As already discussed, New Orleans, nor any other major city has the means to evacuate 100,000 people 100 miles away in 18 hours in an EMERGENCY situation.
Look, the guy may have been slow in ordering the evacuation but that is just a moot point.
"Look, the guy may have been slow in ordering the evacuation but that is just a moot point."
moot point? The guy had to have the PRESIDENT tell him to do it! How embarrassing.
As already discussed ad nauseum on these threads, ALL of the plans for New Orleans call for 72 hours to evacuate. They have for YEARS.
This guy had from Friday afternoon to DO SOMETHING......and he didn't........he waited till Bush called him and told him to order an evacuation.
They should have had more than 18 hours to evacuate which they would have had if they had really had a good plan. There was no plan to evacuate the poor and elderly. The mayor wasn't even sure that he had the power to order an evacuation. There is no excuse for that from a mayor of NO. Everyone with any clue in LA had known for ages that this catastrophe was likely to happen. I won't blame it all on this mayor, the plan should have been in effect way before he became mayor, but he should have been prepared for what he would do in case this very likely scenario would happen while he was mayor.