Posted on 09/08/2005 11:35:48 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said in an obscenity-laced tirade on WWL radio last Thursday that the federal government should have sent “Greyhound buses” to evacuate his city. He said school buses were inadequate because they lack bathrooms.
There was an Evacuation Plan, written in 2000 and updated since. It states that New Orleans should be evacuated at the Mayor’s order. He should declare that “48 hours in advance.” It also states he should use “public buses” including transit and school buses.
One of the duties of any Mayor of New Orleans is to know his obligations under this Plan, based on state and federal law. Plus that, Mayor who can walk and chew gum HAD to be aware that massive hurricanes have previously hit New Orleans, and that another such strike was inevitable, sometime
No, I’m not going to give a cite for that Plan. You’re on the Internet as you read this. You’ll believe that fact better if you find an independent source. Look in the Houston Chronicle, a liberal newspaper. Or, in the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper. Or, dozens of other sources. I’ll wait.
Okay, you’re back. You now know the duties Mayor Nagin had as Hurricane Katrina crossed the Gulf of Mexico, growing in strength and eventually heading for New Orleans.
Also, he knew that New Orleans is built below sea level. If the water ever started coming in through a major breach in the levees or canals, the City was finished. Any Mayor too dumb to know that would have been too dumb to raise his hand and take the oath of office.
What did Mayor Nagin do, faced with these facts? First, he was 24 hours late in ordering the evacuation of New Orleans. Second, he did not order local officials to get the buses rolling from parking lots around the City. Third, he took off for Baton Rouge, to give angry press conferences blaming others after the City drowned.
What was the result of Mayor Nagin’s not following the laws and Plan he was obligated to obey as Mayor?
The buses were flooded in their lots. The closest buses were a mere 1.2 miles from the Superdome, as shown by aerial photographs. And all the way through this creeping disaster, one highway connection from the Superdome to the West Bank of the Mississippi, remained open. It was not until 24 hours AFTER Katrina had passed that the nearest buses to the Superdome were flooded and became useless.
What happened to the citizens of New Orleans from the failure to use the available transportation? Many of the bodies of the dead have not been recovered, but Mayor Nagin has said that he expects “about 10,000 dead.”
Of course, more people will die in the future of diseases acquired from the polluted waters. Some of these will be self-inflicted, people who refuse to recognize the continuing danger and stay in their homes. But some will be people who could and would have gotten out, if given a choice. But they didn’t have that choice because they were poor, and the buses didn’t roll.
What are the criteria for a charge of manslaughter?
Anyone who deliberately or through gross negligence causes the death of another human being can be charged with manslaughter. Normally, someone cannot be charged with manslaughter for the failure to do something. If you are driving down the highway and see a car on fire and people in it, you are not obligated to stop and try to get the people out before the gas tank explodes. I know most of you would do that, but you don't have to.)
But anyone who is a public official has assigned duties in a given situation. He/she can be responsible for failure to act. We are talking about Mayor Ray Nagin, who sought his position with certain duties attached. We are not talking about Ray Nagin, private citizen, who is responsible only for saving his own hide (though he certainly did to that).
In my opinion, Mayor Ray Nagin should be charged with 10,000 counts of manslaughter. Any New Orleans prosecutor who seeks justice in his City should bring the charges now for the known dead, and amend the charges later as the list of dead grows, and grows, and grows, and grows.
Is there an honest prosecutor left in New Orleans?
About the Author: John Armor is a First Amendment attorney and author who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
John / Billybob
No joke? By all means, I agree! It's much better to let people die rather than suffer the indignity of having to squat in a bush on the side of the road.
Did the Emergency Plan call for the federal government providing Greyhound Buses?
This just gets better and better.
At least he didn't say the feds should have sent 747's....
Yep..I'de rather be dead than ride in a bus with no bathroom. Hell, slave ships didn't have bathrooms.
Same too for the governor IMHO. I would think there were some mandatory statutory duties breached by their acts and omissions (including the "starve 'em out of the dome" policy). I share your anger, along with feelings of disgust, horror and lack of understanding how they could do, and not do, what they did....
Mayor M. T. Noggin!
"No joke? By all means, I agree! It's much better to let people die rather than suffer the indignity of having to squat in a bush on the side of the road."
Or a rest area, restaurant, gas station, mcdonalds....sheesh, Nagin's a dorkmeister supreme...
I'd add Blanco and the lt. gov while we're at it.
This is amazing the buses didn't have bathrooms so the Mayor decides it's better for these people to wade through water up to the neck full of somebody else's waste. There must be an element of payback in the Mayor's thinking. I think he probably is saying to NO citizens. Okay folks, whose full of $hit now.
I expect the TOTAL bodycount in LA and MS to be more like 1,000 - 2,000...........which is STILL too high.
Mayor who can walk and chew gum - that is a rather large assumption for this Mayor.
Does that mean by the time the SuperTomb was without bathrooms it too was inadequate?
Why is it OK for him to send them to a shelter for 5 days without bathrooms but a three hour bus ride without bathrooms is unacceptable?
There is something about "liberal Logic" I can not wrap my brain around.
Nagin oughta know. He and Blanco ordered the massacre.
I agree
DNC playbook
BODY COUNT HIGH
DIMS: "BUSH's FAULT!"
BODY COUNT CONSERABLY LOWER
DIMS: "NAGIN is a SAINT!"
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