CNN aired this incredible interview with the outspoken mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin yesterday morning. From the CNN transcript:
S. O’BRIEN: There are people who say your evacuation plan, obviously in hindsight, was disastrous.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Which one?
S. O’BRIEN: Your evacuation plan before — when you put people into the Superdome. It wasn’t thought out. You got 20,000 people in there. And that you bear the brunt of the blame for some of this, a large chunk of it.
NAGIN: Look, I’ll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you’ve ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city’s history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens.
And I don’t know what else I could do, other than to tell them that it’s a mandatory evacuation. And if they stayed, make sure you have a frigging ax in your home, where you can bust out the roof just in case the water starts flowing.
And as a last resort, once this thing is above a category 3, there are no buildings in this city to withstand a category 3, a category 4 or a category 5 storm, other than the Superdome. That’s where we sent people as a shelter of last resort. When that filled up, we sent them to the Convention Center. Now, you tell me what else we could have done.
S. O’BRIEN: What has Secretary Chertoff promised you? What has Donald Rumsfeld given you and promised you?
NAGIN: Look, I’ve gotten promises to — I can’t stand anymore promises. I don’t want to hear anymore promises. I want to see stuff done. And that’s why I’m so happy that the president came down here, because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. And they were telling him things weren’t as bad as it was.
He came down and saw it, and he put a general on the field. His name is General Honore. And when he hit the field, we started to see action.
And what the state was doing, I don’t frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn’t adequate.
And then, the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, ‘Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don’t get in sync, more people are going to die.’
S. O’BRIEN: What date was this? When did you say that? When did you say…
NAGIN: Whenever air Force One was here.
S. O’BRIEN: OK.
NAGIN: And this was after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, ‘Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two need to get together on the same page, because of the lack of coordination, people are dying in my city.’
S. O’BRIEN: That’s two days ago.
NAGIN: They both shook — I don’t know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, ‘Great.’ I said, ‘Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.’ There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, ‘Everybody right now, we’re leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.’
S. O’BRIEN: And was that done?
NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, “No, you guys stay here. We’re going to another section of the plane, and we’re going to make a decision.”
He called me in that office after that. And he said, “Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor.” I said — and I don’t remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.
S. O’BRIEN: You’re telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?
NAGIN: Yes.
S. O’BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?
NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the — I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.
S. O’BRIEN: And the governor said no.
NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn’t happen, and more people died.Res ipsa loquitur…
THING IS – THE MAYOR DIDN’T DO HIS JOB EITHER SO BETWEEN THE GOVERNOR AND THE MAYOR, CHAOS REINED AND IT TOOK PRESIDENT BUSH TO SAY THIS WAS UNACCEPTABLE BEFORE HE EVEN WENT DOWN THERE AND THAT’S WHEN THINGS STARTED COMING TOGETHER. NEITHER THE GOVERNOR NOR MAYOR FOLLOWED EVACUATION PLANS.
CINDY
Excellent thesis Pork. Good to see someone still knows how to wizbang the MSM and moonbats correctly.
What’s amazing to me is that the Dems seem to have no problem making arrangements for those poor citizens without means of transportation to get out to the polls on Election Day, but they didn’t even attempt to do the same in advance of a Cat 4 hurricane.
There’s so much good stuff in this thread, I’m going to have to steal it, especially from Porkopolis and SCS. Thanks! 🙂
From what I’ve read, Nagin’s an occasionally charismatic bullshitter who has trouble getting things done.
I don’t know why the governor needed “24 hours” to make up her mind, but without more information about the decision with which she was presented, it’s too soon to pass judgment.
Clearly the local authorities did not rise to the occasion. GIVEN THAT THEY DID NOT,
Have FEMA, DHS, and President Bush provided strong, competent leadership?
A fair point, maybe, about the need to secure an “overwhelming force” before providing aid to the convention center. Yet Michael Brown claims that FEMA didn’t KNOW there were thousands of people stranded at the convention center until Thursday. So was there a delay because the National Guard needed to build up a sufficient force? Or was there a delay because FEMA knew less than Rita Cosby?
