Posted on 09/03/2005 12:34:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
Just last year the Associated Press predicted all of the failures that have became part of the Katrina tragedy - but the story was about another hurricane, Hurricane Ivan.
When Ivan aimed its fury at the Big Easy, the AP detailed what could happen if the hurricane slammed into New Orleans.
In the case of Ivan, serious problems were caused by a lack of planning for a cataclysmic storm, yet with Katrina on the horizon, the lessons of Ivan were all but forgotten.
A feckless state governor and New Orleans' mayor repeated the same mistakes they made with Ivan, and hundreds of thousands of largely poor people were forced to endure conditions that one associates with the Third World - not the richest nation on the planet.
The disaster in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will come as no surprise to those who recall a September 19, 2004 Associated Press report.
Wrote the AP: "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."
Eventually, tens of thousands of New Orleanans were directed to the Superdome - where no food, water or living facilities were provided for the massive number of refugees expected to remain there for at least several days. Fortunately few arrived.
Noted the AP then: "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."
Noting that much of the city lies below sea level, only kept dry by a system of pumps and levees, the AP recalled that as Hurricane Ivan approached the Gulf coast from the Gulf of Mexico, the city - warned by forecasters that a direct hit could send torrents of Mississippi River backwash over the city's levees, creating a 20-foot-deep cesspool of human and industrial waste - urged more than a million people to flee the wrath of the oncoming storm.
But nobody told them how to flee Ivan.
As happened before Katrina struck, residents who had cars took to the highways while the AP reported 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.'
"'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,'" Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU told the AP.
In the case of Katrina, there was huge fleet of school buses the mayor could have dispatched to aid in evacuating people unable to leave on their own. Instead, the buses sat in parking lots that later flooded, making them unusable when tens of thousands were stranded in the flooded city.
Dealing with safeguarding the city's population had always been a problem, the AP recalled, adding that the situation was worse at the time of Ivan since the Red Cross had stopped providing shelters in New Orleans for hurricanes rated above Category 2. Stronger hurricanes were deemed too dangerous, and Ivan was a much more powerful Category 4.
In the case of Ivan, city officials first said they would provide no shelter, then just as they later did with Katrina, they 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 as Ivan approached, but said the evacuation was the top priority.
"Our main focus is to get the people out of the city," she told the AP.
"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."
Noted the AP story: "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 just as happened after Katrina, the AP reported there were problems, including theft and vandalism.
With Ivan approaching, far fewer took refuge from the storm - an estimated 1,100 - at the Superdome, and there was far greater security: 300 National Guardsmen.
Wrote the AP of the Ivan debacle: "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 believed 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 [Mayor] 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 it appears that nothing had been changed by the time Katrina made its appearance in the Gulf.
After Ivan, Blanco and other state officials boasted 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."
After Katrina struck, however, escape routes out of the city were clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic, leaving some motorists on the road when the Hurricane arrived.
A new photo from AP shows a huge fleet of school buses lined up in a now flooded parking lot - what appears to be enough transportation sufficient to have evacuated many of those stranded in the city and left to endure unimaginable conditions - transportation that the mayor failed to use when there was still time to use it.
The lessons of Ivan were never learned, and the people of New Orleans paid the price.
Thank you for making one of the more rational and honest statements on this thread.
I hardly think telling poor people to find rides with friends or family when such huge number of them rely on public transportation is "rational".
Especially when you leave hundreds of buses parked in lots that are now under water.
If Nagin and Blanco had an ounce of pride, they would resign in disgrace."
Dignity would be a better word, but they have none.
In retrospect honor would probably have been the best. But all these two morons have is arrogance, stupidity and incompetence.
Then what good is a "Levee Commission," and why did they get so much money, and why was it spent on a casino, private plane, and other such nonsense?
I must be missing something, but then again, I'm just a stupid Ga. boy.
Explain the Army Corps of Engeneers role:
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/whoweare/index.asp
I have never had to evacuate for a hurricane simply because of where I lived in Miami.........far inland away from the storm surge.
By contrast, my aunt in Key Biscayne is required to evacuate every single time a hurricane hits Miami to stay with my cousins who live in the inland Miami area where I used to live.
I discussed the matter of storm surge on Post 11 of this thread.
In Florida, evacuation orders are given with 48 hours lead time.
As far as "complicating matters", one school bus carrying 70 human beings complicates the matter far less than 14 automobiles carrying 5 human beings each.
Please tell me the difference between an Evacuation Order and a Mandatory Evacuation Order.
I don't know how long you've lived in New Orleans but perhaps the state of Louisiana created this commission without passing it by you first. Nevertheless, it does exist.
You asked me earlier what would I have done if I had been the mayor. I'm no expert on New Orleans or Louisiana but I do know the Superdome is owned by the state. I also know that the mayor and the governor had up to 48 hours advance notice that it was very possible this storm was going to hit New Orleans and hit with a vengence. It seems to me knowing thousands of people would descend on the the Superdome and the Convention Center--and the fact that it is hurricane season--would have triggered the need to stock both of those venues with at least some food and water. Forty eight hours after the storm struck and the levees broke, the mayor and the governor--and others--complained that it was taking too long to get food and water into the city which, btw, had numerous flooded roads and highways that it didn't have 48 hours before the storm came. If that isn't the epitome of 20/20 hindsight I don't know what is. The president declared the region a national emergency before the storm hit. Perhaps the Louisiana National Guard could have brought supplies in beforehand.
