Really Seeking for Someone to Blame in New Orleans? Here goes ...

We've gotta start somewhere, so it might as well be here:

The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan clearly states, "The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas," and "Transportation will be provided to those persons requiring public transportation from the area." Part II, Section B, paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan (supplement 1A) states, "School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles, and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."

The truth hurts. Especially as it begins to roll out in droves. What is coming to surface about the weeks and months ahead of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans is nothing shy of outrageous and sickening. The most damning evidence comes in the first two articles below, followed by some blog bantering over the blame game, with plenty of proof - including a pic of the hundreds of school buses that were never used for evacuations - to support the failure of the city and state emergency officials and procedures leading up to this tragedy. At the front of the line to be held responsible? Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco, without pause. So, Mayor Nagin, just what came of the literally hundreds of school buses in at least one lot that sat by this entire time, never called upon to be driven (who cares about bus driver's licensing in this scenario?) to evacuate the tens of thousands of people left behind in the Superdome and Convention Center? While demanding assistance and pointing blame along with hostile rhetoric, Nagin has dug his own political grave along with the city and state emergency officials, and the city of New Orleans along with the state of Louisiana has to look no further than right in front of its face at the ill-preparedness for the natural disaster that demolished the city. And what of Governor Blanco, refusing to budge an inch on calling for major rescue operations at the insistance and pleading of President Bush - who already designated the state of Louisiana a disaster area prior to the arrival of Katrina? Disgusting.

Read on:

New Orleans Flashback:
www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2005/09/05/20050905_230000_flash3kt.htm

From the New Orleans Times Picayune, July 24, 2005:

"In storm, N.O. wants no one left behind; Number of people without cars makes evacuation difficult", Bruce Nolan, New Orleans Times Picayune, 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 each person is primarily responsible for themselves, 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.

New Orleans Times Picayune, July 24, 2005
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More evidence against LA emergency response officials:

Louisiana Officials Could Lose the Katrina Blame Game
By Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 07, 2005

(1st Add: Includes information about restoration of Mardi Gras fountain)

(CNSNews.com) - The Bush administration is being widely criticized for the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the allegedly inadequate protection for "the big one" that residents had long feared would hit New Orleans. But research into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding.

In December of 1995, the Orleans Levee Board, the local government entity that oversees the levees and floodgates designed to protect New Orleans and the surrounding areas from rising waters, bragged in a supplement to the Times-Picayune newspaper about federal money received to protect the region from hurricanes.

"In the past four years, the Orleans Levee Board has built up its arsenal. The additional defenses are so critical that Levee Commissioners marched into Congress and brought back almost $60 million to help pay for protection," the pamphlet declared. "The most ambitious flood-fighting plan in generations was drafted. An unprecedented $140 million building campaign launched 41 projects."

The levee board promised Times-Picayune readers that the "few manageable gaps" in the walls protecting the city from Mother Nature's waters "will be sealed within four years (1999) completing our circle of protection."

But less than a year later, that same levee board was denied the authority to refinance its debts. Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle "repeatedly faulted the Levee Board for the way it awards contracts, spends money and ignores public bid laws," according to the Times-Picayune. The newspaper quoted Kyle as saying that the board was near bankruptcy and should not be allowed to refinance any bonds, or issue new ones, until it submitted an acceptable plan to achieve solvency.

Blocked from financing the local portion of the flood fighting efforts, the levee board was unable to spend the federal matching funds that had been designated for the project.

By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.

The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.

The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.

No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.

"The problem is money is real tight in Baton Rouge right now," state Sen. Francis Heitmeier (D-Algiers) told the Times-Picayune. "We have to do with what we can get."

Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen told local officials that, if they reduced their requests for state funding in other, less critical areas, they would have a better chance of getting the requested funds for levee improvements. The newspaper reported that in 2000 and 2001, "the Bond Commission has approved or pledged millions of dollars for projects in Jefferson Parish, including construction of the Tournament Players Club golf course near Westwego, the relocation of Hickory Avenue in Jefferson (Parish) and historic district development in Westwego."

There is no record of such discretionary funding requests being reduced or withdrawn, but in October of 2003, nearby St. Charles Parish did receive a federal grant for $475,000 to build bike paths on top of its levees.

Earlier this year, the levee board did complete a $2.5 million restoration project. After months of delays, officials rolled away fencing to reveal the restored 1962 Mardi Gras fountain in a four-acre park featuring a new 600-foot plaza between famous Lakeshore Drive and the sea wall.

Financing for the renovation came from a property tax passed by New Orleans voters in 1983. The tax, which generates more than $6 million each year for the levee board, is dedicated to capital projects. Levee board officials defended more than $600,000 in cost overruns for the Mardi Gras fountain project, according to the Times-Picayune, "citing their responsibility to maintain the vast green space they have jurisdiction over along the lakefront."

Democrats blame Bush administration

Congressional Democrats have been quick to blame the White House for poor preparation and then a weak response related to Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, joined two of his colleagues from the Transportation and Infrastructure and Homeland Security committees Tuesday in a letter requesting hearings into what the trio called a "woefully inadequate" federal response.

