NOLA Paper: Open Letter to President Bush

[Paul Beach]

Dear friends,

This is from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Mrs. Gray could not agree more.

OUR OPINIONS: An open letter to the President

Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

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http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/

[cricket]

Quote:

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We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter.

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Why, oh why, then did these people go to the dome when they, themselves knew it wasn't suitable?

Quote:

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Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

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Great idea! Then, in the midst of the next federal emergency we'll all be up a creek. [TIC]

Emergency preparedness is not a one-sided act. The government is not solely responsible for these people. How many of these people had emergency kits ready to go? emergency sources of water? emergency supplies of medication? How many had an escape route planned? How many had cell phones fully charged, and extra tanks of gasoline for their boats? How many had saved their documents to a remote location?

Yes, the government has a job to do. People, too, have their own jobs to do.

[:"#666666"] Remove the plank from one's own eye, before attempting to point out the sliver in another's.[/]

[Dr. Shane]

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Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome.

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Now this flushes this paper's credibility right down the toilet. If they are not willing to place a large portion of the blame on their mayor, they are willfully blind. There should have been disignated storm shelters around the city, such as public school buildings on high ground. These shelters should have had beds, water and food enough to last a few days. Look how quickly Houston got the Astrodome ready for these folks. Why wasn't the Superdome and other shelters ready for these people? Why did the mayor have the city buses stop at 6:00 pm the night before the hurricane struck?

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

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Proof. The private sector is more efficient than the government. Does that surprise anyone?

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State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!"

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Perhaps she wouldn't mind explaining why all the city's metro and school buses are under water. Why weren't these used to get people to high ground or out of the city?

[Paula]

Quote:

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Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome.

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As a South Florida resident, I've had some experience with hurricanes. I was APPALED when I saw Mayor Nagin issue an evacuation order 24 hours prior to the hurricane making landfall! That is UNHEARD of. In South Florida evacuation orders are issued 36-48 hours ahead of time (depending on the size of the storm... certainly for a 4 and 5). This way everyone has time to evacuate, and shelters have time to get ready for people. Also, areas where people are in harms way, or cannot afford to drive, or are elderly, etc.. buses come and take them to the shelter for FREE. I know, because I live in an evacuation zone, and for KATRINA (while it was a cat 1!!!) we recieved flyers offering free evacuation by the city buses!!! It was reported on our news on FRIDAY that the head of the Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield had called Mayor Nigel and told him to evacuate his city, and that he was "afraid for New Orleans". The Mayor should have gotten every bus in the city AND the surrounding areas and evacuated EVERYONE BEFORE THE STORM hit!!! Having said this.. he was NOT responsible for the inadequecies that occured AFTER the hurricane hit. That falls squarly on the federal government.

As for this quote:

Quote:

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Emergency preparedness is not a one-sided act. The government is not solely responsible for these people. How many of these people had emergency kits ready to go? emergency sources of water? emergency supplies of medication? How many had an escape route planned? How many had cell phones fully charged, and extra tanks of gasoline for their boats? How many had saved their documents to a remote location?

Yes, the government has a job to do. People, too, have their own jobs to do.

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You are mistaken. Your statement presupposes many things. First of all government DOES have a responsibility to the poorest and weakest among it's constituents. A government that turns its back on these, is not the kind of government that the US sells itself as being to the rest of the world. As for emergency kits and supplies?!?!? Please don't feel that I am attacking you... I'm not. But I am stunned by this statement. Your house is being FLOODED, water is quickly rising.... you don't even have time to get your shoes... you have kids to get, elderly parents to get, and yet, you are expected to grab your emergency kit, your water (for you AND your family) and your food?!?!? How would you even expect someone to carry all of that? What if they have to swim for it (as was the case with many)? Are they supposed to carry 5, 6 gallons of water, PLUS 2 or 3 bags of grocery and emergency kit, all the while treading 8 feet of water?!?!? Why? So we can protect the government from any responsibility?!?!? As for an escape route? After a hurricane and water being dumped on 80% of your city... I doubt an escape route will help you any. As for these people having their cell phones charged, their BOATS gassed up?!?!?!?!?!? These people are too poor to have a car. They are to poor to leave the city when a Cat 5 hurricane is coming... They couldn't even pay for bus tickets to leave... do you really think they have cell phones and boats?!?!? Again, I am not attacking you. But to defend the government and act like it was these poor peoples fault that they were not prepared enough is absurd.

