namelesstavern.net

Posted: **Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:39 pm**

labbats wrote:If any of you have been to New Orleans, say so. Only those people can attest to what a bunch of lowlife worthless blacks live down there. I'd bet all of my money that over half of those that stayed in New Orleans for the storm did so to loot shit later. Those people are worthless and shouldn't be treated like victims.

Yet you see people crying for their aid. Those same people you're dropping all your resources to help would gladly rape your daughter and slit your throat for your watch.

well, they're black and that's just what they do.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 7:26 am**

I do believe Martial law should have been instituted at the start. Im all for saving but the first round shotm there should have been 50 rounds fired back at the fucker. The attack on the hospital was a seen out of a George Romero flick and we consider these people worth saving?

Now that being said. I can see some looting taking place to survive. But not at the HH Greg.
Things that I would consider fine for looting.

Food: Gotta eat right?
Water: Gotta Drink
Camping Gear, rafts, sleeping bags etc.
Perhaps a hunting rifle. I would consider this since they have to eat somehow, and for self defense. Also have you seen the size of the gators and snakes down there?

<insert liberal remark about how the looters were just defending the evil white man from thier sony trinitron.>

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 7:31 am**

Transcript from CNN - http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... tm.01.html

S. O'BRIEN: Mayor Ray Nagin says the big problem too, now, is disease, because the bodies that are, frankly, in these homes and in the water, along with the sewage, could breed some disease. We got a chance to speak with the mayor yesterday, and asked him very bluntly, how much blame should he shoulder for all of these problems now?

S. O'BRIEN: There are people who say your evacuation plan, obviously in hindsight, was disastrous.

MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Which one?

S. O'BRIEN: Your evacuation plan before -- when you put people into the Superdome. It wasn't thought out. You got 20,000 people in there. And that you bear the brunt of the blame for some of this, a large chunk of it.

NAGIN: Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens.

And I don't know what else I could do, other than to tell them that it's a mandatory evacuation. And if they stayed, make sure you have a frigging ax in your home, where you can bust out the roof just in case the water starts flowing.

And as a last resort, once this thing is above a category 3, there are no buildings in this city to withstand a category 3, a category 4 or a category 5 storm, other than the Superdome. That's where we sent people as a shelter of last resort. When that filled up, we sent them to the Convention Center. Now, you tell me what else we could have done.

S. O'BRIEN: What has Secretary Chertoff promised you? What has Donald Rumsfeld given you and promised you?

NAGIN: Look, I've gotten promises to -- I can't stand anymore promises. I don't want to hear anymore promises. I want to see stuff done. And that's why I'm so happy that the president came down here, because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. And they were telling him things weren't as bad as it was.

He came down and saw it, and he put a general on the field. His name is General Honore. And when he hit the field, we started to see action.

And what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate.

And then, the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.'

S. O'BRIEN: What date was this? When did you say that? When did you say...

NAGIN: Whenever air Force One was here.

S. O'BRIEN: OK.

NAGIN: And this was after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two need to get together on the same page, because of the lack of coordination, people are dying in my city.'

S. O'BRIEN: That's two days ago.

NAGIN: They both shook -- I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, 'Great.' I said, 'Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.' There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, 'Everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.'

S. O'BRIEN: And was that done?

NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, "No, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane, and we're going to make a decision."

He called me in that office after that. And he said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor." I said -- and I don't remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

NAGIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?

NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.

NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 7:41 am**

Anyone got that pic of hundreds of busses sitting in rows underwater in NO that could have been used to get people the heck out of there? Suuuuuure he did all he could.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:36 am**

A lot of the people that stayed were too sick to be moved or point-blank refused to go. What're they going to do, force people into busses at gunpoint? Look, I'm not saying that more couldn't have been done, or that those who refused to leave aren't fucking retarded, but there were massive failures at every single level. Local, state AND Federal.

What's not mentioned in that article, that was covered on the news, is that the reason that the governor didn't want to have the feds control the national guard is because then the laws for their deployment change. If the governor is in charge, she can give shoot-to-kill orders to them to use on looters, etc. If the feds are in charge, they can only return fire if fired upon, and at no other time. Still, 24 hours to make a decision is absolutely ridiculous.

What I find especially galling in all this is the bald-faced lying by Chertoff and the FEMA head. If you want proof of it, go look in Everything Else at Vinny's most recent post. Hell, look at some of the articles posted elsewhere in here about there having BEEN a plan at FEMA in the 90s for actions to take if a Cat-4 or Cat-5 hit New Orleans, none of which was followed.