"Hurricane Katrina was an unstoppable force of nature," Waxman wrote along with Reps. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). "But it is plain that the federal government could have done more, sooner, to respond to the immediate survival needs of the residents of Louisiana and Mississippi.

"In fact, different choices for funding and planning to protect New Orleans may even have mitigated the flooding of the city," the Democrats added.

But Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) suggested that Waxman "overlooks many other questions that need to be asked, and prematurely faults the federal government for all governmental shortcomings; in fact, local and state government failures are not mentioned at all in [Waxman's] letter."

Davis wrote that Waxman's questions about issues such as the lack of federal plans for evacuating residents without access to vehicles and the alleged failure of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure basic communications capacity for first responders might "prematurely paint the picture that these are solely, or even primarily, federal government responsibilities.

"This is not the time to attack or defend government entities for political purposes. Rather, this is a time to do the oversight we're charged with doing," Davis continued. "Our Committee will aggressively investigate what went wrong and what went right. We'll do it by the book, and let the chips fall where they may."

The House Government Reform Committee will begin hearings on federal disaster preparations and the response to Hurricane Katrina the week of Sept. 12. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is schedule to hold hearings on the economic recovery from Katrina beginning Wednesday morning.
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From http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/007196.html:

Bush Not To Blame For Levee Failure

You can put to rest the conspiracy-theory rumblings of some leftwingers that "Bush budget cuts" for levee improvements and a study of upgrading New Orleans' levees are to blame for levees breaking and New Orleans being flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The allegation simply doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of cold, hard facts:

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the Corps, dismissed suggestions that recent federal funding decreases or delayed contracts had any impact on levee performance in the face of Katrina's overwhelming force.

Instead he pointed to a danger that many public officials had warned about for years: The system was never designed to withstand a storm of Katrina's strength.

"It was fully recognized by officials that we had Category Three [hurricane] level of protection," Strock said. "As projections of Category Four and Five were made, [officials] began plans to evacuate the city.

"We were just caught by a storm whose intensity exceeded the protection that we had in place."

Until the day before Katrina's arrival, New Orleans's 350 miles (560 kilometers) of levees were undergoing a feasibility study to examine the possibility of upgrading them to withstand a Category Four or Five storm.

Corps officials say the study, which began in 2000, will take several years to complete

Upgrading the system would take as long as 20 to 25 years, according to Al Naomi, the Corps' senior project manager for the New Orleans District.

New Orleans' levees were raised to a height of 12 feet after Hurricane Camille's 10-foot storm surge in 1969. That decision was made by the Orleans Levee Board. George W. Bush did not become president until 2001.

UPDATE: As Captain Ed notes, even the New York Times notes that the levee that failed had already been upgraded.

Captain Ed also notes that the fault for the slow mobilization of the National Guard lies with none other than Louisiana Gov. Blanco, who has the authority to order the Guard mobilized.

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Again, from http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/007188.html:

Nagin's Failure

This AP photo shows scores of New Orleans school buses sitting in flood waters after Hurricane Katrina - sitting where they sat instead of being used to evacuate thousands of poor people before Katrina hit.

Why are scores of school buses sitting in the flood waters of New Orleans today? Blame New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who is one reason things have gotten worse, not better, in his stricken city since it was hit by Hurricane Katrina. His laissez faire approach to looting allowed the looters to become increasingly armed and violent, interrupting rescue and recovery operations.

But even before Katrina hit, he failed his poorest citizens horribly. He told them to evacuate the city - and then gave his city's poorest residents no way to do so.

Nagin lashed out at federal officials yesterday for the government's relief efforts, pleading for the government to round up "500 buses" to send to New Orleans to evacuate survivors.

But Nagin, who ordered a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans before Katrina hit, ought to be made to answer this question: Where are the buses of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority? Under water? Destroyed? Why?

Before Katrina hit, the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority operated at least 364 buses, probably more. (The latest stats I found are these from 2002. NORTA's website likely has more accurate stats but the site is, understandably, down.)

A more important question for Mayor Nagin is this one: Why weren't NORTA's 364 buses used to ferry poor people out of New Orleans before Katrina hit?

It's a legitimate question. After all, Nagin knew he had tens of thousands of poor people in his city who had neither money nor vehicles to self-evacuate before the storm arrived. So, why didn't he order NORTA to send its buses into the poor neighborhoods to provide transportation to anyone wishing to leave?

If each bus could hold just 60 people, NORTA's 364 buses had the capacity to take almost 22,000 peope out of harm's way per trip. Given that Nagin ordered the compulsory evacuation of the city two days before the storm hit, there was sufficient time for more than one trip - sufficient time to move tens of thousands of the city's poorest residents out of New Orleans by bus before Katrina arrived.

Even if the buses only made one trip, one in five people now trapped in New Orleans wouldn't be.

But Nagin never sent NORTA's buses and drivers into the city's Ninth Ward, its poorest section, to offer the people there a realistic way out.

