New Orleans's Hurricane Evacuation "Plan"

Jeebus H. Christ!!

In storm, N.O. wants no one left behind; Number of people without cars makes evacuation difficult By Bruce Nolan, Staff writer, New Orleans Times-Picayne, July 24, 2005:

City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.

In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation. "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. "But we don't have the transportation."

Officials are recording the evacuation message even as recent research by the University of New Orleans indicated that as many as 60 percent of the residents of most southeast Louisiana parishes would remain in their homes in the event of a Category 3 hurricane. Their message will be distributed on hundreds of DVDs across the city. The DVDs' basic get-out-of-town message applies to all audiences, but the it is especially targeted to scores of churches and other groups heavily concentrated in Central City and other vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods, said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, head of Total Community Action. "The primary message is that eachperson is primarilyresponsibleforthemselves, for their own family and friends," Truehill said.

In addition to the plea from Nagin, Thomas and Wilkins, video exhortations to make evacuation plans come from representatives of State Police and the National Weather Service, and from local officials such as Sen. Ann Duplessis, D-New Orleans, and State Rep. Arthur Morrell, D-New Orleans, said Allan Katz, whose advertising company is coordinating officials' scripts and doing the recording. The speakers explain what to bring and what to leave behind. They advise viewers to bring personal medicines and critical legal documents, and tell them how to create a family communication plan. Even a representative of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals weighs in with a message on how to make the best arrangements for pets left behind.

Production likely will continue through August. Officials want to get the DVDs into the hands of pastors and community leaders as hurricane season reaches its height in September, Katz said.

Believing that the low-lying city is too dangerous a place to shelter refugees, the Red Cross positioned its storm shelters on higher ground north of Interstate 10 several years ago. It dropped plans to care for storm victims in schools or other institutions in town. Truehill, Wilkins and others said emergency preparedness officials still plan to deploy some Regional Transit Authority buses, school buses and perhaps even Amtrak trains to move some people before a storm.

An RTA emergency plan dedicates 64 buses and 10 lift vans to move people somewhere; whether that means out of town or to local shelters of last resort would depend on emergency planners' decision at that moment, RTA spokeswoman Rosalind Cook said. But even the larger buses hold only about 60 people each, a rescue capacity that is dwarfed by the unmet need. In an interview at the opening of this year's hurricane season, New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Matthews acknowledged that the city is overmatched. "It's important to emphasize that we just don't have the resources to take everybody out," he said in a interview in late May.

In the absence of public transportation resources, Total Community Action and the Red Cross have been developing a private initiative called Operation Brother's Keeper that, fully formed, would enlist churches in a vast, decentralized effort to make space for the poor and the infirm in church members' cars when they evacuate. However, the program is only in the first year of a three-year experiment and involves only four local churches so far. The Red Cross and Total Community Action are trying to invent a program that would show churches how to inventory their members, match those with space in their cars with those needing a ride, and put all the information in a useful framework, Wilkins said. But the complexities so far are daunting, she said.

The inventories go only at the pace of the volunteers doing them. Where churches recruit partner churches out of the storm area to shelter them, volunteers in both places need to be trained in running shelters, she said. People also have to think carefully about what makes good evacuation matches. Wilkins said that when ride arrangements are made, the volunteers must be sure to tell their passengers where their planned destination is if they are evacuated. Moreover, although the Archdiocese of New Orleans has endorsed the project in principle, it doesn't want its 142 parishes to participate until insurance problems have been solved with new legislation that reduces liability risks, Wilkins said. At the end of three years, organizers of Operation Brother's Keeper hope to have trained 90 congregations how to develop evacuation plans for their own members.

Meanwhile, some churches appear to have moved on their own to create evacuation plans that assist members without cars. Since the Hurricane Ivan evacuation of 2004, Mormon churches have begun matching members who have empty seats in cars with those needing seats, said Scott Conlin, president of the church's local stake. Eleven local congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints share a common evacuation plan, and many church members have three-day emergency kits packed and ready to go, he said. Mormon churches in Jackson, Miss., Hattiesburg, Miss., and Alexandria, La., have arranged to receive evacuees. The denomination also maintains a toll-free telephone number that functions as a central information drop, where members on the road can leave information about their whereabouts that church leaders can pick up and relay as necessary, Conlin said.

Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com

They were going to make a DVD. A DVD saying, "you all are on your own." They didn't even care enough to make the DVD before the hurricane season began.

No. New Orleans did not have a functioning government as of the summer of 2005. This is a catastrophic failure of local governance--much worse than FEMA's failures.

You would think that somebody--somewhere--would have called Washington and said, "You know, New Orleans doesn't have its act together enough to have a hurricane evacuation plan." And that somebody, somewhere--in Washington or in Baton Rouge--would have cared.

Comments

[Derelict]

Alright! I can see THIS being played up by the right. "Look, they didn't have an evacuation plan! We couldn't do ANYTHING!"

This should be spewing out from my right-wing friends any day now--just as soon as they get done sending all the "Lookit tha niggers looting!" emails.

[Thomas J. Newton]

Do we actually know whether the DVDs were distributed?

[anon]

The logistics of evacuating 200,000 poor people involve more than busing and temporary housing. Jobs, schools, healthcare, transportation, shelter, food,... must be provided for as long as it takes (months to years) to repair damages done by the disaster. The bill for this effort is huge and unlikely to be shouldered entirely by city and state. Coordination must be established among all levels and fundings must be provided. The lacks of these essential ingredients cripple any planning that could have been thought of at any level. The lacks of these resources also reflect tha lack of political clout of these poor people in the US political process. The "you're on your own" policy of this adminstration only exacerbates the situation.

[Robert Kraljii]

Brad writes: "You would think that somebody--somewhere--would have called Washington and said, "You know, New Orleans doesn't have its act together enough to have a hurricane evacuation plan." And that somebody, somewhere--in Washington or in Baton Rouge--would have cared."

How does one make the assumption from this item that Washington wasn't made aware of the problem?

And how does any of this let FEMA off the hook?

[pgl]

Kash wrote earlier at Angrybear that is not surprising that a local government would not have the necessary resources to evacuate 100 thousand people. I link to a few of the many stories that indicated that FEMA has known this to be true for a long time. Some in FEMA were asking for the FEDs to draft their action plans. Did they or were they ignored in the same way Richard Clarke was ignored by the NSA during the summer of 2001?

[pgl]

Seth - how is saying that governments CAN do better something to criticize? IMHO - you owe the host an apology.

[liberal]

Brad DeLong wrote, "This is a catastrophic failure of local governance--much worse than FEMA's failures."

In some sense, that might be true.

On the other hand, Bush is responsible for the entire nation. The damage from FEMA, Bush, etc's incompetence is potentially much greater.

Though I do think this should put to rest this idiotic nonsense that people seem to believe about local government being more representative of the people, and somehow more "democratic" and "better".

[searp]

This is bad, but the real response to something this size ALWAYS comes from the Feds. Check out the history of hurricanes for the last 30 years.

It would be interesting to look at municipal evacuation plans across the country. I bet none of them envision providing transport to 20% of the city population.

So: New Orleans could have been more creative and aggressive, and it would have saved lives, but it was always going to require an aggressive Federal response to handle the disaster.

[Carol]

So, dearies, these are poor people. Even if the DVDs had been distributed, would the poor people (let's remember the definition of poor, as in having not enough money to meet one's daily needs, or barely enough) have DVD PLAYERS? Oh sure, along with their DSL connections, their nifty lapops and PDAs, their rear projection TVs and HDTV receivers!

