Gallup: little outrage, for Bush's ... response to hurricane (only 13% blame him) Why should they?
NOBODY was supposed to be left trapped in the New Orleans flood bowl death trap as 200,000 low-income residents were as a result of the gross and possibly criminal negligence on the part of the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, who failed to follow their own evacuation plan prior to the landfall of Katrina.
New Orleans is in a Storm Surge Zone, below sea level, and surrounded by levies that were only designed to withstand storms lass than a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane. That means that any person staying in New Orleans during a Category 3 or higher hurricane is facing a very high risk of death. Katrina was forecast as a Category 5 and hit as a Category 4.
What Is "Storm Surge" and Why It Matters.
The 2004 Hurricane Pam Exercise was modeled on a catastrophic destruction of New Orleans after only a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane. It was based on the assumption that there had been a complete evacuation of New Orleans. Shelters outside of the New Orleans flood bowl had already been identified:
Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes.(2004 New Orleans Disaster Prediction)
President Bush requested that Governor Blanco allow the Federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, and Governor Blanco, for political reasons, refused:
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday..........The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they had been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals", said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
The Southeast Louisiana Evacuation plan supplement, revised in 2000, page 13, read paragraph 5, stated:
5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating. In spite of that,over four hundred New Orleans publicly owned buses remained parked in neat rows and 200,000 low-income New Orleans residents were left trapped in the ¡§New Orleans flood bowl¡¨ (as scientists call it) in the face of the incoming storm surge.
Those 400+ buses, at 70 passengers per bus, could have taken 28,000 of those low-income citizens per trip out of New Orleans on the inbound lanes that the Governor and Mayor inexplicably left unused during the evacuation.
As a result, 200,000 of the poorest residents of New Orleans were left trapped din a disaster waiting to happen with no where to go but the Superdome.
While 800,000 of New Orleans' residents with private transportation were being saved, 200,000 of New Orleans', low-income residents were left abandoned by the Governor and the Mayor in the New Orleans flood bowl to face a Category 4 Hurricane Storm Surge.
If the levies had failed catastrophically instead of at a few certain point as they did, the death toll would have reached Hiroshima proportions.
Well, all the pictures and posts regarding unused busses are important to show and repeat, but, in fact, the city
did provide busses, as reported by the
AP on August 28th:
"Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome."
That's right, they were bussed to the Superdome. As you may recall, the state also provided National Guard troops to pat people down for weapons (from the stories we've heard, they missed a few, but that's another topic...)
As was also reported on the 28th, Mayor Nagin "... said people who opted to go to the Superdome should come with enough food and supplies to last three to five days. He police and firefighters would fan out throughout the city telling residents to get out. He also said police would have the authority to commander any vehicle or building that could be used for evacuation or shelter."
All this is not to defend Nagin, nor to suggest that his plan was a good one. But there is another important point that many people seem to be missing completely. During those first few days after the levees gave way, resources were focused on cutting drowning people out of their attics and plucking them from swamped rooftops. Hundreds of people in immediate danger of losing their lives needed to be saved, and the NOPD (such as it is...) was trying to stop the animal element, by that time running amok in the city.
Further, the evacuation of the Superdome began on Wednesday, August 31st, as reported on CNN and elsewhere. While evacuation of the convention center did not begin until Saturday (the 3d), most of those who took shelter there arrived later, also.
When Brown or Cherthoff say that "they didn't know about the people" at these two shelters, don't be too quick (Bill O'Reilly) to laugh and suggest that they ought to watch the TV. Yes, we all knew there were people at these places. But, while a herculean effort was well underway to drop supplies to the stranded throughout the Gulf Coast, and to rescue the thousands in immediate jeopardy, these missions had one immediate goal: to get those poor people to a shelter. The fact is, the people at the convention center and Superdome were already in shelters at the direction of state and local government. It would be an outrageous waste of resources for the Federal government to unilaterally inspect, commandeer and evacuate shelters when there are other clear and immediate priorities. They have to assume that shelters are already under control.
As reported by the AP on the 31st (Wednesday):
Under the national response plan, which was finalized in January, the federal government intervenes only when emergencies exceed what state and local capabilities can handle. Though state and local officials have not formally declared that they can no longer manage the disaster on their own, that is the case, said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke."
In other words, not only had the locals not asked for Federal intervention, the White House had clearly recognized they ought to.
Sorry if any of this is redundant - so much info flying around