1 Wow. What a profound misunderstanding of the problems you display here. Here's a brief recap, so you can understand. Nagin did order an evacuation, and most citizens did leave. This being New Orleans, some did not, and Nagin did the wise thing in opening up the Superdome so that citizens could ride the storm out. Complete evacuation at that point would have been nice, but it simply was not going to happen, and it did not appear absolutely necessary.

Had the levees held, the citizens could have returned and begun rebuilding their lives at that point.

Unfortunately, the levees did not hold (if you want to learn why, do a little research for the sad truth). At that point, the need for complete evacuation came to fruition, and the buses pictured above became useless.

And then the waiting for a response began.

And it continued.

On.

Day after day.

While Bush played guitar and ate cake.

And people died of dehydration.

And reinforcements were nowhere to be found.

And water was nowhere to be found.

And food was nowhere to be found.

But shoes could be found by Rice.

And the estate planning attorney that Bush had appointed to lead FEMA began to sweat.

And more people died.

And Michael Brown didn't even know, AS I KNEW, that people were in the convention center.

Disgusting.

2 What a doofus response. It was a *mandatory* evacuation, one that probably would not have happened without Bush personally calling for it.

This being New Orleans, some people did not have the *means* to evacuate themselves. The city had the means, but didn't use them. Their disaster preparedness plan called for the use of city buses (see junkyardblog.net), but they ignored it.

So hundreds of buses were not used to evacuate the poor, they were not placed on higher ground for evacuation after the storm, they were left to flood and rot.

And you blame Bush for not personally leading a convoy of federal buses (you know, from the federal school bus parking lot and the federal public transportaion parking lot) from Washington, D.C.

duh...

3 And th evacuation should have been ordered by the incompetent Democrat governor on Saturday.

And teh buses should have been used by the incompetent mayor to evacuate the citizens.

And the New Orleans cops shouldn't have cut and run like cowards.

I realize you are part of the Blame Bush First Brigade -- but the problem arose because of incompetent state and local leadership AND decades of Democrat looting of the state of Louisiana nad city of New Orleans.

4 Oh, no, RWR, I'm with you that there is plenty of blame to go around. I'm not blaming Bush first, but I am definitely blaming him. And, yes, you're right, in hindsight, Nagin could and should have done more to evacuate the city, though, again, until the levees broke, it appeared that the evacuation was sufficient (though, OTOH, had Katrina pummeled NO as badly as it might have, things could have been worse right away).

Where I blame Bush, though, is for failing to move troops and ships into position before the storm, just in case, and for truly horrifying failures after the levee broke.

And, Joe, come on. Where did I suggest that Bush should have led a caravan? Where? Why are you so silent? Because you made stupid stuff up? Because the truth provides such thin broth for your Bush defense that you ridicule me with lies? That's just plain idiocy, Joe. In my household, you would be sent from the room as being unfit to participate in grown-up discussion.

5 But you hit the problem right on the head -- there is not one disaster in New Orleans, but two going on simultaneously.

You argue that Bush should have, "just in case", prepositioned and anticipated, etc -- but excuse Nagin and Blanco because it looked like preparations were sufficient until the second disaster hit and they didn't take "just in case" precautions. Which is it -- were preparations sufficient or not? Was there sufficient anticipation or not? You cannot have it both ways.

6 Well said. That is the liberal mindset. The local officials are given a pass for obvious failures when they have the resources locally to make a difference NOW.

The federal government is wantonly condemned for not bringing redundant resources from across the nation sooner.

Never mind logic, though, its funner to pretend that Ceasar Bush played the guitar while New Orleans burned. The hippie chicks dig it!

7 What I have not heard mentioned anywhere is that this is the first new diaster response under the National Response Plan. It calls for declaring an event an "Incident of National Significant" and having a "Principle Federal Official" My guess is that the Major of NO, the Governor of LA, and everyone at the state of LA have no idea that there is a new plan and are still trying to operate under the old system.

Remember, on Tuesday, the governor stated that civil order did not mean anything to her. She sowed the seeds for diaster and that is what NO (but not most of Mississippi) has become.

8 RWR - Perhaps my first post was unclear. I agree with you that Nagin and Blanco should have ordered a mandatory evacuation earlier. I evacuated my daughter from NO on Saturday. I do blame them for that failure.

That failure, however, does nothing to excuse the spectacular, internationally embarassing, criminally negligent failure of Bush and his estate planner Michael Brown to get relief there on Monday.

I truly don't want it both ways.

If this had happened on Clinton's watch, I would be joining you (because you would be calling for his impeachment, wouldn't you?) in condemning him.

And, Joe, where do you come up with this stuff? Again, conjuring off-point silliness. Does truth prove too boring for you?

