National Hurricane Director had to call Nagin at home Saturd

[GulfHills]

National Hurricane Director had to call Nagin at home Saturday night to plead: "Get people out..."

Knight Ridder Newspapers ^ | Sun, Aug. 28, 2005 | BY MARC CAPUTO, DAVID OVALLE AND ERIKA BOLSTAD

MAYOR CRITICIZED EVEN BEFORE LEVY BREAK. National Hurricane Center Director had to call Nagin at home Saturday night to plead: "Get people out of New Orleans." "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.''


(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...

[Air Force Met]

Then there's this from Sunday the 28th:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.

Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said <b> President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.</b>

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

Let's remember that the track had it near NOLA on Friday night...and over NOLA Saturday morning.

[Steve Cosby]

I first knee-jerked on the first message in this thread and then withdrew my comment. Given what Air Force Met has just posted, here's my original comment:

Nagin had no right to go on a cussing of Federal officials without, at least first, acknowledging his own incompetence (which he has not done to my knowledge). Now, to find out that both Mayfield and Bush called for the evacuation is just inexcusable. Nagin's diatribe on the radio station was clearly intended to divert attention away from himself.

Unbelievable.

[Brent]

I first knee-jerked on the first message in this thread and then withdrew my comment. Given what Air Force Met has just posted, here's my original comment:

Nagin had no right to go on a cussing of Federal officials without, at least first, acknowledging his own incompetence (which he has not done to my knowledge). Now, to find out that both Mayfield and Bush called for the evacuation is just inexcusable. Nagin's diatribe on the radio station was clearly intended to divert attention away from himself.

Unbelievable.

EXACTLY!!!



I am sick and tired of it...

[Derek Ortt]

I am not sure about Louisiana or Federal law in this cas,e but can any action be taken against Nagin, the one most responsible for this due to his incompetence, for not ordering the evacuation, as advised

[beenthru6]

[quote="Steve Cosby"]I first knee-jerked on the first message in this thread and then withdrew my comment. Given what Air Force Met has just posted, here's my original comment:

Nagin had no right to go on a cussing of Federal officials without, at least first, acknowledging his own incompetence (which he has not done to my knowledge). Now, to find out that both Mayfield and Bush called for the evacuation is just inexcusable. Nagin's diatribe on the radio station was clearly intended to divert attention away from himself.

Unbelievable.

A classic case of "pass the buck"

[Steve Cosby]

I am not sure about Louisiana or Federal law in this cas,e but can any action be taken against Nagin, the one most responsible for this due to his incompetence, for not ordering the evacuation, as advised

He probably has an extension of sovereign immunity (spelling may be wrong) wherein you can't directly sue a State or Federal government. I'm not real sure about municipalities.

[al79philly]

In my opinion, even the governor and mayor had the mindset that this thing would turn and spare New Orleans like several have before and both were fearful of the political implications.

Look at the governor's words Sunday morning " President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding. "

Why would you say that? To me, it translates to "If this thing misses us - don't blame me for evacuating you. Even the President thought we needed to evacuate."

I think that blame will (and needs to) be assessed. However, now is not the time. There will be plenty of time after things get cleaned up.

Thoughts? Feel free to disagree - I am interested in what everyone thinks.

[themusk]

I'm sure (as in have seen some strong evidence of) other things went very wrong with all of this. And I suspect the story of why New Orleans wasn't properly evacuated will turn out to have many twists and turns and complications. It's rarely as simple as "the leader screwed up", and more often a cascade of bad decisions by middle managers, political maneuverings and turf wars, miscommunication, and varying degrees of misbegotten influence by special interests.

But its inarguable: the state plan had made provisions to evacuate everyone, including the poor and special needs populations, and the mayor was clearly informed that there was an urgent need to evacuate everyone. Yet this did not happen.

I want to see the city's emergency plan, and how they intended to execute this. Given that the city has been saying for some time that they can't get those people without cars out of the city, and that it even was party to a volunteer program encouraging church members to give rides to congregation members, there is something fishy here. I want to know what species of fish is stinking it all up here.

[Steve Cosby]

I think that blame will (and needs to) be assessed. However, now is not the time. There will be plenty of time after things get cleaned up.

Absolutely - but tell Nagin that too.

[baygirl_1]

Also, keep in mind the National Hurricane Center issued a Hurricane Watch last Sat. morning at 10AM for Lousiana ONLY. I believe that watch was issued to signal the need for a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, was it not? Yet, no action was taken. I remember I wondered why on earth they issued a special watch for them when no mandatory evacuation order was given.
I was in New Orleans 3 days before Hurricane Dennis hit Florida and at that time it appeared the storm was aiming for New Orleans. Even then they were discussing the evacuation plan on TV stations and that it would take 3 days to evacuate New Orleans. How did Mayor Nagin think they could evacuate New Orleans in less than a day when he finally issued the mandatory evacuation order on Sunday?

[southerngale]

I want to see the city's emergency plan, and how they intended to execute this. Given that the city has been saying for some time that they can't get those people without cars out of the city, and that it even was party to a volunteer program encouraging church members to give rides to congregation members, there is something fishy here. I want to know what species of fish is stinking it all up here.

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=73412

[thunderchief]

Nagin knows hes gonna be impeached or whatever and hes probably trying to blame others to delay that.

[crazycajuncane]

OK now people let's think about this for a minute.

You can all try and blame Nagin, BUT.... had this storm missed New Orleans or had a minimal effect on New Orleans... people would be blaming Nagin for ordering a mandatory evacuation.

