insufficient. It is an assertion and an accusation disguised as an established fact. And I’m not willing to accept the premise.”
Imho, Katrina has pulled back the curtain on problems at FEMA. Most obviously, the cronyism at the top. Post-9/11, this country cannot afford to have those jobs filled on the basis of patronage. We could do without a bureaucracy that makes firefighters do PR and sit through sexual harassment sensitivity training in the middle of a crisis (I’m guessing the latter wasn’t a Bush initiative, btw). And one of the biggest missteps may be that FEMA didn’t have someone simply monitoring the television coverage, which would have told them that the information they were getting from state and local officials was often incomplete or dead wrong. The LAPD made a similar mistake during the post-Rodney King verdict riots, which led to a slow response to thigs like the Denny beating.
However, some of the accusations made against the feds’ response may not hold up. roger tang will be glad to know from that link that military helos were on the scene doing damage assessments and search & rescue ops on Tuesday. Similarly, Greg Burton will be glad to know that as early as August 27, the President declared a state of emergency in Louisiana two days before the hurricane made landfall, activating efforts by FEMA to position stockpiles of food, water and medical supplies throughout Louisiana and Mississippi more than a day before Katrina made landfall. But it should be obvious that you can’t put supplies or people too close, unless you want to risk having it all lost to the hurricane, too. I’ve seen the feds blamed for keeping the Red Cross out of N.O., also — and it’s now clear that’s not true.
Moreover, complaints about the response time after a hurricane need to consider that the logistics of disaster relief are very unforgiving. And those hard logistic realities explain why the federal plan doesn’t really kick in until 72-96 hours after a storm has passed.
Indeed, even James Lee Witt, who is generally regarded as a very good FEMA director ran into problems when Hurricane Floyd hit, with delayed response times (see here and here for stories that sound familiar today, also).
Conversely, even the Bush cronies did okay with FEMA before Katrina. They were criticized last year for moving too fast after four hurricanes ravaged Florida. FEMA got praise from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) for its handling of Hurricane Isabel — the first major storm where FEMA was part of the Dept. of Homeland Security.
As for budgeting issues, there’s plenty of blame to go around there also.
So while I’m fairly sure that FEMA is to blame for some of the problems in N.O., I also recognize that most experts put most of the blame on the city and state officials. Funding for the “Hurricane Pam” training exercise was truncated, but the experts’ proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in the evacuation of the poor had already been rejected by the city, included in the state plan, but not executed. And the locals’ use of the Superdome — questioned for years by FEMA — was a disaster because they didn’t do the work necessary to prepare for that use. Compare the state of the Superdome to the way in which the Astrodome was and is prepared.
So far, I’ve yet to hear of FEMA missteps that were as grave as these by the locals. We may yet hear of them. But until then, I’m going with the general consensus of the experts. I don’t think Brown deserves his job, but I don’t want to fool myself into thinking that firing him would necessarily fix whatever problems there are, either. I think we have to guard against the possibility that both political parties will find it in their interests to scapegoat a handful of Bush cronies, rather than take a thorough look at the entire issue of all-hazards response. DHS Sec’y Chertoff has admitted they don’t have their arms fully around it, which is a start.
September 11th, 2005 at 12:55 am
EverKarl - I’m aware of the emergency declaration, and quite a bit of followup to it. I’m also aware that issuing a declaration and actually doing things on the ground are two different things. It’s disengenuous to say that “most experts” are pointing in one direction or another, since “most experts” haven’t weighed in yet. I’m not interested in spin, either way. Understood?
September 11th, 2005 at 1:05 am
EverKarl - and I quite agree with you that the real issue is all-hazards response, and the systems that should support it. People who think the system functioned adequately outside of Louisiana should talk with Barbour and Lott - they seem to have a different impression.
I suppose I should clear one thing up - I think the systems should operate reasonably well, being run by people of average abilities. Regardless of individual competencies - Brown’s and Nagin’s and Chertoff’s and Bush’s and Blanco’s all included - a system failure like this really is unacceptable. Even if every single one of these people is as incompetent under pressure as one side or the other presents them, the system should operate. There appear to be major design flaws.
That’s the bottom line.
September 11th, 2005 at 2:27 am
Follow links and listen please. This is a two part story.