The total inept schmuckness of the whole thing just takes one's breath away. The fact that almost no one online even understands what poverty really means suggests that it is important for the blogging community to get out into poor neighborhoods and try to understand, so that they can have more than indignation and kindness, but a real understanding of poverty. THis is still missing in the liberal discussion.

[wishful]

Does anyone know the protocol for establishing, approving and certifying emergency evacuation plans? For example, each area surrounding a nuclear power plant is required to meet NRC specs, I believe annually or bi-annually. Every area downstream of a power producing dam must have such a plan, submitted and approved by FERC. These are all federal agencies that are ultimately making and enforcing the rules. How are NOLA's levees different in this regard? Anyone?

[Katewyn]

Isn't this as clear an expression as we could have about where this whole country has been heading for some time? Not enough resources to provide what's needed, so an emphasis on faith-based support and private suppliers? Why is anyone surprised that this city in a poor southern state couldn't take care of its too-large 20% poverty population? At least they were trying to do the dang DVD.

[cafl]

FEMA knew this...they sponsored and participated in the "Hurricane Pam" excercise that led to the recognition that there weren't enough city resources to evacuate those without cars. This is all on the web at the lsu hurricane center web site. And before someone posts the school bus picture, do some arithmetic. Say there were 100 buses (I haven't counted, but it looks like fewer). Say a bus holds 100 people. Given the magnitude of the storm, the buses would have had to take the people 200 miles away to be out of the path of the hurricane, so a 400 mile trip, so 8 hours. Sounds to me like that takes care of 10,000 people, not 100,000. Would it have been good to do at least this much anyway? Sure, but don't pretend it would have been a solution, and how would you pick the 10,000 that went? And remember that the Contraflow plan was in effect, reversing inbound highway lanes to allow the evacuation of those who did have cars, so bringing buses into the city in the last 48 hours would have been pretty hard. It actually does take significant public resources to do something of the magnitude of evacuating 100,000 or more people, many aged, infirm or children.

[liberal]

seth edenbaum wrote, "Tell me what else could they have done given the situation?"

NOLA itself could have had a plan to requisition all city buses and school buses, moving them to higher ground. Then after the hurricane hit, using them to move people out of the city. An open field farther inland would be a lot better than the city. Though the best thing would be an open field with a tent city set up by FEMA...wasn't going to happen, of course.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Brad DeLong wrote, "This is a catastrophic failure of local governance--much worse than FEMA's failures."

Disagree.

The locals were dealing with hypotheticals and doing so with limited resources.

As of last Monday FEMA was not dealing with a hypothetical, FEMA was dealing with a real emergency. This was not a horse show, so FEMA had no real leadership. And his honor the Shrub was playing guitar somewhere.

The locals should be faulted for locking up hundreds of school buses so people could sit on rooftops and the buses could be flooded and ruined. That is amazingly bad judgement (I'm not certain, but I'm guessing the schools are not run by the city government).

None of this excuses Bush for not sending the regular Army in ASAP, taking control, establishing staging areas, and taking care of business.

[cafl]

I agree that planning to use the buses after the fact to move people to tent cities a short distance away would have been a practical way to avoid the Superdome/Convention Center disaster (if you believe FEMA would have allowed them back into the city). I simply doubt that it would have been possible to evacuate using city resources in the available time.

[BroD]

This is awful, no doubt about it. I mean when you identify this problem, you don't just throw up your hands and spend money on a dvd to tell folks they're toast, you solve it.

You talk to the National Guard and the guy from the Arabian Horse Association and solve it. And if they can't/won't help you screem bloody murder because that's what you're dealing with.

[Sam Taylor]

Brad-

You have just lost credibility with this reader. I live on the Outer Banks of NC and have both participated in "mandatory" evacuations and elected to stay. Our evacuations are traumatic and difficult, but almost everyone has a vehicle because there is no other way to get here or get around. But compared with evacuating New Orleans, what we do is a lay up.

Frankly, I think the CD was probably a good idea and a responsible attempt on the part of local government to do all it can do when faced with an impossible situation. If you stop for a moment to think about the resources and logistics, you should soon understand how they would be far beyond the capabilities of a city like NO and anyone with any experience would know this.

In the instant case, it was late on Friday before it became clear that New Orleans was likely to be the bulls eye. I believe we try to start 72 hours before expected landfall on the Outer Banks. Should NO have started its evacuation while Katrina was still East of Florida? Given enormous resources, it would still probably take about that long.

Further, short of martial law and forcing people into busses at the point of a gun,there is no such thing as "mandatory" evacuation. People do not have to leave.

I recall having this conversation with our police chief over coffee when he stopped by before Isabel hit in his rounds. We, along with many other locals, did not leave because we did not think the risk was sufficient. It turns out where we live we were right. We never even lost power.

There are some incompetent local officials everywhere, but the my impression of Ray Nagin is that he is not one of them. The fact that 80% of NO residents evacuated is almost a miracle. I doubt if we ever achieve more than 90% in a much simpler situation.

You obviously have no experience with local government and the many highly competent dedicated people who in fact are very good at their jobs. You obviously also have no experience with the enormous complexity of hurricane evacuation.

While there was little time with Katrina to do more than NO did almost regardless of preparation even if they had the resources, there was ample time to plan emergency response. This failure was the second disaster. While Bush was giving his speech in San Diego, NO was already devestated by the wind damage, with no power or communications and, as predicted, filling up like a cereal bowl. National Guard troops should have been in NO Tuesday afternoon at the latest and should have begun arriving Monday night along with the other resources to support a city that had been rendered inoperable.

The 9/11 disaster, while terrible and a surprise, was contained. NYC still functioned with most of its resources intact. The mayor had the ability to communicate and did so magnificently, but NO lacked this luxury. Incidentally, the response to the WTC destruction was mostly local and if the federal government had not existed, the city would still have coped... and indeed did. As a problem in emergency management, 9/11 pales compared to NO and Katrina.

Pardon my rambling, but in this instance your ignorance and lack of understanding seems to be exceeded only by your arrogance...apparrently one of the risks of being an economist.

[Jim Heim]

Ultimately, large scale disaster plans must be closely coordinated with federal authorities. After all, the costs associated with the cleanup and reconstruction efforts will be largely come out of federal coffers. Failure to correct known problems with local "planning" leaves blood on FEMA's hands.

[Tom]

The 200,000 could possibly have been evacuated had the trains also been used in conjunction with all available buses. There is no reason FEMA couldn't have brought in additional buses prior to the evacuation order as well as having extra train cars.

The question I have is why did FEMA prohibit the trains from evacuating folks. Not to mention prohibiting a long list of efforts to help (e.g., Wal Mart trucks with water). Is it possible that FEMA was trying to pressure the governor to formaly turn the city over to the feds.

[shah8]

You can be really wierd sometimes, Dr. Delong...

Do you really not recognize a guesture in the face of futility?

Given how little interest Washington evinced in even basic hurricane preperation, I'm not surprised there is that lack of preparation. You have to have fed assurances for any kind of real plans. Without that...

Now, if you can't recognize a guesture in the face of futility, how about this example?

After you board a plane, and it's getting ready to fly, the stewardesses start going through the emergency procedures...oxygen mask, special doors, etc etc etc. And this? It's all a useless facade to show that they do something, the odds of an air emergency in which these procedure would help, are a zillion to one, careening down from 30k feet.

Get it?