Go to any shelter in South Florida. They will have food and water for EVERYONE. Not just one days supply either. They will have emergency kits and medicine. What happened in New Orleans CANNOT be blamed on the people. It can ONLY be blamed on the government.

[Paula]

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Great idea! Then, in the midst of the next federal emergency we'll all be up a creek.

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Actually, it is a great idea. If we keep these same people who handled the NO case, we will DEFINETLY be up a creek. These people have shown, beyond any doubt that they cannot be trusted to do their jobs properly. At least if someone else gets the job their is a CHANCE that they will actually be competent. With the current people, we know what the results will be. And if South Florida is the next place to be hit... I certainly don't want to be relying on them!

[Dr. Shane]

That said, Sister Paula, if the city had been evacuated and the shelters would have had the supplies like the ones in Texas and Florida do, the Federal government's mistakes would not have had such a disasterous impact.

It is bad when one level of government fails. What made this so disasterous is that all levels of government failed. The mayor should have evacuated the city. The governor should have activated more National Guard troops. The President should have made sure FEMA was doing its job. As it was the only group with their act together was Wal-Mart!

[Paula]

hehehehehe... and people hate walmart... finally we found something its good for!!! hehehehe

[Paula]

Shane, and Christina,

Please don't mind my "anger". It is not directed at either of you... but I am just reeling from these events. I cannot understand how we as a nation can allow something like this to happen in our own country. And I feel that we have a moral obligation to call our leaders on it. People have DIED. People who survived the hurricane. People who survived the floods. People died on Tuesday. Then they died on Wednesday. Then they died on Thursday. The government STILL hadn't come. They died on Friday. AND on Saturday. And people died today. Why? Because of incompetence. Lack of interest. Lack of care. There are 3 year olds, 5 year olds, 9 year olds, who have lost their only parent. Their was a picture on cnn.com I believe of a 3 year old crying. He's all alone in the Astrodome. No one has found his mommy yet. I have a 3 year old. I know how desperate and scared he would be in a stadium with thousands of strangers, and without his mommy. These are not stories and images and statistics. These are not should haves could haves would haves. These are PEOPLE. These are children. Elderly. These are LIVES that have been lost. Families that have been torn. Some of these people have lost all they had. Not material things... they've lost the only family they had. The only parent. And for many it wasn't the hurricane that did it. It was the delay. That is incredibly sad.

[Dr. Shane]

I share your frustration. I grew up in a poor home that lived on the welfare dime. I have no doubt that if I had been in those circumstances as a child I would have been one of those trapped in the city with no one coming to get me.

While I am disappointed in the federal government's response, I am most upset with the incompatence on the local and state level. These are their neighbors. They knew the disaster was coming. I still can't get over the fact that the mayor shut the city buses down at 6:00 pm. They had no beds or food in the storm shelters. Good grief, did the crooked politics steal all the money that was to be used for these things? Why didn't they have what they were suppose to?

[cricket]

Paula,

I simply cannot fathom placing all the "blame" for this disaster on the government alone. The government is made up of people like you and me. For the most part, they are caring people, people like you and me.

Some of the "blame" should, indeed, be placed on them. Some of "blame" should also be placed on the individuals.

Disaster preparedness is multifaceted. I am frustrated that so much blame is being placed on our government. What about the Christians in the area? What about the wealthy in the area (could they not have seen to it that these people be helped)?

Furthermore, what about the people in Fort Lauderdale, Rio Grande, Slidell, Little Rock, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta? What about the people who are able to go and help, but are unwilling?

