Jeff takes on Nagin trying to make it sound as if he deviated from the emergency plan in New Orleans. The problem is that no one is reading what I’ve already posted on this nor the Hurricane response plan. Jeff’s not the only one, but since he mentioned me, I’ll point out the problems with the arguments.
First, though, he ordered the mandatory evacuation late. He did it about 24 hours out when the plan called for 50 hours. Why? Some legal silliness concerning whether he could make exceptions. Tourists had flights cancelled and the hospitals couldn’t get out in time so he had some legal debate about whether he could order the evacuation and make exceptions. This was incredibly stupid. That said, almost all estimates indicate he improved the evacuation rate of any previous evacuation by 10-20%.
I’ve updated and made the posts on New Orleans Hurricane planning over at Kos for the full context of what I’ve said.
Join me after the jump…
Mayor Nagin?s plan failed to take any basic steps to protect the telecom infrastructure.
I’m not sure anyone could protect the Telecom infrastructure, but the police certainly didn’t have an adequate communications system
He had the busses, but not the drivers, to get them out? Did the Mayor go to the Governor or the Feds and say, ?this is what we need to get 100,000 poor people out of here.? Doesn?t seem to have been part of the Mayor?s plan.
Yes, he did. The Federal Emergency planners were a part of making the plan:
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 on your own.
In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm’s way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.
In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation.
“You’re responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you,” Wilkins said in an interview. “If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you.
“But we don’t have the transportation.”
Major Garrett asks why didn?t the City use its fleet of buses to evacuate residents? Garrett reports that Nagin says they were only used to transport people to the Superdome. Nagin said, ?We dispatched the buses to neighborhoods to pick people up for free and take them to the Superdome which is the only shelter in the City that can handle a storm.? But, why not use the busses to get the poor out of the City?
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.”
This isn’t just aimed at Jeff, because he’s repeating arguments that are being made over and over again, but the following bothers me to no end:
Mayor Ray Nagin says that with National Guard troops in place in New Orleans, he’s sending some overworked police officers and firefighters on Las Vegas vacations. Nagin says 1500 first responders will get $200 in cash for the trip, along with free hotels, restaurants, and Vegas shows. [See here, from Special Report?s Grapevine]
Of course, many are going to Atlanta–why? Listen to a New Orleans resident on the issue:
Kevin called me because he thought I would be outraged by the mayor promising vacations to the New Orleans first responders as he and Jay were. Sorry guys, with all due respect, you don’t get it….
And I’ll add that in general about 85% of what you hear on blogs and cable news is wrong is some way. Let me explain. There is one name that probably prompted this… Paul Accardo.
Sgt. Accadro was the department spokesman and in a job where it is easy to be universally hated he was near universally liked and respected. Details are still sketchy but from what we can tell after seeing the death and destruction of his city, he came home to find his entire family had drowned during the levee break. (that’s probably about 85% confirmed) What we do know is what happened next. Sgt. Accardo, (along with another officer this week) took his own life.
His death reverberated thru the city and especially the police force instantly. The New Orleans police have been to hell. Literally. We had about 2 days less warning than we usually have for a hurricane. One minute we were leading our lives and in what seemed like no time we trying to save our lives. These gentlemen (and ladies) have witnessed horrors the rest of us can not even fathom in our worst nightmares.
At present, the NOPD is growing irrelevant. The national guard has armed choppers flying over the city 24/7. Anyone caught looting will be killed from above. Period.
The town is flooded and largely abandoned. There is nothing to patrol. These guys need to leave. They need to sit in a hotel room and cry for a few days.
In a few weeks, when the water gets pumped out, these guys will be called on to do a job that few of us want to do. They’ll be retrieving corpses that are weeks old… Some of the corpses will be their friends. They’ll be fighting to keep order in a town where there is none. Their horror is only beginning.
Do I begrudge them a few days off while the water is pumped out? Hell no.
I just hope it is enough to keep them sane when they have every right to go stalk raving mad.
Update I should have added one important thing… New Orleans has a residency requirement. Admittedly many officers cheat and live outside the parish (county) but in general all of these folks lost their homes and all their possessions this week too. Think about it.
What’s happened is a bunch of people have looked at a couple documents and not at the larger picture. In a city like New Orleans, poverty is debilitating. There are no working institutions in many neighborhoods like the 9th Ward other than churches. Schools in New Orleans are some of the worst in the nation so those don’t even count. There is a high mobility rate and so even knowing where people are living is nearly impossible. The City, the State and the Federal Government knew that. The City was trying to improve it’s evac rate and it did, but it also knew the tragedy that could occur–what’s absolutely unacceptable is that City improved it’s performance–though it still needs to do much, much more, but the state and federal government absolutely failed its citizens.
As for Blanco–I have no defense of her and while I might not have blasted her as much, she’s made a great number of mistakes.