Posted on 09/02/2005 3:11:05 PM PDT by joinedafterattack
Mayor Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco failed to develope better evacuation strategy for NO after Hurricane Ivan in exactly one year ago.
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."
© 2004 The Associated Press.
They knew for decades, centuries even, this would happen. Look at the French Quarter. It was the last to get any water because they had the sense to build on higher ground.
Governor "Blinko" said today that Bush TOLD HER to order a mandatory evacution. Of course, you won't hear the MSM playing up that interesting tid bit.
It's definitely Bush's fault. Yeah, he gave tax breaks to the rich and cut the money to fix the levees. That's what the Left is spouting right now.
If leadership in this crisis were represented by a doughnut Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco would be the hole.
You forgot the segment of the population that translates "evacuate" as "sweet--we get to run wild while The Man is out of town."
I knew that the Libs would totally politicize this, but their unrelenting finger pointing is still stunning. Not one moment for constructive plans or ideas for helping the victims. It's just "attack, attack, attack, and we'll worry about all that other crap once we're in charge."
Since when is the gov't expected to provide bus service to the public, free of charge? Is there no such thing as personal responsibilty anymore. If the gov't said a tornado was coming, does the gov't now owe you a cellar to hide out in? If a wildfire is spreading, and the gov't warns you to leave; are you entitled to an asbestos suit?
When Katrina hit Florida, it was a category 1 Huricane. It grew from a Cat 1 to a Cat 5 within 48 hours; I submit that these people did not know what a Cat 5 was going to be like, and had expected to ride out a Category 1 storm. I also submit that a segment of the group PLANNED on looting, knowing that a large portion of the population and police had fled the storm.
This is a natural catestrophy, the scope of which has not been seen in nearly 100 years. FEMA, State and local services are frankly overwhelmed. Having some gangs decide to 'take over' the surviving wreckage is just an example of how poorly this has been handled. I would have done things differently. I would have started shooting looters on day ONE; instead of letting it escalate to this mess.
But, the ALCU (as usual) has no actionable plans that make fiscal sense; they merely want to place blame after the fact. If California has the 'Big One', they will sue the US Gov't for not having a large enough 'Earthquake Prevention Plan' in place to handle the tens of Millions that will be affected. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay taxes for 100,000 buses and the highways that will be required to evacuate Los Angeles should the "Big One" be just 48 hours away. You live; you take your chances just like everyone else.
Good grief, thank you for posting this. I had NO idea. No wonder people didn't want to stay in the Superdumb. If I lived in NO and couldn't get out (this time) I think me and my axe would've been better off at home. Mayor Nagin & Governor Blanco should be ASHAMED, and should face serious charges over this! INCREDIBLE!!!!
re: Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police . . . acknowledged he never expected a seven-hour-long crawl for the 60 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
That's a strange quote to be coming from the head of the state police. He must not be very good at math if it never occurred to him that a million or so cars trying to use the same few lanes of the same few roads would clog up the system. If his level of perception is typical of the people who have been in charge of hurricane preparations then it's little wonder why there are so many problems.
Needs a new mayor? Who would want to run now? Mayor of what?
Mayor of Lillie-pond-farms.......
Says it all dude.
I read on a NO blog that the mayor hasn't yet even been to NO. I don't want to spread rumors, but here is the blog link, www.mgno.com
In the ACLU world:
The court system and the ACLU have just killed thousands of people in the NO area
Some of the posts on a few of the NO blogs sicken me. The depth of hatred for President Bush is tangible, and you're right. He is ABSOLUTELY to blame for every freakin' ill that happens, not only in the U.S. but on the entire planet.
There hatred is right out of classical literature. They are as mad as Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick. He chased the white whale until he destroyed himself, ship and crew. Bush is the lefts white whale.......
"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."
So inbound lanes were reversed on a Tuesday afternoon, and Ivan arrived hours after Wednesday afternoon, meaning the reversed lanes were open only a few hours more than 24 hours. Were the inbound lanes reversed earlier this year?
"Send this to Drudge - EVERYONE - to make sure he doesn't miss it"
This is like a smoking gun.
The pic says it all about this incompetent mayor.. but get this, I just saw this on another thread, can't verify if its true though. Maybe the original poster has more info.
"The "Mayor" is apparently now saying that he couldn't use the school buses because ....they couldn't take all those people to Texas in a bus without bathrooms!"
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