When it was revealed that these people knew that the SuperDome wouldn't be able to accomodate them seven years ago, why did they return at this point in time?

Levees are known to break. Never heard of one that was completely unbreachable.

While these people were extremely poor, they did not have to stay in a community where this possible breach in the levee could take place.

Please, don't misread my words either. I just want to make it clear that our government is not solely at fault in this crisis.

Chrys

[Robert]

Quote:

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The government is made up of people like you and me. For the most part, they are caring people, people like you and me.

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• Mark 10:42 Jesus called them [the disciples] together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles [:"red"]lord it over them[/], and their high officials exercise authority over them.

  43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve....

Governments, while they have a function [see Romans 13:1-7], are by nature self-seeking. Who said that? Jesus!

[Paula]

Christine,

I don't want it to seem like I am arguing with you....We just do not see eye to eye on this issue. Suffice it to say, that I don't believe it is the responsibilty of citizens to fend themselves against natural disasters, but that of the government. I don't understand why you are, as you say, "so frustrated that so much blame is being placed on the government." Thats their job!! These people are paid alot of money to make sure that when a disaster strikes, they respond in an appropriate and timely manner. If this were a private corporation, they would have fired everyone in charge by now!!! And rightfully so. Lets face it.. the government blew it! These people are poor... but they pay taxes too... and even it they didn't... they deserve to have the full resources of the government at their disposal after a catastrophe. As for private citizens doing something... they have been! But many were turned back at the entrance of the city. There have been reports that the government said it wanted an "organized" response and turned people away!! And then they made a mess of it. I saw one guy on the news with 14 big rigs full of water saying that he was ready to go into the city on MONDAY (before the hurricane hit, he had already filled his tractor trailers up), and that on Tuesday, when he informed the government that he would be taking the supplies to the city, they told him to WAIT! They wanted to have national guardsmen on the grounds to distribute the water!! They FINALLY let him in on Friday!! Do you have any idea how many babies died of dehydration? And all the while the water was outside the city gates wainting to come in. There were MANY other private citizens that were ready and willing to help and faced the SAME bureaucracy!!! The government cannot be defended. They deserve the flack they are getting and much more. I hope to see many congressional hearings on how this was handled in the near future. It's the least we can do in honor of those who died such senseless deaths.

Again, this is not personal against you... I can sense that you feel strongly about your point of view.. as do I!

[Dr. Shane]

NEW ORLEANS FLASHBACK: OFFICALS WARNED RESIDENTS 'YOU'LL BE ON YOUR OWN'

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Editors at TIMES-PICAYUNE on Monday called for every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be fired. In an open letter to President Bush, the paper said: "Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame."

But the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a story on July 24, 2005 stating: City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give a historically blunt message: "In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

Staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: "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."

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Given this information the local governments should have issued the evacuation order much earlier and used all the buses the city and school districts had available.

[Taylor]

No kidding Shane! My thoughts exactly! Why didn't they use every school bus in the surrounding counties for that matter. They could have evacuated everyone out of there, who wanted to be evacuated with plenty of time using the buses and if they had gotten started some 24 hours sooner, at least. Of course, hind sight is always 20/20

[Paula]

Shane,

The reality is that none of the levels of government worked. The Mayor and Govenor messed up by not ordering evacuations early enough... then they messed up by not evacuating the poor for free. Then, after the storm blew through, the federal government messed up. You know, private citizens and companies do have a moral obligation to help in times like these. However only the government has a legal obligation to rescue its poorest and weakest. And this failed to happen on all levels.

Having said that... it is now our turn to help. We will be mailing in a check this week, and my husband has a weeklong vacation coming up at work, he is planning to use it by driving to the gulf coast and volunteering wherever they may need him. I'd love to join him, but with 3 kids, all under 10 years old, and in school... I'll have to stay home. But we can all do something to help regardless of wether or not we can physically go to the affected area. Alot of money in the bank is not needed either. We certainly don't have very much... however, every little bit helps!!

