Posted earlier today from BlindManPhoto.com collection
Posted on 09/07/2005 9:13:42 AM PDT by frankjr
At least one major media outlet has finally noticed that New Orleans had an emergency response plan for hurricances and evacuations that somehow never got implemented. ABC News yesterday asked why Mayor Ray Nagin not only did not follow the plan, but actively sent non-evacuees to a site that had no preparations to handle them:
New Orleans' own comprehensive emergency plan raises the specter of "having large numbers of people … stranded" and promises "the city … will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."
"Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves," the plan states.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, however, that plan was not followed completely.
Instead of sending city buses to evacuate those who could not make it out on their own, people in New Orleans were told to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where no one provided sufficient sustenance or security.
ABC also asked Governor Kathleen Blanco's office about their response to the evacuation. They responded that they never asked for evacuation assistance from the federal government as part of their interaction with FEMA, only for assistance with shelter and provisions. They assumed that the city of New Orleans had followed its own evacuation plan.
That assumption wound up costing lives. Did they ask Nagin if his administration had followed the plan, and if so, what kind of response did they get? If ABC's report is correct, then the feds may not have known of the evacuation breakdown until the flood on Tuesday made it a critical situation -- and then were forced to respond by getting the correct assets in place within 72 hours for evacuation while almost all the roads and bridges were unusable. By that time, FEMA had begun to use what roadways were left open to move in the supplies and temporary shelter they had prestaged in the area. The feds would have had to quickly shift to a massive evacuation effort instead, a difficult and time-consuming transformation.
Kudos to ABC for asking the right questions. The answers will prove very disturbing for those who want to cast blame at the feds for what eventually will prove to be a heroic response, under the circumstances. The answers ABC published already prove most of that conjecture wrong.
UPDATE and BUMP TO TOP: Perhaps the media might notice this November 2004 analysis of the dry run Hurricane Ivan provided city officials in evacuating the city as a hurricane approached. It would address the meme that only the very poor and infirm resisted the mandatory evacuation, and noted that New Orleans did a poor job in communicating the evacuation order then as well (emphases mine):
The fact that 600,000 residents evacuated means an equal number did not. Recent evacuation surveys show that two thirds of nonevacuees with the means to evacuate chose not to leave because they felt safe in their homes. Other nonevacuees with means relied on a cultural tradition of not leaving or were discouraged by negative experiences with past evacuations. ...
Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.
That may well turn out to be the death toll for Katrina, and for the exact same reason. They had this data well ahead of the storm, and the evacuation called for the buses to roll for this exact reason. Why didn't Mayor Nagin follow the plan? Why didn't Governor Blanco do something to check her assumptions that he had?
Get on da school bus. Oh, wait, they were in the bus barn parking lot.
I'm shocked. Probably some minor detail not followed. Nothing to see here. Move along. There is plenty of blame to go around.
ABC News yesterday asked why Mayor Ray Nagin not only did not follow the plan, but actively sent non-evacuees to a site that had no preparations to handle them....
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It continues to be verified that this mayor is not only incompetent, but failed the HIS OWN PEOPLE! How Clintonesque! Liberals always shaft their "useful idiot" constiuents and they just keep coming back for more...
I wonder about all those media-types or elected officials who go on and on about the gov't response (other than their own, of course!) after Katrina.
The responses in the quantity and quality needed was not appreciated at first. I know that there had been warnings of flooding after a hurricane, but I think that this time, the damage was several orders of magnitude worse than anybody envisioned.
What were the historical precedents that were available? Galveston? Johnston flood? How many people had been in those disasters? A few thousands? And after Katrina - a few hundred thousands? A million?
Those who are complaining about gov't officials should ask themselves the questions without playing Monday morning quarterback! Although I don't particularly like government at all, I think that the officials recovered quite nicely and reached full speed quickly.
Snort. Jeez, the info was always available. All anyone had to do was look. And people were, and noticed the MSM wasn't.
"Negative experiences" is code for rampant looting.
ooks like the centrifuge of truth is starting to spin up, soon everything will be seperated.
Yeah...NBC Nightly finally woke up to the Evac Plan and ran a single still photo of the flooded buses. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.
Hitlery will make sure that Blanco and Witt are on it, and absolve the state of ALL blame.
Too late. The Old Media is dead. Long live the New Media.
Let's just hope our spineless representatives don't allow Nagin & Blanco to sit on the investigative commission, al a Jamie Gorlick.
You weren't watching the two-to-three-hour pressers given by the Governette during the crisis or listening to the scanners.
The LA state government failed utterly, totally, miserably. The NO city government did the same.
Blanco had to be *reminded* to call in the military (National Guard) during a press interview. Later, she couldn't remember what day it was. When asked about the contaminated water in NO, she stated, "It's just rain water, it's safe to drink".
" Hitlery will make sure that Blanco and Witt are on it, and absolve the state of ALL blame."
Good point. But that is why I think Bush came out early and said he would start his own investigation. They will probably all be combined, but Bush/Rove will make sure that the panel members selected are reasonable. If not, I hope Bush does proceed with his own investigation. Sure, libs will say and Bush's investigation is not valid, but at least questions will be raised that must be answered.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw Wolfstar's awesome pictorial/informational thread.
Bring it ON, Cankles!
ping
Nbc , now abc, only one MSM left
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