[wishful]

Whether Prof DeLong was right, wrong, arrogant or trying to intellectualize what is too painful to acknowledge, his comment generated excellent exchanges and info. You guys are the greatest. Thanks. (BTW, he is wrong here.)

[Bill L.]

This is clearly NO government's fault. I mean, even if the Fed cuts your funding for levee repairs and hurricane preparedness by more than half, everyone knows that the required resources will still magically appear. So what if you are a poor, largely minority dominated city with little in the way of local funding for real emergency planning. Forget the federal government declaring that FEMA is being relieved of disaster response and that that function is being rolled into the Dept. of Homeland Security. It's not like they openly state that disaters like hurricanes are part of their charter...oh wait. Bush certainly didn't sign any papers declaring a state of emergency in Louisiana on the 26th...oops. Even if FEMA were to go in, say several days late, they certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to block provisions coming in on trucks or fuel from ships offshore. DOH! And hey, the National Guard can always send in its troops and amphibious vehicles to help. Well, I mean they would if the best trained troops for this kind of work weren't getting blown up in Iraq...along with the amphibious vehicles.

Yeah, okay, handing out DVD's is stupid, but can anyone tell me that there were funds and resources available to do much else? Any possibility that the DVD idea was floating about due to high illiteracy? Was it seen as somehow more cost effective? Is the lack of a coherent plan NO's fault or the inevitable result of a Federal government more concerned with tax cuts (they are still pushing the estate tax vote) than helping empoverished cities in the Big Easy?

Take a moment to read this bit from The Whiskey Bar to put this disaster in perspective:

www.billmon.org/archives/002125.html

No election + Not a Swing State = No help

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Wow, that'll teach you to go off the reservation, Brad.

Look, folks, you remember all that "federalism" stuff from Civics class? Separation of powers, limits, all that?

According to the WaPo, Blanco was still fighting against the Feds taking over on 2 September, two days after the Mayor was cursing Bush for six kinds of bastard on TV for not having taken over.

(He was also wondering why he didn't have 500 buses there. I wonder how buses, and that number of buses in particular, happened to be on his mind?)

Seriously: are you seriously suggesting that the President should, without legislative authority, be allowed to declare an emergency, wrest control of a city and state from their elected governor and mayor respectively, take direct command of the police forces and emergency services, and impose martial law in order to compel compliance with FEMA directives.

George W? The guy who's supposed to be trying to bring fascism to the USA?

In the immortal words of Mike Myers: are you mental?

[ArchPundit]

==No. New Orleans did not have a functioning government as of the summer of 2005. This is a catastrophic failure of local governance--much worse than FEMA's failures.

Uh, no. Actually if you look at the City's performance this time compared to Ivan, you see a rather remarkable improvement in getting people out of the City. The highest rate of evac before was 60% and that's up probably 10-15% this time. Further, the point of the campaign wasn't to just tell people they were on their own, but to get them to make plans by going through the only functioning institution in many poor black neighborhoods--churches.

In a mandatory evacuation you have about 50 hours to get as many people out as you can--what possible infrastructure of transportation can handle that with 100,000 people who don't have their own transportation and more who can't afford to fill up their car?

Instead, the city used city buses to run regular routes and also pick up people from neighborhoods to the one site that could withstand a major hurricane.

They also were attempting to retrofit the Superdome to have features to avoid exactly what happened. The City was quite proactive given where it started from.

[ArchPundit]

No mention the buses--where do you get 200 bus drivers when you order a mandatory evacuation? Really--what do you use first responders?

Even if you have all those buses, what about everyone else? You have to get them somewhere--so you need some buses (as the City had occurring) to move people to the Superdome. A bus out of town is a one way trip given the travel time so it's pretty hard to figure out that logistical problem.

[Unstable Isotope]

I'm sorry, you're wrong Prof. This is a failure at the federal level. Only the federal government has the resources to do such a massive evacuation. I don't understand how the local bus drivers were supposed to act during the evac. Everyone leave except the school bus drivers? Does that even make sense? I agree that the local response was not all it could be - they should have stocked the shelter with food, IMO. I think the bigger issue is the slow response of the feds bringing in the troops, plus the problems with FEMA turning away help when it was offered. I agree there should be an accounting of all government's actions at every level. If they didn't do their job, they should resign in shame. (Brown and Chertoff should be the first to go).

[J Thomas]

OK, it's 2004. The feds bring in a team to study the problem, and do a pretty good job. They figure out what's required and the resources aren't available.

However, the official estimate is that the chance of a Cat3 hurricane are only 1 in 200 per year. And the chance of a Cat5 hurricane is only 1 in 500.

So how much money is a cash-strapped local government going to put into getting ready? They put money into the levees. They put some money into hurricane preparation. They had to assume that the 1 in 500 chance that would leave the city 80% flooded wouldn't happen.

Making the video had potential. Not so much to get the poor people organised, but to get the voters organised. "We don't have the money to help you out, so you're on your own." It might have shamed the feds into giving them something -- if the hurricane had held off until next year. They probably thought they had plenty of time. 1 in 500.

We're starting to hear about the bureaucratic disputes between FEMA and DHS. DHS has swallowed FEMA but it's still giving them indigestion. We'll hear a lot more about disputes between LA and the feds. Apparently the claim is that the state didn't cross all their t's and dot all their i's and so the prepositioned supplies and everything waited at the border until they did. Or was it that they didn't put the state troopers under federal control? It's true you want one unified command to reduce confusion. I keep hearing the story about that dispute *Friday* 3 days ago, not before the hurricane. But it could have been dragging along the whole time. "You don't turn over all your people to us, we won't let anybody bring you help. Nobody crosses that line with help for LA, not us, not red cross, not civilians, noobody, not until you give in." I keep getting the sense that the feds these days are not good at making deals. Like, they could have gotten a lot farther with "Trust me" than with "Do it my way or suffer blockade and sanctions". Maybe the situation will clarify with time, or maybe the spinners will present a story and say the state guys are liars.

What really concerns me is the sense that maybe these guys are playing for keeps. Like, suppose they know they're going to win in 2006 and 2008. Then this could be their first lesson to blue states. "You didn't support us, why should we support you? If you're a blue state you get nothing from the federal government."

[um]

You might want to read this press release from last year where it seems the function of planning for the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan had been privatized:

"IEM, Inc., the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

http://www.ieminc.com/Whats_New/Press_Releases/pressrelease060304_Catastrophic.htm

Too bad they were unable to finish this project due to funding cuts. What did the funds cut? Read here:

"But the second part of the company's work - to design a plan to fix unresolved problems, such as evacuating sick and injured people and housing thousands of stranded residents - never occurred because the funding was cut."

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/03/Worldandnation/One_question_builds__.shtml

[bakho]

Brad is right. NO did not have a functioning government. It was not a personal failure of the mayor but a failure to ensure that the city had adequate resources to be functional.

Reagan and the Republicans believe you should build your own swimming pool in your own back yard if you want to go swimming.

Democrats believe that people who want to go swimming should pool resources and build a public pool.

Given that any one city cannot afford the resources required to evacuate everyone and the duplication required, would it make more sense for cities to pool resources so that evacuation could take place? When those cities are scattered across multiple states, then isn't the Federal Government the organization best suited to the task?

We have been spending over $40 Billion per year on homeland security since 2002? WTF are we getting for our money? Shouldn't some of that money go to the resources needed to evacuate cities? What if terrorists had blown up the levees instead of being destroyed by the hurricane?