[Dr. Shane]

The gravity of this newspaper article is that it shows the mayor had no intention of helping the poor leave the city. The poor stuck in the city is what created the crisis which the federal government didn't respond quickly to. So while it is true that the federal government didn't respond as quickly as they should have, it is also true that the local government contributed in a large part to creating the crisis.

[lazarus]

I heard that Cuba was comended by the UN for their evacution of their people during Ivan last year. I.5 million were evacuated thus preventing considerable loss of life.

Perhaps we should send a delegation to Cuba to find out how they did it!

[there buster]

Ghost Plan for a Ghost Town

Ghastly oversight in New Orleans.

By Chris Regan & Bryan Preston

Until it became known as the city of looters threatening jihad against Red Cross rescue workers, New Orleans, Louisiana was known as a city of ghosts. A walk through its French Quarter made clear why. Stately homes dating back to the city's founding look out on streets that have seen war, flood, storm, and pestilence over the centuries. Those floods used to literally raise the dead: The water table is so shallow in the Mississippi delta that even a slight rain would make buried coffins float. City residents eventually tired of seeing Uncle Etienne, dead ten years, riding the rapids down Canal Street after the latest spring shower, so they started placing all of their dead in above-ground mausoleums. But the ghosts, it was said, still stalked the streets, haunting the city whose spongy ground and seasonal storms had disturbed their eternal rest.

After hurricane Katrina, thousands of new ghosts will take up the march. Their lives, history will record, were taken not so much by yet another natural disaster, but by a human-made disaster of epic scale. If you go looking for these ghosts, any New Orleans bus lot will be a good place to start.

The Lesson of Georges

The story of buses has become the seminal tale of dereliction in New Orleans. Though the city owned hundreds of buses, it failed to use them to move its most vulnerable citizens — vulnerable either because of poverty or physical infirmity — out of the bowl-shaped city to safe higher ground. Initially it seemed as if the city that knew the levees protecting it would one day break just didn't have a plan to move so many people to safety. But it turns out that emergency-preparedness officials in New Orleans did have a plan, and they did think to use buses to evacuate the city before a major hurricane. They just decided not to fully implement it as Plan A. The plan was developed as a hurricane Georges lesson learned. This appeared in an article that appeared in November 2004 in the Natural Hazards Observer:

Residents who did not have personal transportation were unable to evacuate even if they wanted to. Approximately 120,000 residents (51,000 housing units x 2.4 persons/unit) do not have cars. A proposal made after the evacuation for Hurricane Georges to use public transit buses to assist in their evacuation out of the city was not implemented for Ivan. If Ivan had struck New Orleans directly it is estimated that 40-60,000 residents of the area would have perished.

So the question after dodging the Georges bullet seemed to be, "Do we figure out a way to use buses or do we allow 50,000 people to die for the crime of not having a car?" They chose Plan B.

Hurricanes come in cycles of frequency and activity. Meteorologists don't really know why, other than that it might have something to do with solar activity and shifting deep sea currents (but responsible scientists do know the hurricane cycle has nothing to do with humans burning fossil fuels). We are currently at the cusp of an intensification of hurricanes. We can expect more of them, and we can expect more of them to be strong.

As the hurricane cycle kept building in the last decade or so, there were increasing calls to create a real evacuation plan. Many of those who pleaded for the use of buses will come forward soon, but for everyone who does, there are others who do not have the strength to come forward. They can't hack their way out of their attics right now to tell us their side of it. And the journalists at the New Orleans Times-Picayune are no longer interested in speaking on their behalf. As their "Open Letter to the President" shows, they're now the spokesmen for other political interests. It didn't used to be that way until the inevitable happened. Now they have circled the wagons to protect the guilty and accuse the innocent.