Now an excerpt from an editorial in today’s Washington Times, which quotes the DHS “National Response Plan”:
Guiding the nation’s response to emergencies and disasters, the National Response Plan “establishes a comprehensive all-hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents,” the Department of Homeland Security asserted. “The plan incorporates best practices and procedures from incident management disciplines,” including emergency management, law enforcement and public health, “and integrates them into a unified structure. It forms the basis of how the federal government coordinates with state, local and tribal governments and the private sector during incidents.” Contemplating a national catastrophe comparable to Katrina, a department fact sheet states that the response plan “ensures the seamless integration of the federal government when an incident exceeds local and state capabilities.” Moreover, the plan “provided the means to swiftly deliver federal support in response to catastrophic incidents.”
In the wake of the disastrous initial responses to the Katrina disaster, the self-congratulatory conclusion asserted in the preface of the response plan is particularly disturbing. “The end result is vastly improved coordination among federal, state, local and tribal organizations to help save lives and protect America’s communities by increasing the speed, effectiveness and efficiency of incident management.” By FEMA’s own description of its mission, they failed.
Clearly no one agrees on exactly when and how the federal government was allowed to begin assisting the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. I’m no expert, but I assume one can invoke principles and precedents to support or condemn the federal government’s response. That itself is a sign of failure at every level- in the aftermath of the worst disaster in our history, we are discussing legal principles.
The government could have done better. FEMA could have done better, DHS could have done better, our president could have done better. He might have cut short his vacation.
These are not partisan politics, it’s disappointing to me how many of the responses to this tragedy have fractured along predictable party lines. Liberals find a way to blame the president for everything!! Conservatives find a way to blame the victims!!
It is dangerous and false to fall back on convenient dichotomies of principle, value, party allegiance. The state and local government failed. Many of their failures took place in the months and years before the hurricane. Then they were neck-deep in watersnakes (and scary black people!).
After the local government failed, the federal government failed. The president failed, and all the post-9/11 promises of security failed. FEMA failed, Michael Brown failed, Chertoff failed, Bush failed.
This is not partisan rancor. I would be equally upset if John Kerry were the president, and failed, or Al Gore, or Bill Clinton, or Jeb Bush, or John Mccain, or Ralph Nader, or Pat Robertson. It’s not about which party failed, or which party is unfairly assigning blame. The government failed. Our elected representatives failed. Yet some of us persist in constructing explanations which excuse gross incompetence, which pin the blame on convenient scapegoats- the mayor of a city completely underwater, the poor people who refused to evacuate, the thugs in the streets!
Michael Chertoff and George Bush claimed no one could have anticipated the breaking of the levees. Michael Brown had less information than every major news network.
The government failed. There was a vacuum of leadership. The buck stops with Bush. The president of the United States wouldn’t cut short his vacation. The president of the United States bantered about poor Trent Lott’s ruined (insured?) mansion, while thousands of Americans were being bused to bunk at the Astrodome.
I would be disappointed and disgusted by the federal response no matter what political party were in charge, no matter who sat in the oval office.
The government failed to uphold its most basic responsibility to the people, and now a week later the administration is in Washington talking about how mean and unhelpful the “blame game” is, while subtly passing the blame onto everything but itself. While hiding behind bureacratic and procedural ambiguities.
Please don’t talk about the “MSM” and ignorant liberals, the government failed. It has nothing to do with liberal principles or conservative principles, it has to do with incompetent, inexcusable administration. Watching New Orleans turn into a third-world disaster area, I believe that this president does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. No president would deserve it from anyone, no matter his political affiliation or yours.
Porkopolis,
As to your thesis-
were more lives lost because of the delay while the Guard built an “overwhelming force”
than would have been lost had the Guard come in to help with fewer numbers?
In Blum’s briefing, he seems genuinely surprised that none of the poor, shitsoaked people in the convention center caused any trouble.