[Bill L.]

"According to the WaPo, Blanco was still fighting against the Feds taking over on 2 September, two days after the Mayor was cursing Bush for six kinds of bastard on TV for not having taken over."

A story based on an "anonymous" White House source (Rove (and Bartlett) again, you f'ing media tools) which has since been proven 100% FALSE. WaPo has even printed a retraction. Please ignore the category 5 shit spin coming from the White House.

NEXT!

[Violet Strange]

The real problem here is that FEMA is by law the agency to handle "national emergencies." They decided for ideological reasons that they would rather act as support for local authorities. And never bothered to tell anybody.

Buses - The problem wasn't so much the buses as where they were going to go. Finding places to take in 100,000 people is beyond the scope of local government. Also, there is the false alarm problem. What if you started evacuations early enough to be effective and the hurricane changed course? Could you ever get anyone to do it again? I lived in Boston in the 80s, and a few hurricanes came our way. People took them seriously, but after Bob was hugely hyped and then missed, less so.

[don majors]

Land of Duh! The proximate cause of the catastrophe was the failure of Flood Walls. The Levees all held. The walls toppled! Why?

Check this out: http://www.usace.army.mil/inet/usace-docs/eng-manuals/em1110-2-2502/c-7.pdf#search='flood%20walls'

[Wiffle]

Maybe the City of NO did as well as could be expected. I wonder if the cities in Brad's area will do as well when the Big One hits. Will it be possible to evacuate folks when the freeways are down and local communities have descended into anarchy. More importantly, with broken water mains ("we didn'ty expect...") will the fires be put out. In 1906 the fires destroyed SF not the earthquake. But of course, Brad is working as a citizen volunteer with his local emergency responders to ensure that order will be kept and that local fire departments will have enough foam equipment dispersed around the urban areas to knock the fires down. Oh, and also feed the folks for the months needed to replace the transportation infrastructure.

NOLA may be just the first of some very big urban disasters.

[CVW]

The comments on here are just awful. Prof. DeLong wasn't excusing the gross incompetence of FEMA or Bush over the past week. He was simply pointing out the obvious fact that the failure of governance on the federal level should not be allowed to mask its failure at the state and local level. Since New Orleans and Louisiana has a FAMOUSLY corrupt and inefficient government, why all the shock and indignation here? Is everyone here so bloody partisan they're rather beat up Bush than give a fairminded assessment of the problem? If Republican hacks want to pawn this off on local governments, then shame on them, it reveals the degree of their partisanship. But if lefties (me included!) want to pawn this off on the feds just to win political points, shame on us!!!

[Sam Taylor]

Brad-

Sorry about the arrogant comment but like Ray Nagin, I was pissed. There is an elitist attitude about local government that for the most part, is formulated out of ignorance of the problems faced. To be constructive, I suggest a simple problem in economic analysis.

Take a coastal town or region. In our modern society, everyone has access to hurricane forecasts that have become progessively better over the last decade to the point where significant improvement probably runs up against chaos theory limits.

Yet, given this improvement, there is still uncertainty with respect to a hurricane's path and a small error in the forecast can be the difference in devestation and never losing power. (During Isabel I used the forecast to make my evacuation decision by waiting to the last minute but there still could have been a jog and I would not be writing this.)

There is a significant human and economic cost to evacuation. After one evacuation to a stormy inland town, I returned to an untouched neighborhood, but then we had our children and 5 grandchildren visiting and the decision was fairly easy to move to relative safety. Interestingly, when we never lost power during Isabel, my brother in Richmond, VA, about 150 inland who had of course offered his hospitality, was devestated. We had friends who evacuated from their home in Richmond to their house across from us after the third day without power and a projected week before it was restored.

Given the lead time to achieve an evacuation, local governments must deal with greater uncertainty when they order the "mandatory" evacuation than I who could wait until the last minute. The local officials are fairly good at arithmetic and understanding evacuation trauma and recognize that they are trading a certain economic and human traumatic loss for an uncertain risk...but they have to decide.

Surely as a vaunted academic economist you and your cohorts can come up with an algorithm that will make the best decision every time. I'm sure the dumb, uneducated, unsophisticated local officials would be grateful. They woiuld no longer have to be the ones who actually decided.

Seriously, these are in fact very difficult decisions that are in the broad definition, "economic". I have no idea whether models exist as an aid to decision making but I suspect if you put your mind to it, you could do something helpful.

Sam

[Don Giannatti]

Unbelievable mixed messages coming from thinly vieled Bush bashers.
1. I have worked on two disaster prepareness documents for cities in my area. It is absolutely the city's responsibility for 72 hours or slightly more. Absolutely. FEMA is there for the calling, but they are not responsible for creating a disaster plan based upon totally unknown, or at least shifting data. (Sure, everyone knew that hurricanes would cause huge problems, but preparing for a hurricane that misses, then 12-14 hours later a levee breaks. OK... there's a tough scenario to prepare for.)
2. The FEDS cannot simply come in to a city and 'take over' From Posse Comitatis to federal courts to jurisdictional control it simply isn't permitted. NADA. No way.
3. Strawman arguements (Bush was playing guitar) and assorted crap like that is lo-brow childishness. Let's say Bush wasn't playing guitar, but was down in LA bailing water over the 17th street levee... What the hell would that have done? Look good? Well, sometimes 'looking good' just isn't a good reason to create more problems than letting the people in charge do what they need to do. (Substance over Perception thing)
4. MEME... FEMA didn't get there fast enough. Maybe, but I am making careful notes as I watch and read. Looks like only two roads in were intact. Railroad was knocked out, at least until it could be inspected. When a hurricane approaches a coastal military base, planes and choppers are deployed away from the region until the storm passes. (So as to not lose them on the ground... you know, like buses PARKED... oh never mind). Maybe we will wonder how they got there so quickly when it is studied. (Maybe not, but being in the area and deplyed in 46 hours seems to be very quick to me.
5. Failure of Governor to mobilize the guard. You know, to like airlift in water and food and like that. It was HER call to not do that... and if Bush had, it would have been superceding the governor of LA... not wise as it could have totally screwed up whatever plans may have been in the works, but as a guy who is called "Fascist" by you folks, also not a good idea politically. (I for one don't think he gives a shit about that petty nonsense, but still...)
6. Mayor's lack of clear thinking - like many posts above - "who was going to drive them?, where would they go?" That is exactly the type of thing that you declare in a LOCAL DISASTER PLAN. Geeeeeez.
7. Could FEMA have acted faster? Maybe. Could the military acted faster? Doubtful. Could the city have done better? Good lord yes. Could the state have had a clue? That would have saved thousands.
8. Superdome without supplies - that's the state/local.
9. No NatGuard airlifts - that's the state.
10. No buses or evacuation planning - that's the city.
11. Martial Law to quell the roving gangs of New Orleans 'residents' shooting, raping and looting - state / local.

I am totally aware that this is but one of a long string of "Get Bush, no matter how stupid we sound," but the unfortunate thing for us all is that is simply impunes and demeans the victims, and the guilty walk free. If the citizens had known that the Governor would play politics and the Mayor's plan included ranting and shouting... and little of substance, they may have evacuated far quicker. I have a feeling most will not return to that gang-ridden hell hole. Too bad.

This tragedy will live on far longer than the pitiful rants of deluded haters.

[Quilly Mammoth]

They knew they had a problem after Georges...they knew they had an evacuation plan problem with the poor and disabled after Ivan and the local media interviewed Nagin about it.

