Has anyone been following this assclown for the past week?

 

from the day before the hurricane:

Its effects were already being felt: a 90 mph gust was reported at Southwest Pass Louisiana. ''This is potentially one of the worst storms ever,'' said University of Miami meteorology professor David Nolan, noting Katrina's low pressure, large size, heavy winds, defined eyewall and drenching rains.

 

Katrina's threat was so acute that President Bush joined the chorus of officials who urged New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation, issued Sunday morning after lower-lying areas outside the city were cleared Saturday. Bush declared a state of emergency for the area threatened by the storm, which clears the way for federal assistance, including a small fleet of much-needed boats.

 

The sheer size of Katrina led officials in Florida to mandate evacuations in Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties. All were rent nearly a year ago by the fierce winds and waves of Hurricane Ivan, a Category 3 storm. On Sunday, Interstate 10, the main artery that crosses this Gulf Coast region, was a sea of cars, trucks and buses bearing Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi license plates.

 

...

 

Portable bathrooms had not been set up inside, and the dome's water system could be affected by the storm. ''That's why these people are going to be very uncomfortable,'' Ebbert said.

 

Looking beaten, Tim Duchene, 48, grimaced as he stood near the front of the line. He had waited three hours and tried in vain to take his medication to ease a ruptured disk in his back.

 

''Nobody brought us water. I tried to get one from them but they told me to get back in line,'' Duchene said. ``They weren't prepared for this. I'd like to know how they're going to feed all these people.''

 

Earlier, 55-year-old Leon Moore, the left side of his body paralyzed for the past 12 years because of a stroke, pulled his weathered red truck up to the Superdome and angrily decried Mayor Nagin. ''The mayor of the city didn't make preparations for the handicapped,'' he said.

 

MAYOR CRITICIZED

 

The criticisms of Nagin came from above as well. Numerous officials urged him to evacuate the city, but he worried about the legality of ordering people out when New Orleans has few safe hurricane shelters. Also, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield in Miami called Nagin at home Saturday night and told him: Get people out of New Orleans.

 

''I could never sleep if I felt like I didn't do everything that I could to impress upon people the gravity of the situation,'' Mayfield said. ``New Orleans is never going to be the same.''

 

When a grim Nagin issued the mandatory evacuation order Sunday, he said: ``We are facing a storm that most of us have feared . . . God bless us.''

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ws/12505019.htm

 

 

It's well and good that such a plan exists, and well and good that New York, New Orleans and San Francisco all have elaborate plans in effect.

 

What's humbling, however, is that as good as the plans may be, they will always be inadequate. New York didn't contemplate airliners flying into the World Trade Center, or else its disaster coordination center wouldn't have been located next door. Nor did it realize that its emergency radio system would fail. New Orleans had a "reverse flow" traffic plan to evacuate the city, but no mandatory evacuation system was in place. As a result, as many as 100,000 citizens may have chosen to ride out the storm in their homes; the city's mayor, Ray Nagin, said Wednesday that many thousands of them may have died.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/...al/12535263.htm

 

1-2 days after it hit:

Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breaches

 

Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Posted: 11:31 a.m. EDT (15:31 GMT)

 

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- A day after Hurricane Katrina dealt a devastating blow to the Big Easy, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Tuesday night blasted what he called a lack of coordination in relief efforts for setting behind the city's recovery.

 

"There is way too many fricking ... cooks in the kitchen," Nagin said in a phone interview with WAPT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi, fuming over what he said were scuttled plans to plug a 200-yard breach near the 17th Street Canal, allowing Lake Pontchartrain to spill into the central business district.

 

An earlier breach occurred along the Industrial Canal in the city's Lower 9th Ward. ( Watch the video featuring Nagin's complaints about delayed sandbagging -- 0:56 )

 

The rising flood waters overwhelmed pumping stations that would normally keep the city dry. About 80 percent of the city was flooded with water up to 20 feet deep after the two levees collapsed.

 

The Army Corps of Engineers is working to repair the levee breaches, the agency said Tuesday, but it gave no timetable for repairs. (See the video of water surging into the saturated city -- 1:53 )

 

The Corps has workers assessing damage at the two locations. The National Guard, Coast Guard and state and federal agencies are working with the agency to speed the process, it reported.

