Worse than you heard

[asheris]

An Abyss of Misery From repeated urges to evacuate (by Mayor Nagin two days before Katrina hit) to experiences in the Convention Center. It was never meant to be a refuge, but a place to gather and get transportation out of town- transportation that didn't come until many days later.

Comments

[keith-london.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that article might be glossing over facts, when they claimed "It was Saturday, Aug. 27, when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded with city residents to leave".

According to FactCheck, and in their first mention of Nagin in their Katrina timeline [Katrina: What Happened When (http://www.factcheck.org/article348.html)]:


Bush must have had to almost twist Nagin's arm to get him to order a mandatory evacuation, as they had been dithering at state level. Fortunately, even at that late stage, they managed to evacuate most of the city.

I can understand the "pleading" bit, if that really happened - as there were quit a number of people who really believed they could sit out the storm.

[asheris.livejournal.com]

If you'll notice, the article refers to him "pleading" with residents to leave days ahead of the storm.

He was likely hoping that a manditory evacuation order would not become necessary, given that they didn't have the resources to make it happen - and there was no finalized plan in place for handling a manditory evacuation, partially due to repeated funding cuts at higher levels of government.

(Early Warnings Raised Doubt on Bush Disaster Plans and Order twice ignored for evacuation study explain this in part.)