FEMA can't _make_ anyone write a vailid Op Plan for disaster, it can't make anyone practice it and improve it...all it can do is tell you that you are failing. The problem is that there are no teeth anywhere to make a local official do his or her job other than the electorate.

The problem is that the voice of the people, the Times-Picayune, has been focusing on the failure of the Whitehouse...both Bubba's and Dubya's...to fully fund the SELA levee program. Which even if fully funded wouldn't protect aginst a Cat 5.

Nagin _knew_ he couldn't get his people out in September of 2004. Yet he let 255 School busses, the NORTA fleet and untold thousands drown. At some point you have to stop blaming the people above you and take action. All Nagin needed to do was a find a way to move 35-40,000 people out of NOLA and he could lay _everything else_ on the rest of the incompetants. one trip with all the busses would have taken 60% of that number.

The lesson learned...not even the government down the street from your house cares. Be as aware and prepared to save your own life, your loved one's lives and the lives of your neighbor cause no one else either cares, has the capability or is too overwhelmed to do so for you.

[SteveMG]

States and cities undergoing catastrophes like this have to be able to keep things together for 3-4 days until the Federal Government can move the massive amounts of resources needed to address the problem.

It is physically impossible to move thousands of tons of food and water and medicine and thousands of troops and doctors and aid workers in 2-3 days. Just can't be done. Especially when the main interstate highway - I-10 - has been made unusable from Mississippi through Louisiana.

I love New Orleans. I was born there. My grandparents are buried there. My great uncle, who landed on Omaha Beach, is buried there. I have relatives (who are okay) who live there and in the suburbs (Metairie, Kenner).

But it is a spectacularly corrupt city. The schools are terrible. The police and fire is terrible. The roads are terrible.

And I'm not going to even start to talk about the state politics.

Everyone has known this for decade and decades.

FEMA and Washington and Bush deserve criticism and blame for not recognizing this fact and tripling their efforts. They should have known that NO and LA just didn't have the resources to handle a CAT-4 hurricane for more than 48 hours at best.

Much of what happened these past days was, sadly, unavoidable. But some of it was. Much of the - I hate to use the term - blame falls on NO and LA.

But some falls on Washington.

If you hate Bush, go to it. Get him. Might make you fell better buth really won't help things much. This terrible disaster was going to happen no matter whether Kerry or Clinton or Bush or the man-in-the-moon was president.

Sadly.

Terrible, terrible loss.

SMG

[wishful]

It occurs to me that the Bush regime is doing their black is white, up is down act again.

Remember the famous, "I am a uniter, not a divider" claim? Sheesh. Now we are being asked to pick sides about which part of our government should help us in an emergency, and whose fault it is (and by definition, who is to be absolved of responsibility) when we don't get critical help. Last I looked, I pay taxes to all levels of government. And it seems that in a rep democracy, all these idiots are our representative, not our rulers.

Uniter my a$$. Let them learn to cooperate. No, MAKE them cooperate.

Smarter citizens, please. No more falling for the idiotic straw men distractions while our brothers and sisters give their lives for the govt game playing.

[JR]

As has been thoroughly documented, DHS had the authority and obligation to manage the relief effort after the national state of emergency was declared on August 27. I'll leave it to you to do the five seconds of Googling it takes to learn that basic piece of information.

Not only is oversight a legal obligation, it's also common sense. Local authorities simply do not have the same available resources. Please, please, please stop covering yourselves in shame so that you can cover for the President.

And by the way, I'm no "veiled Bush basher." The veil is off, guys. He deserves to be bashed.

[Just Some Guy]

Good post, Brad. Liberals who say "NO's and LA's government screwed up royally" are being blasted by unthinking leftists just as much as conservatives who say "Homeland Security and FEMA screwed up, and Brown should be fired ASAP" are being blasted by unthinking rightists.

Maybe the thinking people on both sides will rise up, as two arms of a single body, and slug the idiots on their sides, and demand COMPETENCE.

[Jeremy]

If you're a Democrat, then the entire fault lies solely on Bush, (or Rove).

If you're a Republican, then the entire fault lies with local/state government.

In reality, however, both are at fault.

The local government does not have the most resources in the world, but they didn't use what they had, and according to many reports, the police didn't want to do their job. The state government seemed to have fallen to pieces, with a governor crying and not making decisions which should have been made immediately. The guy who is the head of FEMA is an idiot, basically a political crony.

Still, there is some subject truth to the original views. Democrats/liberals tend to think the federal government is the answer to every problem (since that is basically the premise of socialism), so they expect more out of the federal government; Republicans/conversatives tend to have little faith in government period, but even less in the federal government, so expect problems to be done on a more local level.

[Shannon Love]

Defenders of the local authorities should reflect on the fact that not even the residents of the cities nursing homes were evacuated by the government. Can anyone seriously argue that the entire state of Louisiana could not have at least evacuated a few thousand old people?

The great crime of the city and state officials is not that they could not evacuate everybody but that they didn't try to evacuate ANYONE. As near as I can tell, NOBODY was evacuated by any government agency at all. People who got out did so with their own resources without any significant government help. It is not that they did not have enough busses it is that they did not use ANY of the buses they did have. They did not even try.

Had the local and state authorities made use of all available physical assets and still fell short, then no one would have cause for complaint but they did not even come close. They had years of warning and a dry run during hurricane Irvin last year and yet they still did nothing.

In face of a disaster (which could have been much worse if the storm had hit NO directly) they just went limp. For that they do need to be held responsible.

(Oh, and would some of you people please educate yourselves about the division of responsibilities between local, state and federal governments? If you think the President should have dictatorial powers in case of natural emergencies you need to get the laws changed because he certainly doesn't have that now.)

[Nicholas Mycroft]

In re unused buses and NO admin having failed more than the Feds; well, the study suggested 100-200k wouldn't evacuate, and that is what happened. NO's mayor was two days late in ordering the evacuation and must be blamed for that; when the NOAA + Mayfield shifted that forecast track Friday PM, you evacuate right then and hope the absence of others earlier leads more of the diehards to leave. Inexcusable--and yet Mayor Hagin has been an essential and efficacious leader since that decision.

I'm not quite sure how you get the diehards out, though--can't possibly get all of them without going house to house and forcibly removing people and who has the numbers needed to do that--NO with 1500 policemen? In two days? Forcibly remove 100,000 people scattered around the city? There are -still- people who won't leave their homes.

Brad, it is a rush to be a contrarian--so easy to be intoxicated with one's own intelligence and ability to see outside the paradigm of those who generally believe as you do. This most recent product of such a sensation is even worse than the results of your encounter with Gunter Grass some months ago.

Put it this way: imagine that you are President, even -without- a competent and well-funded government (which I passionately hope results from this)--what can you do starting on Friday? WHAT CAN YOU DO? Your job, as CEO of this pseudo-corporation that is government under your august person, is to intervene, to get involved, to resolve bureaucratic impediments, to act in response to circumstances, and not to become obsessed with jurisdictional concerns, organizational charts or areas of responsibilities. Only you can do this. Only you can attend to such minor details as accepting aid when it is offered (who wanted to step in Wednesday? Castro with 1000 doctors and airplanes, two hundred miles away. The UN. The Israelis. The Germans. The Swiss. Wal-Mart. And on, and on.). As saying to hell with posse comitatus and sending the goddamn 82nd airborne (who knew they were stateside--what a piece of luck) in on Monday night, when the NO Picayune reported that the levees were breached. For sending every naval and airborne asset as close as they can without seriously compromising national security. We'll sort it all out later, because our people, our fellows, are in desperate need. As suspending all jurisdictional concerns for the duration of the rescue and recovery operation. As getting the hell down there. As tasking your best people with ensuring that everyone is making intelligent decisions about the allocation of resources, and making sure yourself that these decisions are well founded and well made.