9 1) You are trying to have it both ways. You say that Nagin could have done more -- but everything looked OK until the levees broke. The you say that Bush, on the other hand, should have anticipated the very thing that Nagin didn't anticipate -- "just in case" the levees failed or some other catastrophe took place. Right there you are attempting to have it both ways -- implicitly absolving Nagin (and, by implication, Blanco) for not taking extra precautions while damning Bush for for not doing so. And remember -- Bush asked Blanco to call a mandatory evacuation on Saturday, but she and Nagin did not implement that until Sunday. The first, and most important, failures were at the state and local level.

2) No, I would not be calling for Clinton's impeachemnt over this. And I do not see any actions by the president as "criminally negligent". Would you care to cite a statute that proves me wrong, or are you just "shooting off at the keyboard"? Just as the courts have continuously ruled that the government has no obligation to protect you from a crime, the government cannot be held responsible for failing to protect individuals from an act of nature.

10 As a person who lived through Hurricane Ivan, who did not resort to looting or shooting at relief workers, I am saddened that liberals are still trying to blame Bush for the lack of planning on the parts of the liberal LOCAL governments.

It is not the US Governments fault they did not have soldiers and equipment/food ready to go in.

The state has to ask for the help, you know that pesky States rights thing you liberals don't like.

The state also, after declaring a state of emergency then needs to declare martial law in order for troops to be deployed to help with law enforcement. You know that pesky Constitution requires that, and we all KNOW how much the Liberals hate that document.

I am not saying the US Government is without fault, but that there is more fault at the state and local government,which are liberally controlled, than at the federal level...

11 I keep asking the following: It would have taken a thousand buses to take the people out of the New Orleans area who were taken out after the flood (not all of the flood evacuees were in the city of NO, they were in greater NO, over which Nagin has no control). 1) WHERE do you think they would have been taken? Every shelter, church, and hotel/motel in 500 miles was full to the gills, buildings in surrounding communities were flattened and it took more than 24 hours of hundreds of folks working around the clock to get the Astrodome ready - you think they would have been able to just dump them in HOuston or Dallas (and they would not have had time for a second round trip) 2) The highways were in gridlock as far as Houston with evacuees from the ENTIRE AREA - it was taking cars as much as 18 hours to make it to Houston. The buses could have made one trip at most. A lot of people turned around and went to teh Superdome because they did not think they had enough gas to sit in the traffic AND make it to safety.
THis catastrophe was too large for one Mayor in one of the nation's poorest cities to handle - this has been a known disaster waiting to happen for years and legislation that would address the core problems has been shelved for years.

12 It is completely ignorant to say that the situation in NO was the fault of the incompetent NO mayor or the incompetent LA governor. According to a former Republican senator of LA, the problem was bigger than any of them. The root of the problem is the rerouting and dredging of the Mississippi river and the potential for catastrophe has been acknowledged for decades - the real culprit is that our politicians, regardless of party, didn't give enough of a damn to pass legislation that would have addressed the core of the problem - the fact that Louisiana is losing a football field of wetlands every day.

13 I'm online friends with an avid dog-lover who's been sending me all sorts of stories about people not leaving because of their pets. Today I saw our military tackle an elderly woman to force her to leave against her will, because she didn't want to abandon her beloved pets. Just because some people don't understand pet-lovers devotion to their critters doesn't change the fact that some people will refuse to abandon their pets, even if it endangers their life.

When they weren't sure where Gilbert would go, our local goverment asked if people could please evacuate early in case Gilbert did strike us. Since I was only working the next night and had the other nights off after that, I called in and evacuated. I dropped my pets off with my parents who lived further north. If I didn't have someone to drop them off with, I would have taken them with me and camped instead of staying overnight in a hotel.

I don't think a pet should take a human's place on a bus though, but I think it's reasonable to allow pets to evacuate with their humans if they're kept on their human's lap, or between their feet. And I wouldn't mind caging or muzzling my pet because I realize the problems that could if they weren't controlled/contained.

And I would understand if people with pets were last to be evacuated after the people without pets. I'm positive that a lot more people would have left if they were allowed to bring their pets, who are considered a family member.

I realize that other people don't feel as strong a bond for pets as some do, but expect us to feel the same as you, and just accept that many people will stay behind to face disasters just because they can't bring their pets.

14 That last sentence should have been:

...but DON'T expect us to feel the same as you...

15 My wife and I have no children, and will likely never have any due to medical issues.

We have one dog who is as spoiled as six-month-old milk. She rules the roost.

Any evacuation plan we make includes her -- including getting ut of town early so that we can make arangements for her. But in the end, should it come down to a choice between her lives and ours, I've made it clear to my wife that the dog is a goner (my wife, on the other hand, says she'll save the dog first and me second).

As far as those buses are concerned, how many people could have been evacuated if the ey had started getting folks out on Saturday, like the evacuation plan called for?

16 Yes. I wonder if it was like with the Thailand Tourists Board thing while trying to decide whether to evacuate the beaches after they were warned about the earthquake that caused the tsunami? Since all their money depended on tourism, they didn't want to risk losing their main cash flow on the chance it might not be too bad.