Again, Stunning

I don't know New Orleans politics and I don't know Landrieu, but this is what I do know:

Nagin dithered and dithered and dithered and refused to call a mandatory evacuation, wasting hour upon hour as the storm pressed in.

Nagin made absolutely no provision for evacuating those in the city without a car -- you know, like say, poor people -- even though an exercise the year before made clear that there were roughly 100,000 of them. They were simply left on their own to fend for themselves, despite the availability of buses, despite, even an offer from Amtrak to at least fill the seats on a train they were dead-heading out of the city to get equipment out of the strike zone.

Nagin made no real effort (despite promises) to get people to the Superdome, the so-called "shelter of last resort," and absolutely no effort to stock and provision that shelter, even though that same exercise had made clear that the city could be without power and water for weeks.

Nagin left the perfectly safe Emergency Operations Center on the 9th floor of City Hall -- where his police, fire, Homeland Security, and all other relevant agency heads and contacts were gathered -- and bizarrely decamped for the 27th floor of the Hyatt, a decision he has no coherent explanation for.

Nagin helped hype the idea that New Orleans had descended into "animalistic" violence and chaos, telling the press precisely that. Maybe he thought if he painted an ever grimmer picture of the way things were in the city, he'd speed relief, but in fact he did a tremendous disservice to the people suffering inside the city -- and slowed relief, as security became a concern for anyone looking to bring help in.

And yet he's been reelected just the same.

But, like I say, I don't understand New Orleans politics.

Comments

[John Burgess]

And Marion Barry can't lose an election in DC...

Appeal to voters on their core, emotional issues and you can overcome rational problems. At least at the ballot box.

[Glenmore]

"...refused to call a mandatory evacuation..."
At about noon Saturday, as I was packing up, Nagin held a press conference and said (approximately) 'the city attorney tells me I cannot order a mandatory evacuation at this time, but IF I COULD, I WOULD. Get out!' Despite the failures, I believe this was still the largest and most successful evacuation in American history.

"...no provision for evacuating those in the city without a car..."
True. Same as it was forever. But the biggest problem wasn't the transportation, it was the lack of places to take people. Because once the city takes 'ownership' of the refugees they are obligated to take care of them, and there was no way to do so. And once you DO take SOME, you encourage others to shift from taking care of themselves. (Many of those I know who did not leave the city chose to stay - for many reasons other than lack of transport or place to go.) This is a far, far more complex problem than it appears on the surface.

The Superdome was specifically defined as NOT a shelter of last resort after Ivan. It was not stocked as such because it was not intended as such. But people were used to it having been such in the past and so it went again.

I don't have any knowledge about the command post decision. I can say that there were no means of cross-functional communications available, and almost no means of any communications beyond the city boundaries. One key exception was WWL radio, which was broadcasting on some kind of generator-powered computer feed to a Baton Rouge transmitter; that was how most of us got our information, and how most authorities attempted to communicate - kind of like broadcast ham radio. Their studio used to be in the Hyatt building, I think.

The grim stories turned out to be largely untrue, but there was no way to know that, and there was enough truth to make them believable. They cost us humanitarian aid, but got us military and police aid, and that may have prevented the stories from coming true. Think 'Baghdad.' Like I said, this was a much more complex situation than it appeared. Also, I believe it was the largest and most successful rescue operation in American history. In many cases the limiting factor was air congestion - helicopters risked running into each other. Initial Coast Guard flights were happening even before winds dropped below tropical storm level - and that is not easy in a helicopter.

On the election politics side, I refer you to Captain's Quarters, he does a good job in my opinion, of summing it up. Some other points:
1) Landrieu was in some ways a 'proxy' for the job the state government did during Katrina, as Nagin was for city government.
2) Aid and sympathy for the city would have been just as jeapordized with a Landrieu victory as the Nagin one: his election would have been called 'illegitimate' because of inablility of the poor, black, and evacuated to have voted. Instead, aid and sympathy are gone because the residents are too stupid to deserve it, having re-elected a buffoon. In my opinion, both are just excuses - rationalizations for the fact that the American attention span is limited to about six months.

[DaveK]

Insanity... Continuing to make the same choice over and over again, but constantly expecting to have an outcome different than what has happened over and over again.

Just my $.02
DaveK

[Observer]

You don't understand NO politics?

Hmm. I'll see ya, and raise you one. I don't understand a lot about politics. Maybe you can help me. Not only has Nagin been reelected, but (and I am guessing here) there are probably some large number of people (not a majority though) who would actually vote for George Bush again, were he on a ballot this week. Could you 'splain that to me?

[dauber]

Almost all the grim stories were untrue, and I've noted that here before as an indictment of the press coverage, but that has to do with what happened once the storm hit, at which pt lines of responsibility become very tangled. Beforehand, when we're talking about evacuation, they're very clear, and you seem to be working very hard to let Nagin off the hook (for ex. your recollection of his 'sat. comments doesn't quite match the transcript, which is far more whishy-washy.) In any event I don't think they gained the city aid, I think they slowed the aid that was in-bound.

The idea that Landrieu was a proxy for the job the state did is one I hadn't heard, however, and it's one that makes very good sense, I have to admit.

I don't think it's fair to suggest the country has a short attn span on this one: this is one of hte very few stories that the press has continued to follow (which is one way, I have to admit, they are to be applauded for their coverage.) Surely it isn't the case that the need to rebuild the area hasn't been forgotten if it is true that the sense of urgency has been lost.

Will the reelection of Nagin be seen by some as an excuse to give up on the city? I'm sure that argument will be made. There is a certain level of frustration to be expected from the rest of the country, but if he can deliver on anything resembling a reasonable plan for the city, that will be forgotten. If he can't, the frustration inside the city will force a fix in any event I would imagine.

As for nat'l politics, you ask a very open-ended question, my friend, and not one that speaks to the heart of this blog.