Critics will ask where, exactly, the NORTA buses would have taken tens of thousands of people. My answer: the first town they came to 100 miles or so west of New Orleans. Would that be ideal? No, but leaving 100,000 poor people trapped in a below-sea-level city about to be hit by a hurricane stronger than the city's levees were build to withstand wasn't exactly ideal, either.

Nagin is screaming for buses now, but when he had them he failed to use them. People aren't dying in New Orleans today because of what the federal relief effort is or isn't doing. People are dying in New Orleans today because Mayor Ray Nagin failed to get them out before Katrina hit.

People are dying - perhaps by the thousands - because of his failure.

UPDATE: A commenter notes that the New Orleans Public School system also had buses - hundreds of them. Why weren't they pressed into service to evacuate the thousands of residents who had no way out? (After posting this update, I found the flooded buses photo via a link posted by a commenter over at BloggingForBryant.)

In the days before the hurricane struck, the possibility of commandeering the city's two big bus fleets - the transit buses and the school buses - was much discussed on this Metafilter thread.

One person, "Amberglow," wrote at at 11:15 AM New Orleans time on August 28: "They ought to get every bus in the city comandeered and just get people out of there. even boats and barges up the Mississippi would work."

But ... they didn't.

Instead, the transit buses were used to shuttle people to the Superdome. And the school buses were left parked to drown in the floodwaters, each flooded seat representing a person that could have been moved out of harm's way.

UPDATE: Hey, I'm not the only one who thinks Nagin blew it. Brendan Loy checks in, as does B. Preston at JunkyardBlog, and Glenn Reynolds. Interesting, though, that they're focusing on the school buses, but I was talking about Nagin's failure to use the city's transit system buses to evacuate poor people before the photo of the drowned school buses surfaced.

Preston writes:

Here's a tight satellite view of the bus lot. It looks to me like there are more than 205 buses there. That's a freeway next to the lot, in the upper part of the frame. It leads to the Superdome in one direction and out of the city in the other. ...The Superdome is in the lower left and the bus lot is in the upper right. They're not that far apart - a mile or two maybe. I will say this - if the city's emergency planners couldn't figure out that the bus lot, the freeway and the dome make a pretty tight emergency staging and evacuation system all by themselves, those planners are beyond incompetent.

He's right. And their incompetence cost lives - perhaps thousands of lives.

Also wanting answers from Nagin about the unused buses: David Frey of TigerSmack, an LSU sports blog.

And the Cracker Barrel Philosopher calls the drowned school buses the "Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool." Ouch.

UPDATE: Sept. 3: Lots of good stuff overnight in the comments, including the fact that Louisiana Gov. Blanco didn't call an evacuation until after President Bush begged her to do so, and the fact that the official hurricane evacuation plan for southeastern Louisiana says this:

The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

So, Nagin is doubly incompetement, the flooded unused school buses being a testament to his failure of vision and his failure to either know or follow the written plan.

UPDATE: David Wissing has some thoughts about buses, as does Tim at Four Right Wing Wackos.

UPDATE: ChronWatch has a nice summary of Nagin's Failure:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin declared a state of emergency, and ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. Some of those who remained behind were too poor to escape via normal public or private transportation. The poorest residents had no way out of town. Photos have shown fleets of school buses still parked in their flooded lots. Why those buses were not pressed into service, no one knows. The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan clearly states, "The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas," and "Transportation will be provided to those persons requiring public transportation from the area." Part II, Section B, paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan (supplement 1A) states, "School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles, and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."

Public buses only took people to the Superdome, which was clearly not outside the threatened area. The school buses were never used at all. Emergency plans are created for a reason, and need to be followed in order to ensure the safety of the citizens.

And Tim Saler at RedState.org writes:

Perhaps Mayor Nagin, if he was so concerned about evacuating the city of New Orleans and save all the poor black residents who people like Randall Robinson, Jesse Jackson, and Kanye West believe were slighted by the President and the Republican government, he would have used the over two-hundred school buses at a depot in New Orleans. It is estimated that each bus could have carried around sixty-six people. At a round number, if there were two-hundred buses that could carry sixty-six people at a time, that's 13,200 people evacuated to safety - on just one trip. Now those buses are under water and are mostly useless. But instead of doing what he could have done at a local level to save his residents, Mayor Nagin sat on his hands and waited for the federal response, then proceeded to bite the hand that is trying to save his city.

Days later, Nagin complains to CNN, "Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses." You had them, Mayor. You chose not to use them, and now you blame the President and the federal government for your mistakes.

I don't know if Nagin broke city ordinance or state law in ignoring the emergency plans, but his failure certainly makes him morally culpable in the deaths of the people he failed to provide a way out. And his failure likely cost hundreds, maybe thousands of lives.
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Enough said. This is horrible. Many, many questions to be answered. Heads are going to roll on all levels. But liberal Dems need to get their heads out of their f*cking *sses and lend a literal hand (see Sen. Bill Frist, also a medical doctor, working in relief - in person for over four days along the Gulf Coast - helping the injured survivors one-by-one), rather than vomiting endless shallow rhetoric from D.C. while they point fingers in blame and scream for more commissions (Sen. Hillary Clinton one of, the most irrelevant among the lot). Un-f*cking-believable.