 

"These closures are essential so that water can be removed from the city," a statement from the Corps of Engineers' headquarters in Washington said.

 

Walter Baumy, the agency's engineering division chief, said the Corps is trying to line up rock, sandbags, barges, helicopters and cranes to patch the damaged levees.

 

Col. Kevin Wagner, a Corps official in Baton Rouge, said that engineers also were eyeing the prospect of filling shipping containers with sand and lowering them into the breaches to stanch the flooding.

 

The National Weather Service reported a breach along the Industrial Canal levee at Tennessee Street, in southeast New Orleans, on Monday. Local reports later said the levee was overtopped, not breached, but the Corps of Engineers reported it Tuesday afternoon as having been breached.

 

But Nagin said a repair attempt was supposed to have been made Tuesday.

 

According to the mayor, Black Hawk helicopters were scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000-pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach, but were diverted on rescue missions. Nagin said neglecting to fix the problem has set the city behind by at least a month.

 

"I had laid out like an eight-week to ten-week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said.

 

"That four weeks is going to stop all commerce in the city of New Orleans. It also impacts the nation, because no domestic oil production will happen in southeast Louisiana."

 

Nagin said he expects relief efforts in the city to improve as New Orleans, the National Guard and FEMA combine their command centers for better communication, followup and accountability.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/

 

"look at me, I made like a plan!"

 

 

Seriously, this guy is like the anti-rudy.

People are going to start throwing blame all over the damn place, but I don't know if its fair to drop so much of it one man's lap. For all the people urging him to evacuate the city, I'm sure there were just as many telling him not to. The fact that he did, that he took a step that to my knowledge was completely unprecedented, shows at least some courage on his part.

 

Imagine he evactuates the whole city, and the storm misses them completely. He becomes a national laughingstock, costs New Orleans and its residents millions of dollars, and his political career is completely finished. So he waited until he was reasonably sure it was the right thing to do. The people who stayed back in their homes, that was their choice--they could have at least made their way to a shelter.

 

We've never seen anything like this before, and I just don't think its fair to blame the man for not being completely prepared ahead of time.

 

And, no, he's no Rudy. But Rudy had it easy compared to this guy.

From your own article:

 

No disaster plan could mitigate what has happened in New Orleans - an entire city under water - its citizens with no homes or jobs to return to, facing months without electricity and years of rebuilding.

 

I don't see how this is blamed on Nagin, espeicially the last article. Its his fault Bush didn't give money to fix the levees before hand? Give me a break.

 

And as much as it for being on the mayor to have a way to evacuate the city, he needs to help of the national guard to do that. The mayor does not have cargo planes, or cargo trucks to put people on and move out. Sadly 40% of La's National Guard was not around to help a move out, nor did the federal gov't offer help before hand to move people out of the city. Its not like Nagin was the only one told the grim tale of what was coming.

 

Similarly, Mississippi state officials issued evacuation orders last weekend but didn't have the manpower to enforce them.

Oh I hate it when the help is in Iraq.

 

But thinkers of the unthinkable have thought for years that New Orleans' levee system was inadequate. In 2001, the Corps of Engineers New Orleans District spent $147 million on various construction and repair projects. This year, the Corps spent $82 million in the district, 44 percent less than four years ago.

 

Also underfunded at $40 million a year: The $14 billion Coast 2050 project that aims to restore the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta. The marshes and swamps buffer New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico. With the levees forcing Mississippi River sediment into the Gulf instead of spreading it across the marshes, the Delta is disappearing at the rate of one football field every 15 minutes.

 

Without its buffer, the next time a hurricane hits, rebuilt New Orleans could become Atlantis. And there will be a next time. Plan on it.

 

 

I wonder if Bush will still underfund hurricane protection.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree.

 

There's no way he should be taking all the blame for this.

 

There has been some serious miscommunication, underfunding, and poor planning at the local, state, and national levels.

 

It just bothers me to no end to see the mayor of a city repeatedly throwing his hands in the air for the public to see, even before the hurricane hit. This whole "I'm so pissed that nothing is getting done" attitude really, really gets to me when it comes from a city's leader--the guy who, ultimately, had the responsibility of safeguarding his people and preventing chaos. Show some "frickin" poise and leadership already.