Part 1: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4839666
Part 2: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4839669
September 11th, 2005 at 2:36 am
One more highlighting FEMA’s effectivness:
Firefighters doing PR for them:
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197
September 11th, 2005 at 3:01 am
Greg,
Bottom line, systems can’t run ‘reasonably well’ if the law *doesn’t allow it* in terms of jurisdictional issues. The law in this case anticipated cooperation between the Local, State and Federal government. ‘Apparently’ that was not the reality and threw a few cogs in the wheels. Again, I’d love to have been a fly on Blanco’s wall.. I’m sorry but I believe dirty politics is at the base of this entire fiasco. I am waiting for *the facts*, though.
I repeat, the upshot of all this will be *vastly* increased Federal authority countermanding states’ rights during times of regional or national disasters and threats.
As hesitant as I am regarding that construct, unfortunately I believe *that* is the only way to handle major catastrophes in this country, particularly post 9/11. If you don’t have the power to act, you CANNOT act. We are a nation of laws. That oh so delicate balance of Federalism vs. states’ rights failed us this time.
Federal resources will always trump those available to local governments. Add to that the fact that the local government may well be entirely obliterated by any given catastrophe. As a result of Katrina, we *will* find a reasonable basis for enabling Federal powers to trump states’ rights for reasonable periods of time.
Again, it will inure to all of our benefit. I remain optimistic. There is always a good reason for any difficulty we face in this lifetime. Maybe *this time* it will better prepare us for an even greater threat or difficulty in our future.
But I’m still grieving over this one.
And still waiting for *the facts*.
September 11th, 2005 at 9:31 am
[...] (via Jeff Jarvis) categories: politics [...]
September 11th, 2005 at 9:50 am
Excellent post, Eileen
September 11th, 2005 at 10:44 am
I read Mayor Nagin’s interview in it’s entirety Jeff, and I believe he sounds confused and unfocused.
Mayor Nagin’s life as been turned upside down as well as those of his constituents, and I feel terribly badly for all involved.
This catastrophe was years in the making, and scapegoating individuals,even if they are found to be complicit, will only provide Louisianans with a misplaced confidence in their own preparedness for future disasters.
The Democrat’s lame attempts to tar President Bush with this are presumptuous, non-productive, and ill-advised.
September 11th, 2005 at 2:45 pm
EverKarl, great posts. I also agree that JJ leans left but at least will listen to facts. I just am waiting for the facts about what FEMA did wrong. I believe with a disaster this big, they have a lot of room for mistakes and sure many many will be found. I just haven’t been shown the NO fiasco yet.
If you blame Bush, please supply exactly which action he did wrong. I agree he was God awful on appearance. He should have used that mike to ask the Gov why she would not let the food in. Why she would not sign so he could.
roger tang……….who is it that actually totes in the food and water? Next, how did the toters get that food and water?
No George, I do not believe that “every level and every side messed up”.
Greg Burton, how do you expect a bottom up system to work when the 2 levels of first responders refuse to work? To me that would be like expecting a child to receive good grades in the third grade, even though they missed the first and second grade. Our system works on layers and who could have possibly planned that BOTH the mayor and the gov would go AWOL?
I give the media failing grades. I put them on the third step of blame. Instead of crying in front of cameras, why were they not up the road finding out WHO was stopping food, water and local buses. Local as in Baton Rouge local buses, easily available.
It took us over a week to find out that the food and water was lined up and ready on Day 2 but was denied access.
September 11th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Easy to find blame, but no one has mentioned how well the sexual harassment training for firefighters went.
Also, idea for next time might include using the local school buses to give the NO cops a ride to work.
September 11th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
owl 1, Eileen -
You’re making assumptions about local response failing - both how and why. I would agree that all the facts aren’t in, Eileen - we continue to agree on that.
One *fact*, however, is that the emergency declaration signed by the President on August 27 and backdated to take effect the 26th (perfectly proper) failed to declare an emergency in any coastal parish, including Orleans. This was amended on the 29th - apparently when the disaster declaration was issued. The emergency declaration was inconsistent with what Blanco had already requested. You can find the emergency declaration on the whitehouse website, and the amendments on the FEMA website.
Given the legal niceties that were apparently under consideration, did this affect the response? I don’t know - and neither do you. And until we do know, evaluation of local response must be conditional, as must any statement about co-ordination of Federal, State, and local authorities. Or any statements about changing the laws regarding federalization.
owl 1, it’s also troubling that the top three levels of the Federal government apparently weren’t aware of the convention center issues until that Thursday, while we - people with regular mass media - were aware of it on Wednesday. While we don’t know this as *fact*, we do know that this is what they’ve claimed.
Eileen, these are a couple of reasons I’d prefer to look at this as a system failure, rather than as “dirty politics”. You can see the implications for a “dirty politics” interpretation for yourself.