He attributes this to the size of the Guard’s force.
Isn’t it possible that, even if a handful of the people in the convention center were armed, raping & pillaging
that most of them were just poor, desperate people praying for relief, too tired and hopeless to put up much of a fight?
Isn’t it POSSIBLE the military is spinning the situation after the fact to provide an apparent rationale for its late response?
I’m not saying it’s a fact. But it’s certainly possible.
Porkopolis,
With regard to General Blum’s concern about a “potentially very dangerous volatile situation” at the convention center, I’d direct you to this article from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1563470,00.html
which suggests that much of the supposed violence may have been imaginary.
Here’s how REASON calls it:
As Katrina wiped out New Orleans’ communications infrastructure, and while key federal officials repeatedly expressed less knowledge than cable television reporters, panicky rumors quickly rushed in to fill the void. Many of them have shared the exact same theme—unspeakable urban ultra-violence, perpetuated by the overwhelmingly black population.
A few simple facts:
1. A mayor has limited resources. The bus drivers EVACUATED the city. Do you think any mayor on earth is going to steal buses, give them uncertified drivers to drive….where? Where was he supposed to send them? He can’t force other cities to take them. This is why the evacuation of a city requires the coordination of state AND federal officials, especially when the state is being faced with a Category 5 hurricane (not just in New Orleans.)
2. There are any number of military assets in Texas that could have driven to the Superdome within a 10 hour period. To say it took days to pull them together is just not believable.
On C-Span today the head of the tardy Superdome operation said he pulled it together within 5 hours of receiving the mission. That means he didn’t receive his mission until Friday night/Saturday morning (after the Geraldo and Shep Smith meltdowns live on Fox News.)
In other words, there was no technical delay in the rescue, those American citizens were deliberately allowed to die of dehydration when they could have been saved.
Nagin is a bullsh*tting, incompetent punk [adjective: Slang: Of poor quality; inferior] whose only qualifications for the job is that he’s as corrupt as the rest of the local government.
Blanco is a bullsh*tting, incompetent punkess [adjective: Slang: Of poor quality; inferior] whose only qualifications for the job was the (D) next to her name on the ballot.
I lived in the Gulfport/Biloxi area for four years from 2000-2004. I’m more then familiar with that whole area and New Orleans as well.
New Orleans is a turd bowl reeking of sh*t, piss, vomit and decay. Oh… did I mention this was before the hurricane.
The corruption of New Orleans local government and police force rivals the best (worst??) that Mexico has to offer (I lived on the Mexican border as well for 5 years).
I am all for spending federal funds (our tax dollars) to help in the aftermath, whatever it takes. However, I don’t want one thin dime of my taxes going towards any rebuilding of that turd bowl city. Not one dime.
Common sense says don’t build below sea level in hurricane prone areas. By the way, don’t forget to thank the French for New Orleans (and also thank them for the couple of tents and cots their donating now).
I applaud House Speaker Dennis Hastert for having the gonads to say publicly what I and many others feel about rebuilding that turd bowl city.
It would take many Billions of dollars, possibly 100’s of Billions to rebuild. It would surpass the Big Dig in Boston for the amount of corruption, scams, cost overruns, thievery and once again, incompetence.
And after all that waste of money the following week could bring another Cat 4 or Cat 5 hurricane.
I say NO!
Give the Big Easy the Big “Final” Rest.
When the focus of this thread is how the Democratic Governor of Louisiana is really responsible for this disaster, it’s kind of hard to take any cries of “Bush bashing” seriously, don’t you think?
But since you asked … regardless of what was done AFTER the Hurricane, the loss of lives could have been greatly reduced if the Federal Government had done something BEFORE the Hurricane. The Bush administration was warned repeatedly that this would happen. The Governor and many other people repeatedly pleaded for federal aid to strenthen the levees protectin New Orleans and to provide better evacuation routes. The Bush Administration chose to spend it’s money in Iraq. If anyone would like to try to contradict these facts, please do so. Please, just don’t take the Fox News approach and start talking about the “blame game”, Posse Comitatus, or Kanye West. I’m saying that there was no prevention, and there obviously could have been.
