Governor: New Orleans Needs to Be Evacuated

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[Bigh4u2]

Governor: New Orleans Needs to Be Evacuated Tuesday, August 30, 2005

BATON ROUGE, La. — With conditions in the hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans rapidly deteriorating, Gov. Kathleen Blanco (search ) announced late Tuesday that people now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers need to be evacuated.

"The situation is untenable," Blanco said during a news conference. "It's just heartbreaking."

[TheSpottedOwl]

Did you see the thread this morning with the pictures? One invalid was loaded onto a neighbor's ironing board, through a hole hacked through the roof. She couldn't walk.

I was wondering about tempers flaring in the Super Dome, after the AC went out.

Would it be at least feasible to keep an active roster of elderly/disabled who live at home, and a head count on nursing home patients? How about a specially built route, leading to a permanent evacuation site? Those pics of the traffic on I-10 worried the hell out of me.

Of course, it would have helped if starting maybe thursday evening, residents were told to start packing their cars and head out. Plans should be in place to transport whole families who have no car, or money to leave. Come on, hurricanes happen every year. Haven't they thought of that?

Mary Landrieux needs to earn her paycheck. "Mary, throw on a pair of overalls, hip waders, and grab a shovel. When you're done cleaning up all the streets, you can personally shovel silt, and rebuild the wetlands".

[Rutles4Ever]

Great point. There's not enough time for large scale craft to be in place. Someone needs to improvise, and quick.

[hershey]

GW is knee deep in plans to deal with NO's tragedy. He declared Louisiana and Mississippi disaster areas very early on, thus releasing funds and manpower. NO will get all the help humanly possible.

[ARCADIA]

Are you willing to pay for the ships after they are completly trashed?

That wasn't my suggestion. It is not a bad one, but all they really need is to transport them to the nearest refugee camp with a workable road net. There is no need to house anyone on cruise ships, ferry boats would probably work (assumming land transport is out of the question). How far is it to the nearest workable military base?

[nicmarlo]

There is always an advance team before the Veep or President can go anywhere....it usually is done for days and days, days ahead of their arrival. What good would it do to have the President show up and be killed or very seriously harmed?

IMHO, the president is showing strong leadership and concern regarding this; he has addressed this situation several times in as many days...has been seen watching this, has been in communication with the various people with FEMA, etc., and I have no doubt he got the mayor's and governor's collective rears in gear, as well...while it appeared all they were doing was hand-wringing and talking to lawyers.

Criticize of the President on this issue is misplaced, again, imho.

[stuartcr]

I know what you mean. I can't imagine being out of work and homeless for that long. I wonder what happens to the people that evacuated? They aren't going to be able to stay in motels for 2 or 3 months. Most people will probably run out of money before that.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

President Bush urged LA state & local government to evacuate New Orleans before the storm struck, they at first ignored him, then failed miserabley to do so.

Now that people are paying the price for their failure, they will try and hang their suffering onto GW.

[Amelia]

Where would you have taken them?

I'd have taken them to school gymnasiums, national guard armories, and/or churches somewhere a hundred or so miles inland.

[LOC1]

The bridge that fell was not over the Mississippi River, it was between Slidel and New Orleans. Certainly one must look for underwater obstructions, but there are oceangoing vessels sailing up the Mississippi to Baton Rouge right now, just not cruise ships.

[relee]

Kind of odd to start an evacuation late in the afternoon. Seems like they would want to start at daybreak, unless there's a compelling reason to get started now.

[HitmanLV]

It's up to the brass to ask him, and it's up to him to see if he is willing.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

" Nagin speaks with almost no authority, and actually makes me feel less secure about the situation when he speaks than more secure about the situation."

I agree.
In a crisis situation like this, you must have a strong and decisive leader. The mayor and governor look like deer in the headlights and their weakness cannot be having a positive effect on the trapped and desolate citizens.
We can't be the only ones thinking this .
The shock will soon become anger .
A strong and reassuring leader must emerge soon or this situation could reach a tipping point and descend into uncontrollable chaos.

[Ditter]

You think I don't know that? I AM in Texas.

[brwnsuga]

My lovely husband (US Navy) packed to leave on an Amphib ship, which I can't name, toward the Gulf.

[HitmanLV]

True. They are out there, though. I just want to make it clear that they aren't inept because they are dems, that's all. Though to be fair, they may be dems because they are inept. :-)

All kidding aside, Koch and Goodman are the last of a vanishing breed. I live in Las Vegas and if we ever had a jam, I'm glad Goodman is calling the shots: in fact, though I like Governor Guinn [R] a lot and trust him in a crisis, my gut tells me that Goodman [D] would be a better man to rely on if it hits the fan.

Maybe it's because he was a consigliere. :-)

[HitmanLV]

I agree. This is bad and getting worse.

[Rutles4Ever]

I'm thinking the governor-ordered evacuation has been issued on the basis of prognoses for the coming days. This is just conjecture, but it's quite possible whatever geological experts are around to assess the situation are not being very encouraging about what the next day or two holds.

Add to that another possible system on the horizon and there's no point in leaving anyone where they're at.

[Political Junkie Too]

I haven't been able to keep up with all the Katrina threads with deleted posts, so I don't know what all the deletes were about, so here goes:

I hope someone is studying this reaction to disaster to learn from it in case we need to evacuate a city radiated from a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke. If this is the best we can do, we will have some BIG problems if a sudden emergency (not one that took days to develop) befalls us.

-PJ

[kittymyrib]

You sound like that crabby Jack McGarity on Wolf Blitzer's show this afternoon. He wanted the President to get down there too. I suppose he could parachute in, since all airports in the area are closed...and then of course, the Secret Service would have to check out everyone at the Super Dome before he could visit and law enforcement would have to provide security instead of preventing looters from sacking the city.
By now you ought to know that whatever the Pres. does, he will be criticized by those who hate him, so this time I think he's wise to wait until there aren't so many issues of life and death in NO.