September 11th, 2005 at 6:59 pm
Greg, I agree that facts need to come out. After all, it took a solid week to even find the food and water. Why I give media a big fat F. I can’t go find it from my armchair.
But I can make good assumptions about the local and state response. Why? Because I have a grain of common sense, that item that seems to be short for many players in this disasters. First you have the perfectly able bodied people that could have found a way out. Then the mayor and the entire state of LA knows how corrupt that city has always been. Good assumption that many of the local officials would get out of Dodge. They knew the disabled people, old people, etc were trapped. I tell you if you are sitting 70 miles up the road surrounded by perfectly dry yellow school buses in the amount to service a state capitol, you are responsible if you are an official. This is the thing that drove me nuts.
They had to have done it DELIBERATELY. Now we can all argue it out but common sense really will let you come to the only conclusion. Baton Rouge decided it did not want all those people stopping over. Even temporarily.
September 11th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
If I buy the “had to have done it deliberately argument”, I have to say that common sense has someone checking a presidential declaration before it is released. Common sense would tell me that declaring an emergency in the wrong place doesn’t bode well for the operation as a whole. And a whole host of other things that “common sense” would tell me. You see the point?
As far as the busses go, the NY Times has this - again, the factualness of it is unknown to me at this time, because it’s not documented either way.
“The governor of Louisiana was “blistering mad.” It was the third night after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of people from the fetid Superdome and convention center. But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal authorities had arrived.”
So there is some question, at a minimum, about who was responsible for busses. If this is true, Blanco relied on FEMA promises which weren’t met. If it isn’t, then she was days late in realizing that was an issue.
EITHER WAY, a method of getting busses in was required, and it failed. That is a fact. Responsiblity is at least an open question.
In a situation like this, common sense leads you to interpretations based on your own biases, one way or another. I’ll wait for facts, thank you.
September 11th, 2005 at 7:45 pm
Wow, according to Greg Burton, I’m disingenuous!
I guess linking to things doesn’t ensure that they are read, so let me quote the ABC News story I already linked:
“In New Orleans, those in peril and those in power have pointed the finger squarely at the federal government for the delayed relief effort.
But experts say when natural disasters strike, it is the primary responsibility of state and local governments — not the federal government — to respond.”
The story then goes on to report what happened with the buses, etc. It’s entirely possible that ABC News is being disingenuous — certainly wouldn’t be the first time. If Greg Burton has links from reputable sources where experts are primarily blaming the feds, I’d be glad to read them.
In the meantime, here’s yet another Times-Picayune story — this time from May 31st, regarding those pesky ol’ buses:
“The busing evacuation plan is a work in progress. Details likely will remain murky until time to implement the plan, because officials don’t want people heading to a particular place expecting a ride. Those without transportation need to be planning now how they’ll get to safety, New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Matthews said.
“‘It’s important to emphasize that we just don’t have the resources to take everybody out,’ Matthews said.
“He said the viability of the bus plan depends on whether Regional Transit Authority and New Orleans public school officials find enough volunteer drivers.
“New Orleans is in an unusual situation, compared with neighboring parishes, because more than a quarter of its residents have no personal transportation. According to the most recent census data, about 134,000 out of the city’s 480,000 people are without cars, said Shirley Laska, director of the University of New Orleans’ Center for Hazards Assessment, Response & Technology.
“If the buses are used, Matthews said those on board will have to be patient.
“‘Lets face it,’ he said. ‘In time of an emergency, if we wait until the new contraflow plan is put in effect to begin this plan, it will take anywhere from four to six hours to get people as far as Baton Rouge.
“‘And we have to arrange for things as simple as finding strategic points along the route for bathrooms and water, for security and medical personnel to accompany the convoy in case of medical needs.’”
So I think it’s worth asking why the locals were depending on finding volunteers to drive the evacuation buses. I think it’s worth asking why a plan that depends on personal vehicles to evacuate the city believes it cannot use buses unless they have planned bathroom breaks and a medical escort — it’s not uncommon for states and localities to have legal immunity for these situations. I thinks it’s worth asking whether FEMA — being in receipt of city and state plans that mention the evacuation buses — should have known that the locals actually had no intention of using them. Plus, the article suggests that the poor could have been bused to Baton Rouge in six hours.
And afaik, no one is disputing that the feds prepositioned supplies and troops. If Greg Burton wants to claim that they were not prepositioned, he should come forward with a link to some reputable source saying that they were not, before impugning my honesty.