This was a disaster of vast scale whose proportions were clear to one with knowledge and the powers of reason on Monday at about 10 pm CDT and whose potential for being so was clear to such a person at about 4pm CDT on Friday. It stretched for hundreds of miles --it is becoming more bothersome to me by the minute that MI devastation is becoming subsumed and hidden within that in NO in the national consciousness--what was done by nature is much worse there, although what was done by humans is not.----It was not just NO who was crying and begging for aid as the heat rose and most of those alive there feared that they would die from exposure.

Who has the resources to respond to such a thing? I ask you, who has the resources to respond? And how did they respond? Vacation, vacillation, and shoe shopping. How did their appointed representatives respond? With concern for process, fear, incompetence, and above all a desire to ensure that one's ass is covered to the best of one's ability.

The counter-spin has begun already. State and local officials bear the primary responsibility. Why is George Bush the focus of criticism amidst such a profound and shocking disaster? This is not the time to play the "blame game" or to play politics, but to move on and help those in need.

Brad Delong, this is the time not to lose yourself even for a moment in the personal delights of righteous and contrarian rhetoric but to marshall those who respect your opinion and can be influenced towards the greater good. This is it, this is enough, this is a potential tipping point for all those who harbor suspicions about Bush, the far right, and the Norquistian vision of gated communities, a microscopic government, and the persistence of wealth regardless of what one contributes to society. This is the time for you and us all to write our Congressional representatives and to talk to our friends and to exert our moral force upon those around us. How long are we upon this earth and what is to be done? We will see nothing other than what has been done, nothing at all.

Nicholas Mycroft

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Brad, I've got to admit, I generally think you're kind of an academic ivory-tower ninny, but on this one I feel bad for you. You're gonna be eating your lunch alone for a while before the cool kids let you back in their club.

Bill L. you might want to follow up on the thing about the September 2 release to the Feds. You, first of all, are confusing a request for economic assistance (which Blanco made on the 28th) and permission for the President to take federal control, which the AP is preporting Blanco hasn't even permitted yet.

J Thomas, I actually think you're on to something. Brad can undoubtedly talk a lot more than I can on decision making under uncertainty, but you're absolutely right that with a 0.2 percent per year probability of a 500 year storm, and a one or two or four year funding horizon, it's awfully easy to let the levee issue slide. On the other hand, it's not fair to put it on Either Bush, or Clinton --- it was a 30 year project proposed in 1965. You need to go back to no later than the Democratic congress of the '74 session, and Jimmy Carter in '76.

Theora, you have a confused idea on several things. It simply isn't true that the Feds are the only ones who have the resources to evacuate; in fact, they don't and it's not feasible for them to. Buses can travel about 60 mph max, so with 48 hours notice, you'd have to have enough buses to evacuate a city, with drivers on one-hour call, within about 600 miles of every city that might need evacuation --- and remember, New Orleans wasn't even the only place they had to evacuate: they asked people to evacuate from an area that is, conservatively, the size of a largish European country.

On the other hand, New Orleans had the 600 buses it needed, and even had an existing disaster plan that said to use them, and how. But apparently the Mayor left the plan in his other jacket or something.

What the Feds can do it provide massive long-term support, but they're limited in how fast they can respond by nothing more complicated than the fact that it's a big country, and even with prepositioning, you have to preposition outside of the area likely to be destroyed ... which means you still have to be several HUNDRED miles away, and you have to make your way back over roads covered with fallen trees if they're not (like I-10) under water.

So the plans say the city is responsible for evacuation and the next 72 hours. Not because anyone is incompetent, but because not even the President can wave a magic wand and repeal the laws of space-time.

[rb]

NO did not follow their own hurricane plan.

School bus drivers? I've never driven one, but I bet I could have one rolling in a few minutes, and I bet most of you reading this could, too. Comandeering any and all vehicles in the city to help evacuation could quickly have been ordered under the powers of local government.

Had Katrina not veered east in the last few hours and hit directly as forecasted, those not evacuated would only need body bags now. see Scientific American feature article, Drowning New Orleans, at:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2

The city gambled with the lives of tens of thousands by not compelling mandatory evacuation by any and all means.

Comprehensive timeline analysis and references at:

http://www.americandaughter.com/index.html?http://www.americandaughter.com/timeline.html

[ArchPundit]

==="Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the Mayor of New Orleans in coordination with the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and the OEP Shelter Coordinator."

You don't understand what this means--it means he orders the evacuation, he provides the police to ensure clear roadways, contacts citizens and the media and opens the shelters in the City--including those designated as last resort shelters. They have a robocall system to call the lowest parts of the city and they used police and others to make public announcements going down the street after the evacuation order was made.

I don't doubt the City government made mistakes--no one is blameless in a situation like this, but understanding the constraints of a poor urban government and the underlying issues is pretty essential. Evacuation plans are far more specific than the overall plan--and in this case a lot more went into it. It's essential to understand after the Ivan debacle which New Orleans escaped the City made a lot of changes that improved the evacuation plan. And remember, FEMA knew all of this because it was involved in coordination with the City and State Government.

===NO's mayor was two days late in ordering the evacuation and must be blamed for that

Actually he was 1 1/2 hours late. The minimum time to order an evacuation is 50 hours---he did it at 9:30 on Friday. The issue is that no one knows where the thing is going to go--Ivan was thought to be headed towards them as well, but went east. This was the first ever mandatory evacuation ordered by the City of New Orleans as well.

And I don't think it's all Bush's fault--I think the State Government headed by Blanco made a number of mistakes as well.

===1. Post Ivan New Orleans and the state came to the conclusion that an evacuation of the city would require 72 hours or more. So when did they issue the evacuation order? 24 hours before the projected landfall. And they only did that because George Bush called and begged them to.

The evacuation order was at 9:30 on the 26th. The Hurricane made landfall at 10 AM on the 28th.

==Most of you people are complete assholes and have no idea of how the local, state and federal governments work. The state and locals are responsible for the first 72 hours. The LA and NO governments are inept and totally corrupt - and they have no leadership, unless you call crying on TV instead of solving problems leadership.

St. Bernard's was still waiting on Saturday for even a call from FEMA. And FEMA was actively twarting help going in to Jefferson so I'm at a loss as to how they can't be expected to do anything until a certain time and didn't do that and well before that time were inhibiting local relief efforts.

[SteveMG]

Archpundit:
Just a correction, if I may.

Mayor Nagin ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans on Sunday at around 8:30/9:00 A.M.

I was in my car heading north from Mobile, Alabama when I heard the conference on WWL radio.

Most folks had left Saturday but the traffic was really bad on I-10 east (I had family members caught up).

Our problem was that they were about, I'm guessing, 50,000 folks in NO who wouldn't or couldn't leave. No car, too young, too old, too stubborn.

As Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish President, warned Saturday "the die hards will die hard".

It was kinda' funny when he first said it; it's not funny now.

SMG

[ArchPundit]

====On the other hand, New Orleans had the 600 buses it needed, and even had an existing disaster plan that said to use them, and how. But apparently the Mayor left the plan in his other jacket or something.

