City had evacuation plan but strayed from strategy

Cancer patient Earl Robicheaux, his immune system depleted by radical chemotherapy, lay in a hospital bed as Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans.

But after four days in the hospital's reeking darkness, he escaped via a Black Hawk helicopter that landed on the roof of the University Hospital under heavy guard because of the threat of sniper fire.

It was not the evacuation plan authorities had envisioned for its sick, its elderly and its poor. As the floodwaters recede, serious questions remain about whether New Orleans and Louisiana officials followed their own plans for evacuating people with no other way out.

The mayor's mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out.

City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan.

Instead, local buses were used to ferry people from 12 pickup points to poorly supplied "shelters of last resort" in the city. An estimated 50,000 New Orleans households have no access to cars, Wilmot said.

State and local plans both called for extra help to be provided in advance to residents with "special needs," though no specific timetable was prepared. But phone lines for people who needed specialized shelters opened at noon Saturday — barely 30 hours before Katrina came ashore in Louisiana.

Many people from New Orleans ended up staying home or using a "last resort" special needs shelter state authorities and the city health department set up at the Superdome. Those who made it out of town initially found limited space. The state of Louisiana provided shelter in Baton Rouge and five other cities for a total of about 1,000.

In the city of New Orleans alone, more than 100,000 of the city's residents described themselves as disabled in a recent U.S. census.

Early mistakes Hospitals were exempted from the mayor's mandatory evacuation order. But at least two public hospitals, loaded with more than 1,000 caregivers and patients, had their generators in their basements, which made them vulnerable in a flood. That violated the state's hurricane plan but had gone uncorrected for years because the hospitals did not have the money to fix the situation, a state university hospital official told the Chronicle.

The consequences came to bear in the images hours and days later: Elderly people dying outside shelters and hospitals that were losing power and, finally, their patients. Now, hurricane evacuation experts around the country are asking why New Orleans failed to prepare for the flood scenario from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane.

"Everybody knew about it. There's no excuse for not having a plan," said Jay Baker, a Florida State University associate professor who is an expert in hurricane evacuations and is familiar with New Orleans hurricane studies.

Tami Frazier, a spokeswoman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin, currently working out of Houston, refused to comment on direct questions this week or to answer several written questions sent via e-mail. She cited the need to focus on rescuing citizens and recovering bodies.

Robicheaux, the cancer patient who was trapped in a downtown New Orleans hospital, said he thought the city "decided basically to let it ride."

"When you're in a city like New York and there's a big snowstorm, you expect them to have plows. That's not the way it is here. There are no resources to stockpile supplies."

Saturday evening, Hurricane Katrina had intensified to Category 4, with the possibility that it could strike land as a killer Category 5 storm.

About 8 p.m., Mayor Nagin fielded an unusual personal call at home from Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, who wanted to be sure Nagin knew what was coming.

Still, Nagin waited to issue a mandatory evacuation, apparently because of legal complications, said Frazier. She said the city attorney was unavailable for an interview to explain.

But Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for the attorney general of Louisiana, said state law clearly gives the mayor the authority to "direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from any stricken or threatened area."

Former Kemah Mayor Bill King, who has spent years trying to boost funding and organization for hurricanes planning in the Houston-Galveston area, said Nagin's decision to wait to order people out compounded the tragedy.

"To call an evacuation on Sunday morning when the storm was going to hit on Monday morning at 6 a.m. is just ... negligence," King said. "If he'd called it better than that he would have saved lives."

Special-needs evacuation The Chronicle reviewed Louisiana's Emergency Operations Plan, adopted in 2000. It calls for the establishment of specialized shelters for people with special medical needs. It also recommends that cities use public transportation to evacuate residents if necessary.

The city of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan suggested people develop their own way to get out. "The potential exists that New Orleans could be without sufficient supplies to meet the needs of persons with special considerations, and there is significant risk being taken by those individuals who decide to remain in these refuges of last resort," it says.

People who called for information on special needs shelters Saturday were directed to sites in Alexandria and in Monroe, La. — cities 218 and 326 miles away. The state scrambled to find 20 ambulances and some specialized vans to pick up fragile residents who needed rides.

"There were transportation systems in place to take people out of New Orleans, which was the preferred solution," said Kristen Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Hospitals. But she's not sure how many got out.