Either way... the man loses. He did order a mandatory evacuation on Sunday... it was on the news.

He ordered a VOLUNTARY evacuation on Saturday and pleaded with people to get out. He said, "IF I COULD, I WOULD ORDER A MANDATORY EVACUATION."

Blame the stupid laws we have. He did tell people to get the hell out 48 hours before this storm hit. People we're going to stay.... its a fact. People tell me they'll stay in Vermillion Parish even if a Cat.5 is coming. People don't get it.

100,000 people stayed in New Orleans, but 900,000 got out right???

What happened AFTER the storm hit was not Nagins fault. He requested help and they said it was coming. It was coming Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.... and then after his speech on the radio they came Friday... still haven't gotten people out and it's Saturday... don't expect them all out even on Sunday.

He's just the mayor. The governor and congressmen of Louisiana didn't do enough AFTER the storm hit. Plain and simple.

[al79philly]

Crazycajuncane...

Two points:

The governor and congressmen of Louisiana didn't do enough AFTER the storm hit. Plain and simple.

I agree with you 100% here - I didn't mean to imply that the responsibility lies with the gov and mayor alone. When all is said and done, I think we will see that there were major failures at the local, state, and federal levels.

Blame the stupid laws we have.

Are there laws that prevented him from issuing a mandatory on Saturday? I hadn't heard that.

[Kennethb]

Dear all:

Here in Baton Rouge, I got electricity back Friday night.

I was watching Nagin last Saturday evening around 10:00 p.m. on WWL TV via stream and to summarize what I saw, he said that he was given a phone number by Governor Blanco. He said it was of Max Mayfield of the TPC. He called Max who said this was the worst case scenerio event that had always been discussed, the models all showed a strenghening storm headed to NO, and that a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans should be ordered.

Nagin said that he did not know legally if he could do this and would consult his attourneys.

Of course Sunday after she suddenly became a cat 5 he did this. This was less than 24 hours from landfall. The traffic cams showed bumper to bumper into the evening here in BR.

This of course is a difficult decision with so much at stake.

If you recall he called the recommended evacuation the of NO with Ivan, rather late, causing the massive traffic jams and improved evacuation plans.

I do think he made a bad decision. I am sure he regrets his decison.

But New Orleans will arise again. This tragedy will be studied and drastically improved for hurricanes and other Homeland Security large scenerios.

[themusk]

I want to see the city's emergency plan, and how they intended to execute this. Given that the city has been saying for some time that they can't get those people without cars out of the city, and that it even was party to a volunteer program encouraging church members to give rides to congregation members, there is something fishy here. I want to know what species of fish is stinking it all up here.

http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=73412

That alone doesn't answer my question. Yes, there are provisions there that say communities "may" use such assets, but it does not say why New Orleans in particular did not use their school buses and had apparently been declaring for some time that they could or would not use them.

Something prevented this from happening. Either the supplemental state plan made assumptions that certain assets would be available when they should have known or been informed that they were not, or the city misrepresented to the public that the assets were not available when they were, or actual access to the assets were in fact blocked through something (turf war? no gas? no drivers? something else?).

So something stinks to high heaven, and I know it's a "fish", and I know it has fins, scales, and gills, but I want to know exactly what kind of "fish", and exactly who caught, gutted, and scaled the fish on what timeline, so to speak.

There's a story here, and it is directly relevant to the subject matter that has led me to try to do more research in this field (that is, if I can stay out of the hospital, remain halfway functional, and think clearly while doing it -- I've been retired on disability for some time for a reason, I'm finding to my dismay).

[artist]

The Orleans parish website is coming up not found so doubt we can get ahold of it unless someone has as back door to be able to find it.

[MBismyPlayground]

hhmm, after reading this, and reading the things that support ALL of these comments.......I have come to this conclusion.

Mayor Nagin obviously took on a job and the responsibilites of mayor, without knowing what the job and position required. He seems less then educated on any of the emergency evacuation disaster plans. He obviously was unfamiliar with the SOP that AF Met kindly posted. If he was, however, familiar with it, then he did not understand it, because it sure was not followed.
I am not familiar with the laws of LA nor am I a lawyer but.... seems that some of their state laws, or whatever they are, are a little different from what we know. (Apparently Louisiana does not have or use the word "MARTIAL LAW". Therefore, the soldiers there are sorta stuck.)
So if this is the case, maybe Nagin has to get some sort of permission LEGALLY to give an evacuation notice. If THIS is the case, then I don;t think he, solely can be held neglegent. If this is NOT the case, he is dust.
Secondly, the govenor is definitly NOT in the clear. Again, I think we may be looking at another person who took on a job and the responsibility, without the experience that was required for it. The KNOWLEDGE, not the ability. The positions are not the kind where one can OJT. Peoples lives and well being are at stake. If the Govenor is the person who is to give Nagin "permission" then she failed by not demanding an evacuation as well.
I seriously want to see what the SOP for govenor in LA says.

[wxman57]

I don't think a Cat 5 forecast to hit dead-center on New Orleans 48 hours out when their evacuation plan calls for getting people out 50 hours ahead of a storm is a difficult decision. Maybe if it was a TS, but not a 175 mph hurricane! We had the track on New Orleans Friday afternoon at 3pm, as did just about every model. By the time the mayor ordered mandatory evacuations the first squalls were already hitting the city. You just can't wait until you see the squalls coming ashore to make a decision. He killed a lot of people with his indecision.