Secondly, if I had been the mayor I would have strongly--and for obvious reasons--urged the governor to mobilize the state National Guard sooner than she did. The fact that this would even be necessary points to her apparent ineptness in dealing with the entire situation.
I've already said I would have opened most lanes of traffic outbound. And so third, I would have activated those hundreds of school buses that you say would "only have complicated things".
Fourth, and somewhat unrelated, I would have ceased--and urged the governor to cease--negotiations with the Saints ownership in trying to keep that team in New Orleans. It's been proven time and time again that sport franchises bring little net revenue gain into the communtities they operate in. The taxes on parking, hotel rooms, etc. generated for payments to the Saints football team could have easily been spent on hurricane and levee breach preparedness. You may be thinking, "Why have the Superdome without the Saints?" but the team only plays 8 games a year there (10 if exhibition games are counted). Considering that New Orleans is a very small market, taxpayer money spent on the Saints is not money well-spent. Your previous governor entered into a bad deal with the team and your present governor has been on the verge of doing essentially the same thing. Let them go. Your community should have done so in the first place. Now it looks like you'll have to. Clearly in light of this disaster, your state will be unable to continue the payments due the Saints and Tom Benson will more likely than not pack the team up and leave.
As mayor I would have camped out on the steps of Congress until someone listened. We keep hearing how everyone knew this could happen yet to the rest of us not living in your region we literally had no idea. Your mayor should have been relentless in getting the word out. Perhaps, considering your city and state's reputation for corruptness, he was told in no uncertain terms not to do so. I don't know. But I find it interesting that a city and state at the very mouth of the Mississippi River, a city and state where everything that comes and goes on that river must pass by, would be as poor as your city and state are. Perhaps you could explain that to me.
Apparently there was little difference between the preparing for Ivan and this hurricane. So whatever the mayor did do wasn't enough. Such is the business of being a politician. They want to be in a position of leadership but when they demomstrate an inability to provide that leadership they pay the political price. Your mayor has had no problem pointing fingers. Yet he is your mayor and he should be willing to take some responsibility. From my vantage point I haven't seen that and somehow I don't think I will. He's clearly looking to find political cover. That doesn't demonstrate leadership to me. And your governor is no different.
I don't live in New Orleans or anywhere where hurricanes are commonplace. Here in California we prepare for earthquakes and wildfires. And while I don't claim to have all the answers, I know it's counter-productive to play the "blame game" and lay this all at Bush's doorstep or claim the lack of quick response was based on racism. Handing out DVDs is not really what I would consider exceptional planning particularly since people tend to not believe the worst can happen to them.
Well, I have no idea of how things are done in Louisinna but, in Florida, a municipality can make it a misdemeanor if someone does not comply with a mandatory evacuation order.
What that means is that, if a Police officer wants to take the trouble to do so, he can arrest you and haul you off against your will.
In practical terms, however, there are not enough Police to cope with everyone who wants to win a Darwin Award.
I can see a family member using that legal power to get the Police to allow you to get your stubborn Aunt Millie off to safety against her will but, for perfect strangers, I guess that, if they want to play Russian Roulette, you ought to let them.
If the Louisianna Governor is putting out "Evacuation Orders" and upgrading that to a "Mandatory Evacuation Orders", it seems to me that she is sending out weak and mixed messages.
"Hey! I'm stomping my foot! I really mean it this time! I order you to (evacuate/stop looting/fill in the blank)!!!"
That's not true. I sat here all day Sunday watching four lanes of traffic outbound and four lanes of no traffic whatsoever on a New Orleans freeway, I-10 I believe. It wasn't until close to dark that all lanes were outbound.
The president did in fact declare a state of emergency before the storm struck. Due some research. You'll find that to be true and he did it so the rescue and storm-aftermath logistics could be in place sooner. He also had to convince your governor and mayor to order a mandatory evacuation in the first place. Apparently your two local government officials hadn't thought of it or were unwilling to do it.
The people would not leave their homes. Do yo propose the mayor of New Orleans go door to door with a gun and force people out of their houses?
If that's what it takes to ensure their safety, in a word, yes. The Superdome and the Convention Center had thousands of people in them before the storm struck. If the people wouldn't leave their homes then who was at those two venues? There's a difference between "the people wouldn't leave their homes" and "the people couldn't leave their homes". Of course your logics say those school buses would have cluttered things. BTW if it was necessary for the mayor to go door to door with a gun then he obviously didn't convey the sad reality that could bestow these people prior to the storm's arrival, not only in the immediate future but months ahead. I don't know how things work in New Orleans but in the mid-90's we had massive flooding here in Northern California and our family personally had the Sheriff's Dept. tell us we had one hour to get out. One hour later they were back. Guess what. We left.
Your local government is every bit as responsible for what has happened as anybody else. That's the reality.
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