Knew it? Despite the pictures of swamped buses, Nagin had people bused to the Superdome, 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."
And the governor, despite some reports, did have the National Guard on hand prior to the hurricane, as well. They were at the Superdome, patting people down for weapons before allowing them to enter!
Further, the Superdome evacuation began on August 31st (again, thanks, AP.)
Not trying to defend Nagin here, but while the Feds certainly knew that there were people at the Superdome and Convention Center, those were clearly designated by local authorities as shelters. It would have been an outrageous waste of resources to start pulling people out of shelters, when the primary focus the first few days was to rescue those in immediate jeopardy and putting htme into shelters. And, as has been well documented elsewhere, Lousiana authorities had not asked for Federal intervention yet (although, according to AP again, the White House had decided by Wednesday the 31st, that they ought to have done so.
According to Nagin's current account of the meeting between Bush and Blanco, this must have been around the time that Bush laid out options for Blanco, begging her to do something.
But Nero Blanco fiddled...
Blanco hates black people, pass it on. Heck, even her name in Spanish means "White."
Interesting reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Nagin
Nagin was Republican and changed to Dem to run for Mayor of NO.