The key to emergency management starts at the local level and expands to the state level. I urge you to read the entire article, but in short, it stresses that it is the office of the Mayor, Ray Nagin, who must coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to citywide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan.
Yet, this AP photo from 9/1/05 shows a school bus park, apparently filled to capacity with buses, under 4 feet of water. Ask yourself, why if a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans was ordered, why weren't all the taxpayer-purchased buses used to evacuate the citizens who had no means to get out?Mayor Nagin was quick to blame everyone but his own office, but the details of his utter incompetence will be made known to the world.
Mayor Nagin, you sir, are no Mayor Rudy Guiliani!
Tomorrow, Governor Blanco...
6 comments:
Thank you so much for that, cube! You're so right.
It isn't said enough... Disaster prep begins at the local level. I'm still shocked at how incompetent Nagin and his cronies have been.
It's amazing that practically nobody has mentioned how fortunate New Orleans was (or should've been) to have several days notice this time. Many areas in the paths of hurricanes aren't that lucky.
Just awful stuff... Mayor Nagin will get his, I predict!
Also, I can't wait for your rant against the equally incompetent Gov. Blanco. I didn't know much about her going into Katrina, but just the fact that she was crying hysterically on national television (yep... that bodes well for your state's mindset in a time of crisis!) gave me a very bad impression.
This is what I have been saying ALL along.
And you know that if the feds had come in BEFORE the hurricane and tried to co-opt the evacuation process, the local officials would have chafed at that also.
It's sad really. It seems they're looking for someone to blame, when they should be just pulling themselves up and getting on with the business at hand!
Wow, that's a damn shame to see all those buses stuck there when they could have saved hundreds of people!
As an important National Seaport, New Orleans received millions for training & equipment from Homeland Security. Now it appears that the training never occurred & the equipment isn't there. So where did the money go? Cronyism, graft, corruption.
jessey: the Governor did resist pleas from President Bush to get the feds in before the storm. She refused, saying she needed 24 hours to think about it. Seems politically driven to me & not in the best interests of her constituents.
al: so true. It is heartbreaking to see those buses because of what they imply: thousands of people could've been driven out of that city. But then the buses could've been used to ferry people & supplies around. Remember the anguished pleas for the buses to arrive at the Superdome?
Actually Nagin wasn't using school buses to get people out because he was using the better, air-conditioned city buses. I know it's hard to see those buses underwater, but the school bus drivers needed to evacuate too. It's very important not to just jump to conclusions, even if it is a devastating image.
(Just want to clrify- he used the city buses to evacuate people PRIOR to the storm. After that he obviously couldn't use the school buses b/c they're underwater, and the fact that they're underwater is the fault of the storm and the levee breaches, not the mayor.)
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