And I didn’t vote for John Kerry, by the way.
THE MAIN STORY I HAVE YET TO HEAR IS THE TRUTH. THE COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF COMMAND, FIRST OF ALL MR. MAYOR YOU STOOD AROUND WITH YOU THUMB WHO KNOWS WHERE WHILE THE PRESIDENT HAD DECLARED A STSTE OF EMERGENCY FOR YOUR CITY. YET, YOU DID NOTHING WITH THIS INFORMATION THAT YOU HAD 5 DAYS IN ADVANCE (EXCEPT LET 569 BUSES THAT COULD HAVE MOVED 33,550 PEOPLE IN ONE TRIP FLOOD). FINALLY 2 DAYS AFTER THE STORM HIT YOU, WITH THE BRILLIANCE OF A TREE FROG CALLED FOR A “MANDATORY EVACUATION”
ALL YOU WERE GOOD FOR IN THE EMERGENCY WAS TO BLAME FEMA, THE GOVERNOR, THE PRESIDENT, EVERYONE BUT YOU! THE MAN WHO WAS FIRST IN CHARGE. THEN WE HAVE THE N.O. DIR. OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WE REALLY CAN’T KNOW IF HE WAS GIVING THE RIGHT ADVICE BECAUSE HE WAS APPOINTED BY AND REPORTS ONLY TO THE GOVERNOR.
SHE IS ANOTHER WEAK LINK BECAUSE SHE REFUSED THE PRESIDENT’S OFFER OF FEDERAL TROOPS AND AID UNTIL 2 DAYS AFTER THE STORM. NOW THAT THE PRESIDENT IS GETTING THINGS DONE AND THE DUST IS SETTLING IT IS PLAIN TO SEE THAT THE FUNDS WE (THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT) OUR TAX DOLLARS, HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF THEM OVER THE PAST4 OR 5 DECADES SENT TO NEW ORLEANS FOR DISASTER PROTECTION WERE NOT SPENT ON THAT. IT IS MY STRONG SUSPICION THAT THE CORRUPT STATE AND CITY GOV’T GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO HUEY LONG HAVE SKIMMED THAT MONEY.
AND BY THE WAY WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE LOCAL LEVEE BOARD INSPECTING AND ENFORCING THE ORDINANCES THAT REQUIRE THE LANDOWNERS AND NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO MAINTAIN THE LEVEES!!!
I DO BLAME THE FEDS FOR ONE THING IN THIS DISASTER AND THAT IS ALLOWING NEW ORLEANS BECOME A SOCIALIST GOV’T BY SUPPORTING THROUGH WLEFARE THE LARGEST PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION OF ANY OTHER CITY IN THE COUNTRY THIS HAS GONE ON FOR DECADES. YOUR POLICE OFFICERS EVEN CUT AND RUN WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH. I WAS SICKENED WHEN I SAW THE CHIEF OR DEPUTY CHIEF SAID HE HAD A DEPARTMENT OF HEROES THEN HAD THE GUAL TO COMPARE THEM TO THE TRUE HEROES IN NEW YORK. THERE IS NO COMPARISON THEY WERE HEROES FAR MORE CRIMINALS ARE IN N.O. THAN THERE ARE HEROES.
THE REST OF THE COUNTRY WILL HELP YOU AGAIN BUT NEW ORLEANS WILL HAVED TO BE WEENED SOON. WE ARE GETTING A BIT TIRED OF SUPPORTING YOU. AFTER THIS MESS IS CLEANED UP I WILL PUSH FOR A JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INCLUDING THE IRS PROBE INTO N.O. CITY GOV’T AND ALL OF IT’S OFFICIALS.
KEVIN
Do you think any mayor on earth is going to steal buses, give them uncertified drivers to drive…
Why not? Is it better to just leave people in the path of a Cat 5 hurricane?