Posted on 09/04/2005 11:45:10 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
Frustrated and grieving, Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday again ripped the painfully slow response of state and federal authorities...
...Nagin singled out Gov. Kathleen Blanco for criticism, saying that the governor had asked for 24 hours to think over a decision when time was a luxury that no one, especially refugees, had. “When the president and the governor got here, I said, 'Mr. President, Madame Governor, you two have to get in synch. If you don't, more people are going to die.” Blanco and Bush met privately at his insistence, Nagin said, after which Bush came out and told Nagin that he had given Blanco two options, and she requested a full day to decide. “It would have been great if we could have walked off Air Force One and told the world we had it all worked out,” Nagin said. “It didn't happen, and more people died.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Other posts/articles suggest it's related to mandatory evacuations.
boy talk about your political fraticide...
good on nagin.. for not pointing directly to bush
FYI. What was the key decision that Blanco couldn't make midday Friday, with the press in full screaming fury at the delay and blaming President Bush, that she didn't consider important enough to decide until Saturday?
evacuating*
The state is going to try to whitewash it. Or is it Blancowash it?
Owl_Eagle
(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
He did it....No she did it....no Bush did it........na na na na na.
Doesn't read that way in the article, but rather sounds like the Friday meeting after touring the devastation.
If it was a pre-hurricane meeting about evacuations, then IIRC this would be the first suggestion that Bush actually met with them before the hurricane.
The mayor couldn't make the decision without the governors ok. She needed 24 hours? Who did she have to ask?
My educated guess is that Bush requested that Blanco let the feds take full control. Blanco then dawdled because her people thought Bush had 'political' reasons for wanting the feds to takeover.
Hee hooo Haw!!! This is TOO rich.
He finally realizes he is toast and he's going to take her down with him.
She in turn will point to the Buses!! And the ignored City Disaster Plan.
GWB can just let they scratch and claw for a few days, and step in and say "Now Children....."
Yes, much more likely.
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.
Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html
But can we get a reporter to finally ask Nagin and confirm this?
Nagin and Blanco were aware, I imagine, of this study which shows that poorer people do not move out of a hurricane's path as much as others do, and special steps need to be taken to protect them.
Citizen Hurricane Evacuation Behavior in Southeastern Louisiana: A Twelve Parish Survey Released by The Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Taskforce
The study concluded (page 6) that
The number of low income residents who remain in harm’s way illustrates the need for both
education about the need to travel far enough1
and
providing evacuation assistance to those without means2
1. I don't think Nagin mentioned to his citizens that they needed to evacuate at a distance to high land rather than to a relative's "stronger" house.
2. I don't have to ask if Nagin sent buses to evacuate them.
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