No, he was using many of them---what people are missing is the plan had two alternatives--if there is a pool of volunteer drives, some might be used to evacuate, but they also have to be used to get people to the refuge of last resort. It doesn't do much good to have a Superdome for those who can't leave and then no way to get across town. Buses ran regular routes and then other buses made pickups at 10 different locations around the City. The problem with other buses appears to be the lack of manpower to drive them. You can't take your transit drivers who are still working and your city government employees are largely preparing for the hit and the aftermath.

===School bus drivers? I've never driven one, but I bet I could have one rolling in a few minutes, and I bet most of you reading this could, too. Comandeering any and all vehicles in the city to help evacuation could quickly have been ordered under the powers of local government.

So you put a bunch of people not trained on that large of a vehicle on the road with 40-50 people (66 is the capacity for kids) in tight traffic? Does it occur to you that might be a likely way to get a lot of accidents?

Even if you use the buses--you still have 80,000 people behind.

===I will note in passing -- Mississippi didn't have these problems: is Mississippi rich and white?

The Mayor of Hattiesburg would disagree with you--he hadn't heard from FEMA until late Saturday. In Biloxi, many reported the only aid coming in was private aid--so apparently private citizens in Florida could get aid into there, but FEMA couldn't. Is there a rule that the Federal Government can't deliver water to people without a Governor's permission? And why didn't Hailey ask for it?

[JD]

Regarding the commentary, I have to echo the doctor - Jeebus H. Christ!

Folks, reality check here. We are dealing with two separate events here. First, Katrina came through and effed up two of the three main routes out of central New Orleans (I-10 to Slidell destroyed, I-10 to Metarie flooded) and structurally compromised the Ponchartrain Causeway.

Several hours AFTER these events occurred, then the levees breached, causing the central city flooding.

Every flood evacuation plan for NOLA was predicated on having I-10 in both directions and the LPC fully functional. Because NOLA was effectively cut off from overland egress, the decision was made to shelter-in-place at the Superdome and, regrettably, the Convention Center.

The main problems, as I see it, are twofold. First, the failure to provide adequate supplies for the people at the Superdome (even though people had been explicitly warned on Saturday to bring enough food and water for three days for all family members). That lies at the feet of the citizens of NOLA who opted (yes, Asshats, OPTED) to stay, and who were not prepared for what anyone who lives in NOLA knows can happen, what my folks who live in Gulfport know can happen and were prepared for, but thankfully decided instead to evacuate. Anyone caught up in a natural disaster has to be prepared to go solo for at least 72 hours. Period. Otherwise, that knocking you are going to hear is Darwin thumping you on your head with a nail-studded Clue Bat.

Secondly, but far worse, is the communication breakdown that allowed the presence of refugees at the NOLA Convention Center to go unknown and unreported, even by the NO Times-Picayune, until Thursday or Friday. How those poor souls ended up there without anyone knowing or caring is an outrage, and heads deserve to roll at the local, state AND federal level.

The bottom line is that a whole bunch of people who have been trained for generations to depend on the Guvmint for everything from cradle to grave got let down, and some died as a result. The best lesson learned is that Guvmint - at any level - is not something to put your life in when the levee breaks. And no amount of Bush-bashing or Blanco-bashing or Nagin-knocking will either alter that fact or add something positive to the discussion.

[Nicholas Mycroft]

Hey, John and Dan--just a little note before I head off for yet another night of heavy drinking to attempt unsuccessfullly to forget my shame and rage at what we all have become.

These legal niceties are nothing before the reality of such a thing. Even when they should have meant something, legal niceties have meant little to your President many, many times before. When the maintenance of his own power or the execution of the vengeance he seeks is concerned, they are to be evaded; when his tolerance of human suffering is concerned, they become excuses. You and your President are moral ciphers, incapable of independent thinking, devoid of compassion and understanding.

In extension of what you crave, I might add in an attempt to provide additional context for those who read this blog more frequently than yourselves, is the call for, due to his many failures and incessant whining, a treatment and judgement of Mayor Nagin that I saw endorsed on little green footballs yesterday--lynching.

[ArchPundit]

===Mayor Nagin ordered the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans on Sunday at around 8:30/9:00 A.M.

You are correct--thanks and obviously that was a big mistake.

[TOM]

City to Offer Free Trips to Las Vegas for Officers
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05vegas.html

Nagin is spending money to send city employees and their families to Vegas for a week. I wonder how all those people who are homeless feel about Nagin using their tax dollars to pay for this? This guy is out of touch and he was probably out of touch before the hurricane. All of you who are complaining about resources should wonder where the 'cash strapped' city is getting the funding to do this? The corruption is so engrained in NO that this type of thinking does not even phase them. I live in Detroit and the cities adminstration is as corrupt as they come. You could give them billions of dollars and still not have a workable disaster management plan or execution.
I wish this disaster would put pressure on the city and state governments to examine their emergancy plans, but I fear things will go on as normal. Alot pf you are really doing a deservice to many of us living in cities with corrupt governments. IF WE DO NOT CLEAN UP OUR LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS IT WILL NOT MATTER HOW QUICK FEMA RESPONDS- WE WILL FACE THIS SCENARIO AGAIN AND ALOT OF INNOCENT PEOPLE WILL BE KILLED INCLUDING MANY OF US WHO DO NOT HAVE THE MEANS.

[ArchPundit]

===Folks, reality check here. We are dealing with two separate events here. First, Katrina came through and effed up two of the three main routes out of central New Orleans (I-10 to Slidell destroyed, I-10 to Metarie flooded) and structurally compromised the Ponchartrain Causeway.

Several hours AFTER these events occurred, then the levees breached, causing the central city flooding.

This is incorrect. The 17th Street canal was breeched by noon on Monday and confirmed breahed by 2 PM to the press. Worse, that some levee would be overrun or breached was expected by many who knew the conditions.

[Jeffersonian]

I'm gobsmacked at the notion that the city of NO didn't have buses to employ in the evacuation of those without transportation. The now-infamous photograph of hundreds of drowned school buses puts the lie to the notion that transport was simply unavailable. A Google Earth snapshot shows 255 empty units parked, enough for 12-15,000 evacuees. Add to that an estimate 400 NORTA buses and you've got enough space for some 40,000 evacuees....PER TRIP. Start the evacuation soon enough - Friday night, Saturday morning - and you have the makings of a successful removal of citizens from harm's way.

As has been mentioned, NO did have a hurricane evacuation plan, but it was not followed at any significant point that I can see. The mayor and governor dithered and dallied as Katrina bore down on the city, finally ordering a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning...too late for any meaningful evacuation to take place.

I find it amusing to read that FEMA was somehow responsible for acquiring hundreds of buses, getting them into NO, driving in neighborhoods not familiar to the drivers, finding passengers, loading them and getting out of the city...and NO can't even get theirs out of the garage with their own drivers?

[ArchPundit]

===I find it amusing to read that FEMA was somehow responsible for acquiring hundreds of buses

They had a sign-up for bus companies starting around the 25th that could be used if needed.

http://www.doorcountycompass.com/news/050904-katrina.htm

"She picked up the phone and started calling local charter bus companies. By 6 AM she discovered that there was an abundance of vehicles ready and waiting to be deployed - if and when they were called upon. But, until now no one had called. All of the charter bus companies that Weber rang up had already signed on with FEMA several days earlier, and they were just waiting for a call back regarding financial reimbursement, a destination and an approved route. Each bus costs $8,000 to make the round trip and requires 6 drivers to run non-stop."