Greg seems to suggest that I’m spinning things. I think I’m trying to look at the accusations made against the various levels of government and seeing whether the evidence currently available supports them. I said flat out that the FEMA cronies don’t deserve their jobs. The link Michael provides about FEMA having firefighters do PR? I already provided that link as an example of a criticism of FEMA that holds up. But a number of the complaints made about FEMA and the military do not hold up or are in serious dispute. As I noted before in my vast effort at spin, if new evidence comes forward suggesting FEMA failed to do things that are as serious as the failures of the locals, I will be just as critical of the feds.
As for Barbour and Lott: Barbour was all happy talk on Meet the Press last week — I’d certainly be glad to read material showing he’s changed his tune. I would like Lott to speak with Kanye West to assure him that Bush doesn’t care about neo-Dixiecrats, either. Seriously, Lott has not missed a chance to take a shot at the Bush administration since Bush refused to defend Lott’s “joke” at Strom Thurmond’s birthday party. Moreover, I expect the Senators (Lott, Landrieuetc.) to all be squeaking for as much grease as they can get; that’s part of their jobs.
As for system failures, one thing I don’t fault the Mayor and Governor for is the failure to foresee that so much of the N.O. police would simply disappear. I might question whether Blanco should have called up more than 3,800 of the 7,000 LA Nat’l Guard members available to her (though there may be a question of rotation that may justify it). I do not fault the feds for not sending civilian aid workers into a lawless area. On this point, it doesn’t matter how competent the gov’t execs were — the system was going to fail.
But was the failure to evacuate any of the poor a system failure? The reporting of the Times-Picayune that I have linked in my prior posts shows that the city officials knew that their actual plan — as opposed to the official plan — was going to have bad results. They knew that they could not evacuate all of the poor, even if they had commandeered the city and school buses in N.O. They knew the Superdome was an inadequate option. They knew they were depending on Red Cross shelters, but had no plan for getting people there and kept the Red Cross from entering the city afterward. This much was not a system failure. This was what anyone would expect to result from the actual policies of the local officials.
September 11th, 2005 at 7:52 pm
As I posted, I note that Greg refers to the NYT story about Blanco being “blistering mad.”
Who was responsible for the buses? I would advise Greg to read the city and state plans, which make it clear who was responsible.
If Greg cares about spin, he really shouldn’t be citing that NYT story, which includes the following:
“The agency dispatched only 7 of its 28 urban search and rescue teams to the area before the storm hit and sent no workers at all into New Orleans until after the hurricane passed on Monday, Aug. 29.”
Now there’s an indictment! The NYT apparently believes that FEMA should have been sending workers into the city before and during the hurricane? Why? So they could be trapped or killed in the ensuing flood? Then the NYT would be writing about how grossly incompetent FEMA was for doing something so obviously stupid. As for the search and rescue, it was being done by the USS Bataan after the storm passed. Not that the NYT would bother to check.
September 11th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Might I suggest that people check out this interactive timeline on the events surrounding Katrina? And consider this question that far too many people seem to ignore. In a catastrophe as vast as this one how much can the local authorities do? Is there any locale that would not be overwhelmed by something of the equivalent scale? It seems that no one at any level had plans adequate for what happened here.
http://www.kansascity.com/html/realcities/index_timeline.html
September 11th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
EverKarl - I said that your statement about “most experts” was disenguous. Period. And I agreed with you about the most important issues. Most experts have NOT weighed in, and I’m not taking any sides at all - other than the apparently eccentric one that actually knowing what happened before jumping to conclusions - IN ANY DIRECTION - is a poor idea. Too often it comes with an agenda. ANY statement of “if X had done Y, then Z would do A” is spin. We don’t know.
But honest questioning and a deliberate attempt at rationality leaves one open to all kinds of attack and overt hostility. I’m starting to find it significant that it all comes from one side of the political spectrum. But then, that would lead me to common sense, wouldn’t it?
September 11th, 2005 at 8:55 pm
[...] - RAY NAGIN, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Interview: Nagin speaks … (wikipedia, buzzmachine) [...]
September 11th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
AMTRACK’S offer to the city to take evacuees to safe ground was DECLINED!! WHY?????
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/10/AR2005091001529_4.html
‘……essentially he told tourists stranded in the Big Easy that they were out of luck.
“The only thing I can say to them is I hope they have a hotel room, and it’s a least on the third floor and up,” Nagin said. “Unfortunately, unless they can rent a car to get out of town, which I doubt they can at this point, they’re probably in the position of riding the storm out.”