Each hurricane season Louisiana officials decided to play a game of Russian roulette with those lives. They knew disaster would eventually strike, but gambled that it would happen on someone else's watch. They did take the action that nervous officials typically take: They formed a working group to reassure themselves and look busy to everyone else. According to that Natural Hazards Observer article from November 2004, here's what the hard-charging working group came up with:

Unwilling to merely accept this reality, emergency managers and representatives of nongovernmental disaster organizations, local universities, and faith based organizations have formed a working group to engage additional faith-based organizations in developing ride-sharing programs between congregation members with cars and those without. In the wake of Ivan’s near miss, this faith-based initiative has become a catalyst in the movement to make evacuation assistance for marginalized groups (those without means of evacuation) a top priority for all levels of government.

So a working group decided that the workable solution to the problem of thousands of stranded citizens was to ask churches to set up a giant car-pool system. The plan further called for a DVD to get the word out, which was still in production when Katrina struck. A cynic might say that such a plan was drafted so city officials could say they had a real evacuation plan, written down on official letterhead and signed and announced and all of the other things that make bureaucrats swoon, but was in point of fact yet another exercise in passing the buck to the next schmuck to occupy the conference-table chair. If it was a real plan, it doesn't seem a stretch to say that as hurricane Katrina bore down on the Big Easy, the real plan really failed.

More hurricane lessons from Georges and actions for Ivan, from the Natural Hazards Observer:

To aid in the evacuation, transportation officials instituted contraflow evacuation for the first time in the area’s history whereby both lanes of a 12-mile stretch of Interstate 10 were used to facilitate the significantly increased outbound flow of traffic toward the northwest and Baton Rouge. The distance of the contraflow was limited due to state police concerns about the need for staff to close the exits. And, although officials were initially pleased with the results, evacuees felt the short distance merely shifted the location of the major jams.

You read it right: "for the first time in the area's history."

So not only did officials keep putting bus-utilization plans on hold, they only began using an ineffectively implemented contraflow system last year. The contraflow plan was to turn both sides of the highways into outgoing lanes, but all that did was move traffic tie-ups from nearer the city to the points where the contraflow was ended. And they couldn't make the entire highways contraflow for miles and miles because some lanes were needed to get things into the city (rescuers, etc.). City officials barely even scratched the surface of what could have been possible in competently evacuating that city using an early-warning system, buses, and contraflow.

Third Time's a Disaster

The result was that in the worst-case scenario. The Natural Hazards Observer again:

Regional and national rescue resources would have to respond as rapidly as possible and would require augmentation by local private vessels (assuming some survived). And, even with this help, federal and state governments have estimated that it would take 10 days to rescue all those stranded within the city. No shelters within the city would be free of risk from rising water. Because of this threat, the American Red Cross will not open shelters in New Orleans during hurricanes greater than category 2; staffing them would put employees and volunteers at risk. For Ivan, only the Superdome was made available as a refuge of last resort for the medically challenged and the homeless.

It was to take ten days for rescue to get everyone out, not counting the dead. And city and state officials knew it would take ten days. For them to cry in the current crisis that 72 hours is unacceptable rings more than a little hollow.

Now we see belatedly that there never was a reasonable local evacuation plan or shelters with a hope of withstanding a real hurricane. And the communication process before the storm was as atrocious as the plan itself. It was no different for hurricane Ivan:

As Ivan charged through the Gulf of Mexico, more than a million people were urged to flee. Forecasters warned that a direct hit on the city could send torrents of Mississippi River backwash over the city's levees, creating a 20-foot-deep cesspool of human and industrial waste.

Residents with cars took to the highways. Others wondered what to do.

In this case, city officials first said they would provide no shelter, then agreed that the state-owned Louisiana Superdome would open to those with special medical needs. Only Wednesday afternoon, with Ivan just hours away, did the city open the 20-story-high domed stadium to the public. Mayor Ray Nagin's spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, insisted that there was no reluctance at City Hall to open the Superdome, but said the evacuation was the top priority.

"Our main focus is to get the people out of the city," she said.

Callers to talk radio complained about the late decision to open up the dome, but the mayor said he would do nothing different.

"We did the compassionate thing by opening the shelter," Nagin said. "We wanted to make sure we didn't have a repeat performance of what happened before. We didn't want to see people cooped up in the Superdome for days."

