WRONG. THERE WAS 72 HOURS FOR THAT MAYOR TO GET THE POOR OUT OF TOWN. HE DID NOTHING!
http://thepoliticalinsight.blogspot.com/2005/09/new-orleans-mayor-and-louisiana.html
Sunday, September 04, 2005
New Orleans Mayor and Louisiana Governor Clueless
Here is a list of what the Mayor of New Orleans did and did not do.
*He spent most of his time blaming President Bush rather than leading;
*He did not follow the New Orleans Emergency
Disaster Plan;
*He waited too long to decide whether or not to make the evacuation mandatory - until it was too late (Bush had to ask the Governor to evacuate the city - not the Mayor);
*He failed to utilize hundreds of city-owned buses to evacuate residents;
Unused Busses
The buses were parked
1.2 miles from the Superdome.
The Governor fared no better.
*She provided no leadership whatsoever in this crisis (except perhaps when she cried on T.V.);
*She refused the Bush Administration's request for a federal takeover of the evacuation;
*She admitted on Saturday that, "We did not have enough resources here to do it all;
*Yet she failed to request additional guardsmen from neighboring states;
*She also failed to deploy the Louisiana National Guard before Katrina's landfall;
As pointed out elsewhere - the First Responders are
local. There was no local leadership, and now they are desperately trying to cover their rear-ends.
The following is a timeline of events:
(Saturday, August 27, 2005 early)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announces New Orleans may be directly hit.
(Sunday, August 28)
President Bush
calls Governor Blanco and urges her to evacuate the endangered areas. Publicly, he urges all those living in the path of the hurricane to put their personal safety ahead of all other concerns. He even takes the unprecedented step of declaring states in the path of the oncoming storm federal disaster areas
ahead of time.
(Sunday, August 28 at 10 PM)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts the path of the hurricane.
(Sunday, August 28 at 10:48 PM)
New Orleans Mayor orders evacuation - yet he doesn't move the buses (see picture), and does NOT ask that the 1,500 Guard troops that have been called up, be deployed.
(Monday, August 29 at 6:10 AM)
Katrina makes landfall
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield warns that New Orleans would be pounded throughout the day Monday, and that Katrina's potential 20-foot storm surge was capable of swamping the city.
(Tuesday, August 30th, morning)
Some pumps begin to fail, and the first two levees break. Eastern evacuation routes are washed out. The
LA Times reports that inmates have taken over the City Jail.
CNN(Tuesday night)
A day after Hurricane Katrina dealt a devastating blow to New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin blasted what he called a lack of coordination in relief efforts for setting behind the city's recovery.
"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen," Nagin said in a phone interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi, fuming over what he said were scuttled plans to plug a 200-yard breach near the 17th Street Canal, which is allowing Lake Pontchartrain to spill into the central business district.
(Wednesday, August 31 8:30 AM)
The water from Lake Pontchartrain
continues to flow through the now 500-yard breach in the 17th Street Canal.
(Wednesday, August 31 at 8:04 PM)
In the face of looting, rape, and murder, Nagin
finally declares martial law with respect to Miranda rights only, but
not to "shoot to kill. During this period, police are attacked by armed gangs of thugs - eventually 200 New Orleans police officers resign, rather than return to their job.
(Thursday, September 1)
Three-and-one-half days after the events began,
Governor Blanco finally uses her emergency authority to commandeer school buses to rescue the flood victims, after the city has been in anarchy for days, and dead bodies are piling up in the streets.
Unfortunately, all the school busses in New Orleans that could have been used are under water.
This was a failure of local authority. They made the wrong decisions (which you may or may not blame them for, since hindsight
is 20-20), but more importantly, they waited too long to make
any decisions.