-Arlos

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:54 am**

Brown should be fired for incompetence, but Blanco should be in jail. The majority of the fault lies solely on her, and she utterly failed her people. The Feds have NO AUTHORITY in New Orleans, and rather than push for getting results, she played politics.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:00 am**

There's a difference between taking proferred aid and letting someone take over. She didn't have to turn control over to take all the help she could get.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:22 am**

Blanco should be shot...twice

She was much too busy crying on TV and holding "days of prayer" to get off her ass go to Washington and GET what we needed. That is her job, if you have it, deploy it, if you dont have it GET it and deploy it. Blanco is a dumbass and twice now (Katrina and Ivan last year) she has totally dropped the ball on emergency situations. That bitch will be lucky if she can win an election for town council in La after all she has done, or not done as the case may be.

She was here a couple days ago with her whiny ass puppy dog eyes and excuses. My EOC director gave me some shit because I disappeared when she got here, but I told he "You dont want me around that bitch, cause I will tell her what I think"

PS last night Senator Mary Landrieu came in and I was standing on the front step, she came over and hugged me, and said " (woohoo I have been hugged by a senator) I just want you to know we appreciate all you are doing, and I will be making sure you get all you need" I realized later I should have grabbed a big ole handful of her ass and asked for a blowjob, which at the moment is my biggest need.

Fucking politicians, a worthless lot the whole bunch of them. :darkangel:

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:17 pm**

Have you noticed that almost all the people who stayed in the disaster area are, by all appearances, low income families? All of the people who are shacked up at the various refugee sites look like they belong there.

I'm thinking most of the people who didn't leave, didn't have the money to take a indefinite vacation, whether they had a choice or not.

It's easy for middle to high income families to say, "Hey, there's a huge fucking hurricane coming! Let's go to your sisters for a few weeks, play some badmitton and sip pina coladas. Work won't care, they wont be fucking open anyway!"

It's totally different when you can't even afford the gas to get out of state.

So, I think that it's fair to say, many people stayed because they are poor. Whether or not being poor is a side effect of being stupid, is a debate lacking sufficient evidence.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:32 pm**

Yeah. Because middle class families can go on without income indefinately too. While cash on hand may have made a difference in who left immediately or not, I seriously doubt and of the middle class are playing badmitton and sipping pina coladas.

To poor to leave? Gimme a break. Nobody is too poor to walk.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:41 pm**

NOLA City buses that could have been used to evacuate people. These are sitting less than a mile from the Superdome.

School buses that could have been used also.

Tell me again the Mayor did everything he could.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:48 pm**

Is the mayor black?

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:41 pm**

Minrott wrote:Yeah. Because middle class families can go on without income indefinately too. While cash on hand may have made a difference in who left immediately or not, I seriously doubt and of the middle class are playing badmitton and sipping pina coladas.

To poor to leave? Gimme a break. Nobody is too poor to walk.

You people just have zero, zero understanding. WALK TO WHERE? THE CAUSEWAY DURING A HURRICANE? GOOD IDEA.

The hurricane moved from Cat 1 to Cat 5 in 24 hours. Do any of you people understand how a hurricane moves? It is unpredictable. You same geniuses would be destroying our government for wasting money if we were to evacuate every gulf coast city before every hurricane we ever get. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Too bad all the poor blacks in the ninth ward didnt jump into their range rovers and go hit the ramada inn to ride it out. Gimme a fuckin break.

St. Bernard Parish, 90% white, lower-income people, is going to end up with thousands of casualties. You motherfuckers BETTER be heaping the same amount of scorn on those victims too.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:48 pm**

I live in Nebraska, I heard on the news Sunday morning at 9 AM that people should evacuate because it was going to get ugly. That is almost 24 hours to :gtfo2:

of dodge. You are telling me that the people of the south heard it the same time as a Nebraskan who never pays attention to the news?

As a matter of fact, Venee posted this thread http://www.namelesstavern.org/phpBB2/vi ... php?t=9737 on Sat Aug 27, 2005 2:41 pm so that is almost 48 hours to :gtfo2:

or more. So Mofish, shut the fuck up and quit making excuses and I am quoting you, so you can see how dumb this comment was...

mofish wrote:
Minrott wrote:Yeah. Because middle class families can go on without income indefinately too. While cash on hand may have made a difference in who left immediately or not, I seriously doubt and of the middle class are playing badmitton and sipping pina coladas.

