Well, the buses didn't go either:
Posted on 09/02/2005 8:41:24 AM PDT by Raebie
Ivan exposes flaws in N.O.'s disaster plans 05:09 PM CDT on Sunday, September 19, 2004
By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press
Those who had the money to flee Hurricane Ivan ran into hours-long traffic jams. Those too poor to leave the city had to find their own shelter - a policy that was eventually reversed, but only a few hours before the deadly storm struck land.
New Orleans dodged the knockout punch many feared from the hurricane, but the storm exposed what some say are significant flaws in the Big Easy's civil disaster plans.
Much of New Orleans is below sea level, kept dry by a system of pumps and levees. As Ivan charged through the Gulf of Mexico, more than a million people were urged to flee. Forecasters warned that a direct hit on the city could send torrents of Mississippi River backwash over the city's levees, creating a 20-foot-deep cesspool of human and industrial waste.
Residents with cars took to the highways. Others wondered what to do.
"They say evacuate, but they don't say how I'm supposed to do that," Latonya Hill, 57, said at the time. "If I can't walk it or get there on the bus, I don't go. I don't got a car. My daughter don't either."
Advocates for the poor were indignant.
"If the government asks people to evacuate, the government has some responsibility to provide an option for those people who can't evacuate and are at the whim of Mother Nature," said Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU.
It's always been a problem, but the situation is worse now that the Red Cross has stopped providing shelters in New Orleans for hurricanes rated above Category 2. Stronger hurricanes are too dangerous, and Ivan was a much more powerful Category 4.
In this case, city officials first said they would provide no shelter, then agreed that the state-owned Louisiana Superdome would open to those with special medical needs. Only Wednesday afternoon, with Ivan just hours away, did the city open the 20-story-high domed stadium to the public.
Mayor Ray Nagin's spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, insisted that there was no reluctance at City Hall to open the Superdome, but said the evacuation was the top priority.
"Our main focus is to get the people out of the city," she said.
Callers to talk radio complained about the late decision to open up the dome, but the mayor said he would do nothing different.
"We did the compassionate thing by opening the shelter," Nagin said. "We wanted to make sure we didn't have a repeat performance of what happened before. We didn't want to see people cooped up in the Superdome for days."
When another dangerous hurricane, Georges, appeared headed for the city in 1998, the Superdome was opened as a shelter and an estimated 14,000 people poured in. But there were problems, including theft and vandalism.
This time far fewer took refuge from the storm - an estimated 1,100 - at the Superdome and there was far greater security: 300 National Guardsmen.
The main safety measure - getting people out of town - raised its own problems.
More than 1 million people tried to leave the city and surrounding suburbs on Tuesday, creating a traffic jam as bad as or worse than the evacuation that followed Georges. In the afternoon, state police took action, reversing inbound lanes on southeastern Louisiana interstates to provide more escape routes. Bottlenecks persisted, however.
Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police, said he believes his agency acted appropriately, but also acknowledged he never expected a seven-hour-long crawl for the 60 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
It was so bad that some broadcasters were telling people to stay home, that they had missed their window of opportunity to leave. They claimed the interstates had turned into parking lots where trapped people could die in a storm surge.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged the need to improve traffic flow and said state police should consider reversing highway lanes earlier. They also promised meetings with governments in neighboring localities and state transportation officials to improve evacuation plans.
But Blanco and other state officials stressed that, while irritating, the clogged escape routes got people out of the most vulnerable areas.
"We were able to get people out," state Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc said. "It was successful. There was frustration, yes. But we got people out of harm's way."
Did you send this to Drudge?
You mean we haven't learned how to save these people from themselves?
Nagin blew it BIG TIME. He should be in jail.
Well, the buses didn't go either:
I just did.
Wow! Blame without Bush. Someone may finally be asking exactly what NO has been doing for the last 4 years with the federal revenue that most major cities recieved as part of Homeland Security. This would seem most important for New Orleans since it is not only a hurricane zone...it is a major artery for production and distribution of oil.
Just a case of POOR state and local goverment planing.No leadership in either case.
I didn't even notice this was Ivan...making it even worse.
"But we won't actually be taking any legal action to secure future evacution for poor people because of, you know, the city government's political party affiliation."
I think the Democratic 90% of the news media should just shut up or go out of business. Which party has run the City of New Orleans for years? Which party has run the State of Louisiana for years? Which party did nothing about the criminal elements for years, until they ran on a rampage and brought relief efforts to a standstill? Which party elected an incompetent Mayor and Governor? Which party elected the Black Caucus, which sits with its thumb up it's collective butt and does nothing? Which party believes that the poor people of New Orleans should do nothing but wait for the Federal government to save them every day of their lives. Dear Democrat news media, Shut up!
Just to clarify, this was written in SEPTMEBER 2004 after Ivan. Meaning they identified every problem they're having over a YEAR ago, and not one damn thing was done about it.
This makes my blood boil.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Then have the Jesse Jackson, Jr. go on TV and cry racism.
Well, Jackson and the rest of the race baiters ought to get on their knees and thank Americans for donating to their relief.
What you said!
Well, if they wanted to evacuate, they could have used the city buses instead of shutting them down early, and there is footage of about 300 or more school buses, now partially submerged, that could have been used to bus people out of town.
The governor and the mayor should be run out of office, and if there is something that can be legally done, prosecute them for negligence.
It should also be noted that Ivan is the very reason that both Blanco and the mayor were reluctant to declare a state of emergency and mandatory evacuations. They took a severe hit for this evacuation and they didn't want the responsibility should Katrina miss.
This is the reason that Bush had to declare a state of emergency before Blanco even did. And by Blanco's own admissions last Sunday, it was the president who requested mandatory evacuations. Just in case Katrina missed, they could blame the president. Sadly, even after having seen the failure of last year, they still did nothing to improve it.
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