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree.

 

There's no way he should be taking all the blame for this.

 

There has been some serious miscommunication, underfunding, and poor planning at the local, state, and national levels.?

 

It just bothers me to no end to see the mayor of a city repeatedly throwing his hands in the air for the public to see, even before the hurricane hit.? This whole "I'm so pissed that nothing is getting done" attitude really, really gets to me when it comes from a city's leader.? Show some "frickin" poise and leadership already.

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What else should he do though? Mayors don't have a lot of power is the jist of things. They don't have the money to do things. He cried out for help before the storm. He didn't get it. He cried out for help after the storm, now he is getting it. Convoys of food and water are finally rolling into the city today Friday, FRIDAY! When did this storm hit again? He is doing the best he can for his city, he his calling out for help and has been for about a week.

 

What do you think he could have done? Held face and let this happened without saying anything and then just ask for help after the case? He knew he was going to need help and the government balked at the chance to help before hand.

Yeah, I understand why it bothers you that he's whining and playing to the cameras, complaining that nothing is getting done because no one is helping him. But I kind of see his point. I'm sure there's more he can do, but maybe all the posturing is the best thing he can do at the moment. Because New Orleans was a poor ass city before the storm, and it's a whole lot worse now. There's only so much the mayor of a poor ass city can do, as compared to the federal government (as TealFish said above).

 

I'm watching CNN right now, and one of the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus is talking about how they did almost exactly what Mayor Nagin did. They put out a statement saying they were "ashamed" of the federal response, trying to basically embarass the government agencies into getting the wheels turning already. And now it looks like the federal response is finally there.

 

I'm hardly saying Nagin is without fault here because surely there were things he should've done differently. But overall I think he's doing his best to do what he can with the resources available to him.

okay um question

 

wasn't bush at his party house in crawford during the hurricane, and was actually concerned enough to take airforce one over to see what happend, then went to the whitehouse and now a week later he finally goes there???

umm

 

what took so long?

Um, I actually heard him say something about the schoolbus thing. What he said was that there were CITY buses running throughout the day (approximately 1,000, if I heard correctly) and that there were many pickup points throughout the city. As for why not the schoolbuses, I think he said something along the lines of needing professional bus drivers, which I took to mean people who not only knew the city, but knew different routes on how to get out rather than just some localized route.

 

As Dori would sing, "Just keep spinning, just keep spinning..."

Um, I actually heard him say something about the schoolbus thing. What he said was that there were CITY buses running throughout the day (approximately 1,000, if I heard correctly) and that there were many pickup points throughout the city. As for why not the schoolbuses, I think he said something along the lines of needing professional bus drivers, which I took to mean people who not only knew the city, but knew different routes on how to get out rather than just some localized route.

 

As Dori would sing, "Just keep spinning, just keep spinning..."

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"Spinning"?

 

That's an acceptable explanation for why those poor people weren't evacuated out of town using public buses before the storm hit? That works for you?

 

Wow, that Kool Aid must be on IV drip. Jesus Christ, this one's not so hard.

People have to also realize that the city was evacuated the previous year for Ivan which did not hit and that had a chilling effect. Moreover, this storm was totally unexpected as it took a sharp turn at the end.

 

On that note, I blame Nagin for not showing better leadership in that he wasnt very comforting. I didnt here him once say that NOLA would definitley be rebuilt whereas I did here Bush say it, for which Bush deserves credit. I dont think he should be compared to Rudy though. I also blame Nagin for not having a better and more informed evacuation system in place though he really has few resources. The disaster here wasnt getting people to shelters but rather the flooding. If everyone had evacuated to the Superdome or the various shelters, it would have still been a disaster since they would have been trapped in horrid conditions, as the Superdome people were. I put the pre-hurricane evacuation blame on Nagin and Blanco and the pre-hurricane levy not getting fixed on the federal govt. I put the post hurricane screwups on the federal govt.

People have to also realize that the city was evacuated the previous year for Ivan which did not hit and that had a chilling effect. Moreover, this storm was totally unexpected as it took a sharp turn at the end.

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Sharp turn? :blink:

 

It kept on the same track for about 4 days.