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I think it is COMPLETELY unfair to lay this at the feet of poor folks who "ignored" an evacuation order. From what I can tell, the city never issued a mandatory evacuation order, and I am willing to bet the vast majority of the poor folks did not even know that a voluntary evacuation was happening. I suspect that the city never had people go into those poor neighborhoods and educate folks about what might happen in a major hurricane. A lot of these people have minimal if any reading skills, and they have no cable TV so they are not going to be at home on Saturday and Sunday watching the Weather Channel or CNN to learn that the storm has reach a Category 3 and they need to get the hell out of town. It's hot, they have no air conditioning, and they are not inside watching TV or listening to the radio at all. They for sure do not have computers and Internet access to download the city's evacuation instructions, and that is apprently the only place these instructions were available. They don't have cars; they take city buses or walk where they need to go. And it appears to me the city simply threw these people to the wolves of the hurricane and floods and the predators roaming the streets. It is unconscionable. The mayor and everyone in that city government should be prosecuted after this.

Leading a city of predominantly poor and poorly educated people is a challenge, but it is not rocket science. You have to do things differently because people do not read, they do not have computers, and they do not have cable TV, and they are not inside during the summer because it is too hot. You need to have trucks out on the streets with bullhorns and people handing out simply written leaflets telling folks what to do. You need to have the city buses picking people up at their usual bus stops and taking them to safe places. You need to have those places already stocked, especially with baby formula and diapers and porta-johns. A hell of a lot of these folks are single mommas and grandmommas who are high school dropouts with lots of babies. All they know how to do is make formula and change the Pampers.

I'm a white, middle-aged, upper middle class suburban mom, and I know all this stuff. Why in the hell did nobody in charge in the City of New Orleans know it?

I am willing to bet the vast majority of the poor folks did not even know that a voluntary evacuation was happening,

If the Mayor did issue a mandatory evac order, it was only AFTERward. By then, electricity, phones, cell towers, etc., were out. The people still in the inner city wouldn't have heard the order anyway. They didn't have any means of communicating with the outside world. Even today, the news channels are showing LIVE pix of people on roofs waving shirts and towels as signals for help. These locations still don't have any other ways of communicating with the outside world.