To poor to leave? Gimme a break. Nobody is too poor to walk.

You people just have zero, zero understanding. WALK TO WHERE? THE CAUSEWAY DURING A HURRICANE? GOOD IDEA.

The hurricane moved from Cat 1 to Cat 5 in 24 hours. Do any of you people understand how a hurricane moves? It is unpredictable. You same geniuses would be destroying our government for wasting money if we were to evacuate every gulf coast city before every hurricane we ever get. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Too bad all the poor blacks in the ninth ward didnt jump into their range rovers and go hit the ramada inn to ride it out. Gimme a fuckin break.

St. Bernard Parish, 90% white, lower-income people, is going to end up with thousands of casualties. You motherfuckers BETTER be heaping the same amount of scorn on those victims too.

Posted: **Tue Sep 06, 2005 11:13 pm**

Martrae wrote:
NOLA City buses that could have been used to evacuate people. These are sitting less than a mile from the Superdome.

School buses that could have been used also.

Tell me again the Mayor did everything he could.

I can't speak for New Orleans, but I can tell you what happened here. Sure we had buses, but we had no DRIVERS. You cant jsut throw together a convoy at the last minute. As Mofish said Hurricanes are VERY unpredictable, especially as they get into shallow waters, and the OEP has been calling evacuations for years and when people leave there is little to no damage when they come back. It is like the boy that cries wolf. Many think "it will turn, it won't hit us" or "it will peter out when it hits the coast" This was the "worst case scenario storm". by the time people realized that it really was coming this way and it really was NOT going to peter out when it hits shallow water, it was too late to arrange for evac. you cannot believe how many people showed up here at the last minute begging for a ride out. By that time everyone who could leave already had. There was no one to drive the buses, and even if there was they would have been caught in traffic when the storm hit and would have been in much worse shape that if we put them into a shelter that has a chance of surviving the storm. So that is what we did. Was it wrong of the people to ignore the warnings and not evac when we told them to leave? Yes it was. Do they deserve to die because of it? I don't think they do.

Most of those folks in the dome cant drive a car, you want to turn them loose with a bus? No you need someone who can handle a bus, and those folks had left days before because we told them to.

Last year people evac'd for Ivan, and some of them spent as much as 22 hours stuck ion traffic on buses with no facilities, no water, no food, and no AC. They were miserable, we even had a few fatalities because special needs and the elderly couldnt get the help they need when you are in a gridlock trying to get out of a city of a half a million and there are only four or five roads to evac on. In fact the Plaquemines Parish President's aunt was one of those fatalities. She was elderly and just didnt have the strength to make the evac. Buses that left here going to shelters less than 150 miles away spent 22 hours getting where they were going and then when they got there the shelters which had been promised to them had been filled because those folks were stuck in gridlock. I myself tried to get to my house which is along a evac route and it took me over 4 hours to get less than 20 miles. Evacs arent jsut "hey it's time to go" there has to be coordination, planning and proper execution or it is a complete clusterfuck. Now we made some progress this year, the evac was orderly and went relatively well, contraflow was instituted at the right time and was fairly successful, but many still had a sour taste in their mouth from Ivan and refused to leave. Many procrastinated because they thought it wouldnt hit us. Remember Ivan had a very similar track and had it not turned about 80 miles out to sea it would have come right up the same path, but it did turn and there was very minimal damage to this area.

For those reasons many chose not to leave, not smart, but there it is.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 12:08 am**

DangerPaul wrote:I live in Nebraska, I heard on the news Sunday morning at 9 AM that people should evacuate because it was going to get ugly. That is almost 24 hours to of dodge. You are telling me that the people of the south heard it the same time as a Nebraskan who never pays attention to the news?

As a matter of fact, Venee posted this thread http://www.namelesstavern.org/phpBB2/vi ... php?t=9737 on Sat Aug 27, 2005 2:41 pm so that is almost 48 hours to or more. So Mofish, shut the fuck up and quit making excuses and I am quoting you, so you can see how dumb this comment was...

mofish wrote:
Minrott wrote:Yeah. Because middle class families can go on without income indefinately too. While cash on hand may have made a difference in who left immediately or not, I seriously doubt and of the middle class are playing badmitton and sipping pina coladas.

To poor to leave? Gimme a break. Nobody is too poor to walk.