[tom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/05vegas.html

[ArchPundit]

The Las Vegas story isn't nearly as juicy when you get that they are looking for a city with a lot of hotel rooms--not like they can go home and sleep in their own beds now is it?

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12566742.htm
Mayor Ray Nagin, in a telephone interview on WWL radio, the city's linked emergency broadcast center, said he was arranging to rotate out the city officers who have been working virtually around the clock since before the storm hit.

He said they and their families would get five or more days in cities with large numbers of hotel rooms - Atlanta and Las Vegas in particular.

In addition to the police, firefighters and dispatchers will be included.

In addition to rest and relaxation, they will have time to assess their personal situation since many lost homes and relatives. Counselors will be there, too, he said, to help determine whether they will be available to come back.

[dbr]

I live in Louisiana and follow New Orleans politics from a bit of a distance. I think the government in New Orleans is both inept and corrupt. I feel badly that this happened on Ray Nagin's watch - he is the best thing that has happened to New Orleans in a while. He was bring the government into at least 20th century, with innovative concepts like computer networks and audits. He faced a lot of resistance, but a lot of dead people did stop picking up their paychecks - if he had had another 4 years the city might have done better.

[ArchPundit]

==="According to the WaPo, Blanco was still fighting against the Feds taking over on 2 September, two days after the Mayor was cursing Bush for six kinds of bastard on TV for not having taken over."

Umm..he might have done that before Friday night
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090401337.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR
" Bush infuriated Blanco and other local officials when he sought late Friday night to federalize the relief effort and seize control of National Guard and other operations. The governor refused, and tensions between the federal and local officials worsened."

[Nicholas Mycroft]

If the state and local authorities can or do not respond, all blame is to be accorded to them. Those with sufficient resources and authority (-real- authority, you f---ing ignorant partisan allegory-bound -sses), no matter how lackadaisical, smug, or narcissistic, are in no way responsible.

Mere Karl Rove talking points you trot out in porcine fashion--holes in reality that suck in the unwary, ignorant, and reptilian. In his next life, Rove will be an ant lion who dies in a flood.

Again, I implore all who might listen: this is too much; this is well beyond too much. We all must become personal and moral forces in this world. This apathy and chattering; well, for now we are epiphenomena; as Foucault suggested, the resistance to power is essential to the exercise of power. F-ck that; it is high time to start history moving again.

[Peter]

---I'm gobsmacked at the notion that the city of NO didn't have buses to employ in the evacuation of those without transportation. The now-infamous photograph of hundreds of drowned school buses puts the lie to the notion that transport was simply unavailable. A Google Earth snapshot shows 255 empty units parked, enough for 12-15,000 evacuees. Add to that an estimate 400 NORTA buses and you've got enough space for some 40,000 evacuees....PER TRIP. Start the evacuation soon enough - Friday night, Saturday morning - and you have the makings of a successful removal of citizens from harm's way.--

You need at look at the posts above. It's not just a matter of deploying buses -- you need people t drive them, you need to be able to organize residents into pickup points and keep those areas safe and well-organized, you need to organize transportation routes to safe places, you need to provide places on the route for riders to get water and go to the bathroom....those pictures of the abandoned buses tell you nothing about all these massive complications.

[Nicholas Mycroft]

Richard Aubrey--

Put me in charge. All I have to give is synthetic intelligence and the ability to learn quickly from mistakes. Let me deploy the 82nd airborne; let me make decisions. I will do better than the ireedeemed and mediocre savannah apes who compose our current administration.

Your remarks are preposterous and of no account. How would your namesake have dealt with the situation were he in charge of the executive branch?

To regular readers and host, I apologize for logorrhea, but I am pissed and horrified that our country will reenter the perceptive fog it so briefly appeared to poke its head above last week.

Nicholas Mycroft

[a question]

ArchPundit (Sep 5, 2005 7:42:48 PM post),

You say that FEMA was interfering with the delivery of aid. Do you have a link to support that assertion? Because the only evidence I've seen points to the National Guard and the State Department of Homeland Security. Both of which are run by the State of Louisiana.

Look at this:

http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html

[ArchPundit]

==Why on earth would someone charter buses from outside NO when there were hundreds of the things inside the city limits that A-already belonged to the city and B-were already singled out for use in the emergency plan?

Despite the idea that one can run several trips back and forth to safety, everyone knew there would be 100,000 people left behind who couldn't/wouldn't evacuate. The logistics aren't just drivers, but getting people to meet the buses and you can't bring them back in time even if you have 48 hours warning. People need time to get their crap together and the contraflow system is in place until 6 hours before the hurrican meaning there is one way traffic out of town.

Now, so even if you find all the drivers, you still have to have buses running people to the shelters of last resort and to pick them up along normal routes and at best you might get 20,000 people out. At best, but that assumes you can fill them up and have the drivers. Then you have to get them somewhere safe from the hurricane with the appropriate shelter.

[Jeffersonian]

**You need at look at the posts above. It's not just a matter of deploying buses -- you need people t drive them, you need to be able to organize residents into pickup points and keep those areas safe and well-organized, you need to organize transportation routes to safe places, you need to provide places on the route for riders to get water and go to the bathroom....those pictures of the abandoned buses tell you nothing about all these massive complications.**

Oh, please. Looters were commandeering buses...did they have the requisite training on how to operate them? It's a chimpanzeean-level task that anyone with 30 seconds of training can do.

And if the complications of getting into a school bus, picking up people and taking them out of the city are too much for people who are intimately aware of the local conditions, how the hell is someone from 1,000 miles away supposed to be the finely-tuned expert on it?

[firebrand]

I can't believe this. Brad has been showing you nitwits proof that not only was the Bush administration criminally useless and incompetent, but the government of New Orleans as well, and all you people can do is try to pawn off the disaster on one political party or another?!

Dear God, if this is what it has come to, WE ARE DOOMED. F**KING DOOMED! If you political a**wipes can't get it through your thick skulls that government at EVERY LEVEL failed the city of New Orleans, and thus needs to be held accountable (preferably with a hanging), then there is absolutely no hope of making those who screwed up pay (that means Bush, Blanco, Nagin, Chertoff, and most especially Brown, to start with), nor is there any hope of fixing the problem.

[Clark]

I believe the WaPo retraction was just about declaring a state of emergency and not giving federal control. They are two different things.

[ArchPundit]

BTW, the promise of time was 48 hours
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html#076438
JP's Maestri said FEMA didn't keep its word

Mark Schleifstein
Staff writer

Jefferson Parish Emergency Preparedness Director Walter Maestri said Friday night that the Federal Emergency Management Agency reneged on a promise to begin relieving county emergency preparedness staffers 48 hours after Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans metropolitan area.

Maestri’s staff has been working almost around the clock since Katrina approached the Louisiana coastline on Sunday. Today, the staff is
expected to finally switch to a 12 hours on/12 hours off schedule, he said,
adding that they’re both tired and demoralized by the lack of assistance from federal officials.

“We had been told we would be on our own for 48 hours,” Maestri said.
“Prepare to survive and in 48 hours the cavalry would arrive.

“Well, where are they?” he said.
Maestri said the agreement was signed by officials with the Southeastern Louisiana Emergency Preparedness Officials Association, the state and
the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of this year’s Hurricane Pam tabletop exercise. That exercise began the process of writing a series of manuals explaining how to respond to a catastrophic disaster. Financed by FEMA, it included a variety of federal, state and local officials.