In fact, while the last regularly scheduled train out of town had left a few hours earlier, Amtrak had decided to run a “dead-head” train that evening to move equipment out of the city.
It was headed for high ground in Macomb, Miss., and it had room for several hundred passengers. “We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm’s way,” said Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black. “The city declined.”
So the ghost train left New Orleans at 8:30 p.m., with no passengers on board.’
September 11th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
More experts:
“City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan.
***
“‘Everybody knew about it. There’s no excuse for not having a plan,’ said Jay Baker, a Florida State University associate professor who is an expert in hurricane evacuations and is familiar with New Orleans hurricane studies.
***
“‘Unless you planned in advance, it would be a catastrophe,’ said Guy Daines, a retired Florida emergency manager who is considered an expert in specialized evacuations.
***
“Jefferson Parish hurricane planner Walter Maestri insisted New Orleans needed to do much more for those who didn’t have cars.
‘New Orleans has a significantly larger population without means of transportation, so it’s a much bigger problem for the city. … The answer is very simple — evacuation,’ he said.”
If Greg has some list of experts who think otherwise, he really ought to post a link.
September 11th, 2005 at 11:38 pm
You’re not comprehending what you read, EverKarl. You’re not responding directly. You’re frothing. It’s ok, you can calm down now. You’ve got it all figured out. Nothing to frighten you, nothing at all. The world makes sense, just the way it is.
I’m not sure why you’re upset that there might be more information to learn about many things, including the busses. But I can accept that it disturbs you a great deal. So don’t think about it, ok?
September 12th, 2005 at 12:10 am
Which part of the city and state plans have I misread? Which one of the Times-Picayune stories have I misread? I’ve written here repeatedly that I’m willing to look at new evidence as it emerges. You seem very long on accusations and very short on arguments to back them up.
September 12th, 2005 at 12:41 am
It appears that FEMA is the *only* agency of any level of government (I’m aware of) to ‘actually provide’ over 600 buses to transport evacuees, among other things (other than that one 20 year old non-government type who stole/commandeered a school bus and got the first 70 or so people to the Astrodome):
http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/katrina.htm…and see what else they’ve been up to in four states as of 9/9.
By most counts, that’s about the number of buses NO had on hand pre-flood in terms of metro and school buses combined.
New evidence will ‘definitely’ be emerging…
September 12th, 2005 at 12:54 am
How’d that happen?
Try this: http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/katrina.htm
September 12th, 2005 at 2:11 pm
Everkarl, would you like to find me one hurricane emergency plan for any major coastal city in the US that that makes it a municipalty’s responsibility for the complete evacuation OUT OF THE AREA.
I spent my weekend trying to find one: Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Mobile AL, Houston, etc, etc. Some of these city don’t even provide RTA transportation to shelters at all. In fact, Houston doesn’t even have designated shelters.
Guess what, NO plan doesn’t call for an evacuation out of the city, either. It does what everyone else’s calls for: An evacuation to designated city shelters.
And for good reason: It can’t be done. At least not in a large city.
Buses? How nice to have hundreds of buses. You just make the call, and they drive over by themselves. Oh no, wait. They need drivers. You know, the guys who already evacuated. (I don’t know if you can make it manditory for municipal bus drivers to remain in the city during emergencies, but that needs to be looked at).
It took several days to evacuate the Superdome, 25,000 people who were being picked up in one location. Just how long do you think it would take to load up 100,000 people from several locations throughout the city. More than a couple of days, I guarantee it. There’s a problem with the logistics of what you suggesting. And the Red Cross knows it too.
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html
“The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives. ”
Oh, but you know that Red Cross, always playing partisan politics.
September 12th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
Greg B you put an awful lot of faith in the picture the MSM has put on this disaster. That is the problem. It is a flat out lie in front of your eyes.
So forget Fed, State and Local. Think for yourself. You have all those people trapped in 2 main places and thousands on rooftops. You are sitting on spot with authority. So what do you do?
#1. Do you get food and water to the masses? #2. Do you figure a way to get them out so they can get food and water? That simple and that complex.
We now know from the Red Cross and Salvation Army that FEMA had supplied them and they were ready to go from the beginning. I accept that would be a solution if a person in authority, on the spot, decided to take option #1. Food and water was lined up, ready to roll. It was stopped by STATE authority.