Some, including Lower 9th Ward resident Lois Rice, a paraplegic, became trapped in their homes when the floodwaters rose. She was rescued after using her air mattress to float into her attic.

Florida, by contrast, for two decades has required counties to establish and maintain permanent databases of "special needs citizens," and arrange rides for people with no transportation. The state also has shelters established for myriad medical conditions.

Florida emergency officials agree that last-minute planning simply doesn't work.

"Unless you planned in advance, it would be a catastrophe," said Guy Daines, a retired Florida emergency manager who is considered an expert in specialized evacuations.

In New Orleans, many people with special medical needs ended up at the last resort shelter in the Superdome.

New Orleans' own special needs evacuation plan, however, says that shelter is "NOT TO BE INTERPRETED AS A GUARANTEE OF SAFETY, and the City of New Orleans is not assuring anyone protection from harm within the facilities that are being offered or opened for this purpose."

"When I saw them loading special needs people into the Superdome the day before the storm, my heart was breaking," said Patti Moss, a Texas nursing professor who has developed a tracking system for such vulnerable citizens here. "They were in the path of the storm."

Two of the city's hospitals dedicated to serving the city's poor, University and Charity hospitals, quickly lost power, according to Leslie Capo, a spokesman for the Louisiana State University health sciences department.

After days in the dark, it took the National Guard, the U.S. Army and a Black Hawk to rescue Robicheaux.

"We had been kind of left on our own and I thought, 'This is a fine thank you,' " he said.

Planning for the poor In storm-vulnerable Jefferson Parish and New Orleans, the American Red Cross worked before the storm to promote a "buddy system" to encourage everyone without cars to find rides through churches and other organizations.

But in an interview published July 18 in New Orleans City Business, Jefferson Parish hurricane planner Walter Maestri insisted New Orleans needed to do much more for those who didn't have cars.

"New Orleans has a significantly larger population without means of transportation, so it's a much bigger problem for the city. ... The answer is very simple — evacuation," he said.

As Hurricane Katrina approached Sunday morning, New Orleans officials advertised city buses would be used to pick people up at 12 sites to go to the "last resort" shelters.

It's unclear how many buses were used. Planners decided not to use any of the New Orleans school buses for early evacuation, Wilmot said.

Photographers recorded images of them lined up in neat rows and submerged — though one was commandeered by Jabbar Gibson, 20, who ferried 70 passengers to safety in the Reliant Astrodome

To all who have posted regarding the Katrina/Charity Hospital situation. This is Earl Robicheaux, the guy who was interviewed for the article in the Houston Chronicle post Katrina. And, just for the record, I was in University Hospital with Burkitt’s Lymphoma along with other cancer patients when Katrina hit. There are many ways to try and describe this event, but I will try to say what I think here. This was not a hood, this was not Faluja, this is not a welfare state, and the people that were in hospitals during a very difficult time don’t deserve to be thought as loafers. Ray Nagin had to issue an order for the city, after the lower parish of Plaquemine had completed it’s evacuation. That was the primary reason for it looking like a delay. I am not defending the mayor here, but that is the order which parishes have agreed upon. And, why would Gov. Blanco agree to federalize the National Guard? Hurricane Rita hit the southwest portion of Louisiana, and she had to send troops into that area. That kind of mobility has to be here, in the hands of local officials. The biggest problem, as I see it, was the total lack of adequate communication equipment, no federal response, and no adequate plan for a massive emergency. But, then again, this was a massive problem never before seen. If it weren’t for the U.S. Coast Guard taking the lead to save lives with their helicopters, the situation would have been much worse.
And, just for the record I am a democrat, white, have an earned doctorate from U.T. Austin, and feel that universal health care is sorely needed. Why? Have you ever heard anyone complain that Medicare turned down a senior due to a pre-existing illness? Children, elderly, and people with castrophic illness are not lessor citizens in this so-called society, even if that society ignores them.

And, why would Gov. Blanco agree to federalize the National Guard? Hurricane Rita hit the southwest portion of Louisiana, and she had to send troops into that area. That kind of mobility has to be here, in the hands of local officials.

We still remember when she cried on camera. We also remember the President asking what she needed. She responded “Give me everything.” He asked what she meant, what did she need? “Give me everything.” She later went on camera to brag about this conversation.

Gee you folks elect some very competent leaders.

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