Free Republic

WASHINGTON - A ranking Louisiana health official turned down federal offers to help move or evacuate patients as Hurricane Katrina bore down on New Orleans, a newly released document shows. But the state's top medical officer said Louisiana coordinated with the federal Health and Human Services Department in evacuating hospitals and nursing homes after Katrina hit. Two days before the Aug. 29 storm, HHS was told by the state's health emergency preparedness director that the help was not needed, according to an e-mail released Monday by a Senate panel investigating the government's response to Katrina. The state official, identified in...

Let them rent limos One of the messages I've been receiving is that those people in New Orleans have only themselves to blame. They should have left when the evacuation was ordered. For some that is probably true. New Orleans is a laid-back city. But for many, being told to evacuate was like being told to flap their wings and fly. Nearly one in four residents is below the poverty line. Many don't have cars. Yet the evacuation plan was based on private autos. There was no mechanism to evacuate those without cars, much less those in nursing homes and...