So I assume you move to option #2 and decide to remove the people. Buses. If I do not take #1, I need buses. Who got de buses and who got de drivers? I am a person in authority on spot in NO so I use anyone I can get to drive those buses, even able bodied people in the Dome. Let’s just say that the mayor messed up and let his buses get flooded before he got them moving. So what exactly is Baton Rouge’s problem? Do you realize how close BR is to NO? Do you realize that the Lt Gov’s name is Landrieu, a State Sen Landrieu with both sharing a father who had been mayor of NO? So these people UNDERSTAND the problem in NO. Are you telling me that BR does not have enough buses to move that many people in 1 or 2 trips? You may tell me, the Gov may tell me, but having a grain of common sense tells me differently. I know Blanco had enough buses within 2 hours of NO to move the people.
So you explain it. Try to do it in such a way that you do not have to quote what the MSM tried to tell you. Just think it through and give me either another option or another reasonable conclusion.
September 12th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
[...] In the blame game, New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin says there’s plenty of blame for everyone. Including, I suppose, a few people who took their $2,000 debit cards and went to Louis Vuitton. [...]
September 12th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
owl - I’m not trying to explain it, because right now I can’t. I want to get some questions answered. Assumptions don’t cut it when you lack crucial data. But you know that, really. Nagin says he was relying on FEMA for busses and they didn’t come. Blanco says the busses didn’t come. We know the busses did arrive, eventually.
Do we know when they were promised? No. Do we know when they arrived? No. Do we know what happened to efforts on that Tuesday to fill the breach in the levee? No (a lot of conflicting stories). Do we know what happened with emergency supplies to the relief sites? No.
I have no brief for Nagin or Blanco or anyone else. I want information in the form of timelines and facts - and in terms of evacuation from the relief centers, we don’t have it. As with many other things. If you want to talk evacuation prior to the hurricane, see Linda’s post above. There are plenty of coulda shoulda wouldas around, but they don’t solve problems.
So why the concerted, organized urgency on deciding what should have been done about busses? Why the “blame the media” mentality? Do you know for a fact that all the stories are lies? Or even inaccurate? No. You believe them to be. My experience with the media leads me to believe that they could well be inaccurate. I’ve never run into any reporter lying deliberately - even when she or he was totally botching a story I was present for. So why blame the media and urge a rush to judgement on the busses? Is there something important that needs to be avoided in the narrative that winds up being the consensus story?
I’ve been wondering about that, and then I read something really interesting this morning. I’d like to share it with you. It’s from a book called “Trauma and Recovery”, by Judith Lewis Herman, MD.
“In order to escape the accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrators first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon her [him] self; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.â€
It’s interesting, isn’t it? I’m beginning to wonder which stage we’re in now.
September 12th, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Linda:
I agree that N.O. didn’t have a plan for busing people out of the city. As I have pointed out (and you are ignoring), experts suggested it and the city considered it, then fopped it off on the RTA which then said it couldn’t get volunteer drivers. The state plan discusses evacuating people from risk-area parishes to host parishes.
On this point, let’s re-quote the very Red Cross statement you quoted:
“The original plan was to evacuate all the residents of New Orleans to safe places outside the city. With the hurricane bearing down, the city government decided to open a shelter of last resort in the Superdome downtown. We applaud this decision and believe it saved a significant number of lives. â€
And I’ve already posted the Red Cross link — that’s the same page where they explain that the state was keeping them away from the Superdome (even as they were keeping the people in the Superdome). I noted that in the same paragraph where I linked to a Times-Picayune story in which people from homeless groups were told by the Office of Emergency Preparedness — immediately below the Mayor in the city plan — that there was no plan for sheltering the general public except for Red Cross shelters outside of the city. If that was the plan, it didn’t happen and then the RC was kept away from the Superdome afterward. Brilliant plan.
I also agree that buses don’t drive themselves. That’s why you make an effort to pay people to be available to do it in an emergency.
You note how long it took to evacuate the Superdome. As I noted above, FEMA questioned the locals on the use of the Superdome, specifically asking what would happen if, for example, it became surrounded by water. Other hurricanes showed the inadequacies of the Superdome and the locals did… nothing.
Moreover, I’ve discussed the logisitics at issue at some length. And one inescapable fact is that it would have been easier logistically to mobilize an evacuation with those buses before the hurricane than to bring in buses from outside the area for evacuations after the hurricane. Do I think that all 100K people without cars could have been evacuated with those buses? No. Do I think 30 to 36K could have been? Yes. Would that have been an improvement over what happened? Imho, yes.
[And do I think that even more could have been evacuated had Mayor Nagin issued the mandatory evacuation order earlier than last Sunday? Yes.]