You people just have zero, zero understanding. WALK TO WHERE? THE CAUSEWAY DURING A HURRICANE? GOOD IDEA.

The hurricane moved from Cat 1 to Cat 5 in 24 hours. Do any of you people understand how a hurricane moves? It is unpredictable. You same geniuses would be destroying our government for wasting money if we were to evacuate every gulf coast city before every hurricane we ever get. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

Too bad all the poor blacks in the ninth ward didnt jump into their range rovers and go hit the ramada inn to ride it out. Gimme a fuckin break.

St. Bernard Parish, 90% white, lower-income people, is going to end up with thousands of casualties. You motherfuckers BETTER be heaping the same amount of scorn on those victims too.

Please fucking tell me under what scenario, a city, in any disaster, ever, has been 100% evacuated. You cant, because its NEVER HAPPENED, AND WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 2:43 am**

I know mofish and it was a crude thing for me to say. I'm just sick and tired of hearing about how the only poor black people died. Like the middle class had it any better or that the government said to themselves "Oh, it's only poor black people dieing, manana is soon enough."

St. Bernard Parish, 90% white, lower-income people, is going to end up with thousands of casualties. You motherfuckers BETTER be heaping the same amount of scorn on those victims too.

That's exactly my point. Don't hear to much about them.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:11 am**

Former first lady and mother to President Bush said Monday that evacuees from New Orleans have found a home in Houston.

"Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston," Barbara Bush told NPR.

"What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this is working very well for them."

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 7:54 am**

All the drivers were told to leave with the evacuation? Brilliant planning.

So...with Ivan you had a handful of people who died and lots of others that were in discomfort for a couple days. I can see how you'd want to avoid another situation like that!

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:12 am**

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/HurricaneKatr ... SFeeds0312

New Orleans' own comprehensive emergency plan raises the specter of "having large numbers of people … stranded" and promises "the city … will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."

"Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves," the plan states.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, however, that plan was not followed completely.

Instead of sending city buses to evacuate those who could not make it out on their own, people in New Orleans were told to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where no one provided sufficient sustenance or security.

ABC also asked Governor Kathleen Blanco's office about their response to the evacuation. They responded that they never asked for evacuation assistance from the federal government as part of their interaction with FEMA, only for assistance with shelter and provisions. They assumed that the city of New Orleans had followed its own evacuation plan.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:59 am**

Martrae wrote:All the drivers were told to leave with the evacuation? Brilliant planning.

So...with Ivan you had a handful of people who died and lots of others that were in discomfort for a couple days. I can see how you'd want to avoid another situation like that!

Would you advise telling the drivers "No you can't leave becauise we might need you at the last minute"? That wouldnt be fair to those people who could drive buses. The key here is that the drivers left when we told them to, the people who got stranded waited until the very last minute after all the drivers had left. We did have a couple of buses/drivers that stayed until the last minute and went out close to the deadline that were filled to capacity, the problem is that there just werent enough drivers left at that point. We even sent some Emergency Operations Staff out because they could drive the buses, and those individuals had to find their way back afterwards to get back in to help.

We sent several buses earlier that were only half full because we could not force people to evacuate, only when it became apparent that they were in deep Kim-chee did those folks decide they wanted to evac, at that point it was too late. I would bet that most of the folks stuck at the Dome were given more than ample opportunity to get out, I know they were told to get out, they just decided not to evac until it was too late. I am not advocating their stupidity, I am just trying to explain why this happened.

Natural selection at work? :dunno:

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 6:55 pm**

Blanco definitely should be thoroughly investigated...
http://hughhewitt.com/

The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume's show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center. Garrett has no paper trail yet, but will follow up on his verbal confirmation from sources at the highest levels of the Red Cross.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:01 pm**

lyion wrote:http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1102467&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

New Orleans' own comprehensive emergency plan raises the specter of "having large numbers of people … stranded" and promises "the city … will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."

"Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves," the plan states.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, however, that plan was not followed completely.

Instead of sending city buses to evacuate those who could not make it out on their own, people in New Orleans were told to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where no one provided sufficient sustenance or security.

ABC also asked Governor Kathleen Blanco's office about their response to the evacuation. They responded that they never asked for evacuation assistance from the federal government as part of their interaction with FEMA, only for assistance with shelter and provisions. They assumed that the city of New Orleans had followed its own evacuation plan.

