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The truth is, the mayor and the governor were touting a bogus number of pre-storm evacuees. They really had no idea how many had left. Most of us who were watching the highway cams on storm weekend could see that the roads never got really got backed up until the last minute and their own reports made it clear that the area could not be evacuated in less than 72 hours. It just did not seem possible that most of the citizens had left.

People there have been taught vertical evacuation as an acceptable alternative to leaving for years and that's what hundreds of thousands chose this time. In the downtown core, countless people have been hiding in buildings waiting for the grownups to get there and take them out.

I find it hard to believe that the mayor did not have a better idea that so many were there especially since the area housed so many low income people who were not offered help in evacuating and would never leave unless they were taken out. He needed to fess up and notify the feds so that they could ramp up faster. Even with that extra notice, they would not have been able to get them all out quickly, but it certainly would have helped.

Bottom line...When the bulk of your emergency plan is simply "get out", your plan is only a success if most actually get out and why it's in your best interest to just say that most got out even if they didn't. When the storm is not too bad, you get to claim how well your plan worked and no one really catches on. When you run out of luck, the lies float by face down in the water, cling to life in attics and on rooftops, and stack up in your precious downtown core begging for water, food, and a way out. The lack of communication that has been touted as a contributing factor in this mess was more a case of CYA than phone and radio failure.

I have to wonder when the last census was done in the projects.

That's what I was wondering. There seem to be alot of "invisible" people...which may explain why the Governor did not comprehend the enormity of the evacuation problem. The people of the projects may not even have opened the door for the census takers for a variety of reasons.