And then there’s your implied charge of partisanship. Again, I stated numerous times that the cronyism at FEMA was ridiculous that FEMA should not have been having firefighters do PR or sit through sensitivity training and that the feds should have been monitoring media coverage to check against the apparently incomplete info they were getting on the ground. But I guess your reading of my posts was about as good as your reading of the Red Cross FAQ.
September 12th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
Here’s a picture that’s worth a thousand words:
http://www.blindmanphoto.com/images/Stop-Blaming-FEMA.jpg
September 12th, 2005 at 9:25 pm
Man. I wish I was far enough away from this to actually be able to give a fuck about the politics. We watched most of the press briefings on rabbit ears down here until the storm passed and the satellite started working, and the national news networks started having fun sensationalizing everything.
At my personal local level, FEMA had been showing up with supplies and then -leaving with them- when the locals don’t have the right magic paperwork or whatever. (The Slidell mayor and St. Tammany parish president both have been screaming mad about that. So is Harry Lee of Jefferson parish, where I usually live.)
However. The part of FEMA that gives out money is starting to turn, at least.
September 12th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
Everkarl
It was not logistically possible to evacuate everyone out of the city before the storm. Did you check the emergency plans for the other major coastal cities I mentioned? Did you check any at all? The reason NONE of them make any provisions for evacuating all citizens out is because IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO ACCOMPLISH WITHIN A 24 to 48 HOUR WINDOW.
So why do you expect that only NO should be able to do it?
It takes considerably longer than one day to evacuate 35,000 people. It took several days to evacuate fewer people than that from the Superdome last week, even though the buses were only picking up from one location. So your assumption that this could have been that quickly is pure fantasy. And that would have meant many, many more people stuck in their homes, with no shelter at all, at much higher risk.
Now, it may be that the city would have liked to have evacuated everyone out of town, good intentions and all, but it certainly isn’t in their emergency plan to do it.
IF you read the entire emergency plan, you would see there listed the names and addresses of several pre-designated shelters for people to evacuate to when there is a hurricane. So this story about the city not having their own shelters and only planning on using RC shelters outside the city is bull.
So tell me, during the Monday of the storm, did the Superdome come crashing down? No? So they made the correct decision, the Superdome was a safe place to weather the hurricane. On Tuesday during the flood, did the people inside drown? No? Seems the Superdome was still pretty safe. The problems at the Superdome didn’t start until Wednesday, the same that FEMA promised they would be there with supplies. If FEMA had shown up, or if they had bothered themselves to airlift food, water and basic medicine, most the problems they experienced (big exception: toilets) wouldn’t have happened.
I suggest you get a copy of TIME. In their article, An American Tragedy, it says,
” Despite all appearances to the contrary, New Orleans had a plan. A week after the storm, Nagin summarized it for the Wall Street Journal: “Get people to higher ground and have the Feds and the state airlift supplies to them - that was the plan, man” But in fact, the plan was more substantial”.
Later, “…But the paper trail shows that the mayor did indeed follow the agreed-upon course of action, more or less. It just wasn’t a very good one for a city with so many poor people”.
This may be true. But if you’re going to mandate that New Orleans must have an evacuation plan to move out of the city ALL of it’s residents during an emergency, then every city and town along the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines MUST ALSO HAVE SUCH A PLAN. You can’t only single out New Orleans just because you hate Nagin.
Now you want to see Florida scream? Tell them they are now responsible for the mass evacuation of all their citizens during the many hurricanes they get. And you’ll see mayors and governors a mile long waiting to get their turn to tell you why it can’t be done and why they refuse to take responsibility for this.
September 13th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Dare Co NC just declared a mandatory evacuation for their county. Please go to:
http://www.co.dare.nc.us/EmgyMgmt/eop.pdf
Please refer to Annex G, “Dare County Emergency Operations Plan, Evacuation/Reentry”
It basically says, you gotta get yourself out. There is no public transportation. There are public shelters, but no Red Cross shelters in Dare Co.
Under assumptions, it also says, “Some people will lack transportation. Others who are ill or disabled may require vehicles with special transportation capabilities”. It says nothing about who will evacuate those who are lacking transportation or how they will be evacuated. It says nothing about who coordinates and provides the vehicles with special transportation capabilities.
Emergency Evacuation Plans throughout the country are sorely lacking. The primary reason: Resources. You might suggest that when a mandatory evacuation is declared in any city in any state, then automatically the evacuation becomes federalized. But since we know how slowly the mechanisms in a large bureaucracy work, that it seems to take many days to get the manpower and equipment properly staged, it’s dubious that approach would even work.