Blanco definitely should be thoroughly investigated...
http://hughhewitt.com/

The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume's show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center. Garrett has no paper trail yet, but will follow up on his verbal confirmation from sources at the highest levels of the Red Cross.

Classic. Now may those dumbfucks that keep blaming everyone else will point their fingers at the right persons, the governor of La and the mayor of NO.

Posted: **Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:21 pm**

Don't Blame Nagin he did all he could. Blanco needs to swing, but Nagin worked his ass off. You arent hearing all of the story, not yet, and probnably not ever. Nagin is a helluva mayor and he did all in his power to get those folks out.

Have you seen the interview of him when he literally storms into the press conference covered in sewage because HE was out there in the shit helping people out of their homes? Trust me that man is the best thing to happen to New Orleans since the Louisiana Purchase. He should run for Governor. Blanco will be lucky if she can win an election for 4H club Treasurer at this point in her career.

Posted: **Thu Sep 08, 2005 6:10 am**

Here's the transcript. It's getting easier and easier to pinpoint the problem, although the partisans will stay be on some biased tangent not based on reality.

http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/07/garrettblanco/

Fox News' Brit Hume: First, the focus of all of the attention has been FEMA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, what is FEMA?

Fox News' Major Garrett: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2,500 full time employees, 4,000 stand by employees. The mission statement very simple: prepare, respond, help, recover, reduce risk. How does it do it? By coordinating with state and local entities and other groups The Salvation Army, Red Cross, dedicated to helping the needy when disaster strikes.

Hume: So FEMA is relatively, it isn't very labor intensive it mostly works through other agencies?

Garrett: It works through other agencies. But it has been moved into the Department of Homeland Security. And in this crisis, It is a bit a victim of its own bureaucratic boastfulness. Earlier this year the new national response plan released by the Department of Homeland Security promised this - "seemless integration of the federal government when an incident exceeds local and state capabilities." In the minds of many Americans, this one did. And FEMA, at least initially, in the minds of some, did not respond enough.

Hume: The words seamless don't exactly spring to mind. But look, they are down there, The Red Cross, for example, is there.

Garrett: Standing by, ready.

Hume: Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and elsewhere. Why not?

Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.

Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security? This is --

Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security. They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.

Hume: FEMA does, presumably at some point, have some jurisdiction over some military forces. Of course, the first responders there are the National Guard. Why didn't FEMA send the National Guard in? You heard that cry from many people.

Garrett: FEMA does not have jurisdictional control over any state's National Guard, only the governor does. The governor in this case, Kathleen Blanco, A democrat, did use the Louisiana National Guard for some purposes, did not deploy them in massive numbers initially and they were not used to move any of these relief organizations in and they could have been for the very same reason I talked about earlier, the state decided they didn't want the relief organizations where the people needed it most because they wanted those people to get out.

Hume: But even today we know that Governor Blanco has now decided that a mandatory evacuation may not be necessarily after all. But we can go into that later. What about the use by her of the National Guard to impose law and order during the early looting and all of that?

Garrett: She had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the National Guard.

Hume: What about this evacuation problem? It's clearly was something that New Orleans faced, knew it faced to some extent.

Garrett: And the city [sic] of Louisiana. They have a whole plan that contemplates dealing with an evacuation in the effect of a hurricane three, four or five. Their own plan says, 100,000 residents minimum from the New Orleans area will have to be evacuated. This plan makes it clear ...

Hume: You mean, can't get out on their own.

Garrett: These people will have not have their own vehicles. Not only that, It stipulate that these people are disproportionately poor, sick and in need of special transportation assistance. Brit, I think in these circumstances, bureaucratic language is important. Let's go to this. This is what the state says: "the Department of Health and Hospitals has the primary responsibility for providing medical coordination for all of the special-needs populations, i.e. hospital and nursing home patients, persons on home health care, elderly persons and other persons with physical or mental disabilities." Brit, I don't think you can come up with a better description of the people we saw, day in and day out, at the Superdome and the convention center, than this very population that the state's own plan said needed to be transported to a safe place and provided services.

Hume: Apparently no plan, no provision, no facility for doing that.

Garrett: No facility for doing that. Not only that, those who reviewed the plans the state put together before were critical of it. In 2002 the New Orleans Times Picayune had a whole story about this saying no one believes the evacuation plans are possible, feasible or will be carried out. They proved to be accurate.

Hume: It sounds like the state will have much to answer for in the investigation coming before Congress as well as the federal government.

Garrett: It appears to be.

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