Come back! I'll take care of you this time!
Posted on 09/18/2005 1:01:41 PM PDT by John Jorsett
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans' mayor has the authority to let residents return to his hurricane-damaged city, but the Coast Guard official in charge of the federal disaster response said today that all the information from health and environmental experts recommends against it.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen plans to meet with Mayor Ray Nagin on Monday and develop what he called a logical plan to repopulate the city.
If Allen gets his way, that repopulation won't start on Monday, as the mayor planned, but it will be soon.
"I wouldn't want to attach a time limit to it, but it includes things like making sure there's potable water, making sure there's a 911 system in place, telephone, a means to notify people there is an approaching storm so you can evacuate it with the weakened levee situation," Allen said on NBC's "Meet the Press" today.
"We can do that, and we can do that fairly soon, but it's very, very soon to try and do that this week," he said.
Nagin didn't appear ready to back down Saturday as he defended his plan to return up to 180,000 people to the city within a week and a half despite concerns about the short supply of drinking water and heavily polluted floodwaters.
"We must offer the people of New Orleans every chance for a sense of closure and the opportunity for a new beginning," he said.
He wants the Algiers, Garden District and French Quarter sections to reopen over the next week and a half, bringing back more than one-third of the city's half-million inhabitants, though city officials have backed off a specific date for reopening the famous French Quarter. The areas were spared the worst of Hurricane Katrina's flooding.
Nagin said his plan was developed in cooperation with the federal government and balances safety concerns and the needs of citizens to begin rebuilding.
But Allen said he had spoken personally with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and returning now wouldn't be advised. A prime public health concern is the tap water, which in most of the city remains unfit for drinking and bathing, he said.
"We really support his plan to restart New Orleans," Allen said. "We are right in sticking with his vision. It's a matter of timing and creating the, enabling the structures that will allow us to do this safely."
Those structures would include an evacuation plan if another storm hits the region and threatens an already delicate levee system, he said.
There are also still bodies to be recovered. Allen said over 90 percent of the primary house-to-house sweep was complete, but some homes are still under water and searchers will have to return.
Today, the death toll in Louisiana increased by more than 60 to 646, according to the state Department of Health and Hospitals. That raised the total Gulf Coast deaths linked to the hurricane to 883.
Despite floodwater remaining in some areas and a lack of residents in the city, business owners were allowed back in to some sections of the city to begin the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding, part of Nagin's plan to begin reviving the city by resuming a limited amount of commerce.
But confronted with damage that could take months to repair, many said hopes for a quick recovery may be little more than a political dream.
"I don't know why they said people could come back and open their businesses," said Margaret Richmond, owner of an antiques shop on the edge of the city's upscale Garden District that was looted. "You can't reopen this. And even if you could, there are no customers here."
The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.
"They took everything — all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs."
If the store had not been looted, it could be open in two weeks, Stonaker said. Now he doubts it will be open by January.
In the French Quarter, the hum of generators, the thumping of hammers and the whir of power tools cut through the air Saturday as business owners were allowed in to survey the damage and begin cleaning up. Some threw an impromptu street party, complete with a traditional feast of red beans and rice.
At the famous French Quarter restaurant, The Court of Two Sisters, director of food and beverages Andrew Orth was removing plywood from the windows on Saturday morning. The coolers lost power and the food was rotting. Orth estimated it would take several weeks to get the restaurant ready to serve diners again.
"We couldn't open even if the electricity was on," he said.
.....but no authority to get them all out? What kind of doublestandard crap is this?
Nagin is terminaly stuck on stupid.
Plus we must restart the pay offs. I had extra expenses with buying a house in Dallas and all.
Maybe Nagin is trying to get the fatality numbers closer to that "10,000" number that he pulled out of his...ear. Nagin is unfit...for anything and everything.
Well if the little bits I have heard thus far are correct most of the deaths in NO won't be because of drowning.
IF Nagin bulls on ahead on schedule with his plan, you may be sure that IF another emergency crisis erupts as a result of his not being ready with all the emergency services and so forth, he will be the first up on the stump (from his Texas home) berating President Bush and the Federal Government for not "evacuating" the people "soon enough" once more.
"They took everything — all the electronics, the food, the bikes," said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. "The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs."
Interesting.
The Levees aren't fixed permanently, they could probably blow at any time. I would think the first order of business would be to get a handle on permanently reapiring them and strengthening them.
Arrest him for child endangerment and send him to Gitmo!
Come back! I'll take care of you this time!
Just heard on Fox that the feds are warning that things are so fragile flood-wise that just 3 inches of rain could trigger another disaster. If Nagin lets people in and that happens, even Texas won't be far enough away for the angry mob that'll come after him.
good question.
That'll be a hard sell this time. The Admiral in charge is now on record as telling Nagin that it's a really really really really really bad idea.
I'm finding it harder to believe what went missing.
They looted all of the Neil Diamond CDs?
I agree with Mayor Nagin. After three weeks the city of N.O. should already be completely drained, cleaned, repaired and all utilities restored. All bridges should have been rebuilt already. And what is keeping those store owners from restocking? D*mmit - looters need product.
And where are the federal dollars to replace those skewl buses? It's been THREE WEEKS AND SCHOOL STARTED A WEEK AGO!!!! What about "no child left behind"?
George Bush needs a whuppin.
sp
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.