If there had been funding for the construction of levees to withstand a Cat 5 hurricane, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now. That was negligence on the part of the country as a whole for a very very long time. They have lists of those cities that are at high risk for many types of disasters. It’s about time we started taking those risks seriously.
September 13th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Linda:
Let’s see… experts recommended using public transport for evacuation out of the city before Hurricane Ivan,, the state plan discusses using buses to move people to host parishes and the very part of Red Cross FAQ you quoted notes the general plan was to evacuate people outside the city. And Mayor Nagin himself is only claiming that the RTA couldn’t get volunteer drivers, avoiding the question of whether it could have been done with paid ones.
But I should accept your word for it that it was impossible? I don’t think so. However, I do agree that the logistics are tough and would have required more time and effort than the locals were willing to spend. Had the media covered the feds’ actions in light of the logistical problems presented by a disaster of this magnitude last week, I probably wouldn’t feel obliged to point out the state and local problems as well. But the fact that someone as plugged in as JJ was unaware of the city and state plans and their availability on the net before now suggests just how little media focused on the local governmental angle during the first week, when everyone was forming those important first impressions.
I don’t care about other cities’ plans (at least not in the context of discussing this case). Some coastal cities are so overwhelmingly wealthy that busing the poor is not an issue. Some places like Long Island present clear cases of improbability no matter what the income level. Other places may not have any significant number of buses on-hand in the first place.
It’s at least honest of Dare Co to tell people straight out that they are going to have to fend for themselves. FEMA does this also, saying not to expect full assistance for 72-96 hours (and many of the gripes in this case fall before that window).
In contrast, the locals here gave the impression that they were going to do something after Ivan (unless the Red Cross is just making it up about the general plan being to evacuate people out of the city). Then (per the 7/24 Times-Picayune story linked above) the locals decided that they would tell the poor they were on their own, but never got around to actually putting out the DVD (which the poor and homeless might or might not see).
As for the levees, I agree with your first point in general, though today brings some reports that problems with the new levees themselves may have been a factor.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
Carsonfire, your University of Colorado link says:
“Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.”
What proposal? Who proposed it? What experts? Was there a study associated with the proposal, or was this a suggestion? Could you provide more detail?
How many days did it take to evacuate from one location, the Superdome, last week? How many people did they evacuate? Now multiply that evacuation time considerably simply by the fact that they would be picking people up from many different parts of the city. See if you can come up with something realistic instead of only “I’m not taking your word”. I’ve been in international logistics for 26 years. I know of what I speak. Getting from point A to point B doesn’t happen with the snap of a finger.
Regarding an emergency evacuation plan for a large coastal metropolitan area that has many poor, try the Miami-Dade area. Should be a good enough fit.
I heard nothing about the city only looking for volunteers. I only heard Nagin say they couldn’t come up with more drivers because they had evacuated, which doesn’t surprise me if you consider the story on the news today. The reason the power is taking so long to get back online is because 1/3 of the employees that evacuated haven’t come back yet.
The article you linked to also contains something interesting:
“Because of this threat, the American Red Cross will not open shelters in New Orleans during hurricanes greater than category 2; staffing them would put employees and volunteers at risk. For Ivan, only the Superdome was made available as a refuge of last resort for the medically challenged and the homeless.”
Then I’m just wondering what the Red Cross was talking about when they said they didn’t come into NO because they were stopped. From this, it looks like they never intended to enter the city.
September 13th, 2005 at 9:40 pm
Here’s the Miami-Date site. http://www.miamidade.gov/oem/evacuation.asp
Please note:
Public transportation is provided to shelters within the Miami-Dade area, not to points outside.
Special needs are accommodated; however, as with NO, you must qualify and pre-register (click on Evacuation Assistance).
September 14th, 2005 at 3:57 am
“Because of this threat, the American Red Cross will not open shelters in New Orleans during hurricanes greater than category 2; staffing them would put employees and volunteers at risk. For Ivan, only the Superdome was made available as a refuge of last resort for the medically challenged and the homeless.â€
Then I’m just wondering what the Red Cross was talking about when they said they didn’t come into NO because they were stopped. From this, it looks like they never intended to enter the city.”
Do you not understand, Linda, the Red Cross’ planning re positioning their people BEFORE and DURING any such storm versus AFTER an actual storm?
They were prevented from entering the city AFTER the storm by the state of Louisiana.
February 26th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
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