When another dangerous hurricane, Georges, appeared headed for the city in 1998, the Superdome was opened as a shelter and an estimated 14,000 people poured in. But there were problems, including theft and vandalism.

Katrina was a three-peat major hurricane failure in planning. City and state officialdom didn't do enough after Georges warned them, kept hoping against hope when Ivan spared them, and have now reaped the mighty whirlwind of Katrina. When compassion is defined as delay and the subject is hurricanes, you are asking for a serious catastrophe. President Bush's call during the height of Katrina interrupted that compassionate liberalism. The goal of the locals was to avoid a mandatory evacuation that would cause trouble by having too many people in the shelter of last resort with too little security and no food or water. The goal was to fool more people to stay home or leave so that the city didn't look bad or descend into violent chaos if it took a direct hit. The mayor knew the danger of mass chaos with too many stuck in the Dome and planned for none of it.

Now we know that had Katrina held its strength and course at Cat 5+ it would have probably ripped most of the roof right off the Superdome. And the roof in that design is what holds the walls up. That was the other part of the scam. Nobody really knows if the Dome could take over 130MPH sustained, though they claimed a 200MPH design.

So the Louisiana state governor and emergency-preparedness officials allowed them to get by all these years with a sham plan that doesn't appear to even meet state standards. And guess what? Oh yeah, the state didn't even measure up to the federal requirements either:

Other federal and state officials pointed to Louisiana's failure to measure up to national disaster response standards, noting that the federal plan advises state and local emergency managers not to expect federal aid for 72 to 96 hours, and base their own preparedness efforts on the need to be self-sufficient for at least that period. "Fundamentally the first breakdown occurred at the local level," said one state official who works with FEMA. 'Did the city have the situational awareness of what was going on within its borders? The answer was no."

This is why every city must have sharp leadership, and a disciplined, non-corrupt police force that won't melt away into the population when under attack, like Saddam's army. And every state must have a governor who, when under pressure to perform, will not freeze and cry before consulting with lawyers and advisers before freezing up again in a passive-aggressive way that shifts blame to those trying to help. That's what we're all supposed to get in exchange for the big salaries, fancy dinners, 24-hour security, and other perks that go with the powerful political jobs. We give our politicians quite a lot. Is it too much to ask them to prepare for disasters in ways that won't get us all killed?

New Orleans is a major port of entry and exit for commerce. It's sinking into a bowl and is threatened by a gulf, a lake, and a river. It needed leadership, but what New Orleans had was an old political machine, a corrupt police force, and no real disaster leadership. Since the state knew of the problems with that police force though, the Louisiana National Guard could have had a dedicated special force with a plan to secure the city after the big one. A whole team of fast boats and such could have been training for years and deployed immediately to not just rescue but to keep order. That's the governor's job to think up something creative like that, not the feds. Coulda, shoulda, woulda. And here come the ghosts.

When you're clearly vulnerable to a nuke-sized catastrophe every summer, and you fake your emergency preparation like you've got it all under control, and then you still pretend that you have things under control even after it's perfectly obvious that everything has spun out of control, then you shouldn't blame others for being angry at the negligence. Who would want to have that many dead on their watch? You have to assume they had done everything humanly possible to save lives. But Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin did not even come close. Neither did others before them. Local leaders kept pulling the disaster trigger, but got empty chambers. Blanco and Nagin were just the unlucky pair who got the bullet.

It seems as though emergency planners in New Orleans gave up serious disaster preparedness a long time ago, even as the hurricane cycle swung toward intensity. They counted on luck and instantaneous "rescue welfare." Only the recent hurricane cycle woke them up. Slightly. They were still half asleep, under a strong spell of complacency any New Orleans voodoo witch would have been proud of casting. Anyone left out of the evacuation plan was given a massive overdose of false hope. It was playing Russian roulettewith 50,000 people, first fearing, then knowingthis time that the fatal bullet had moved into the chamber offshore, just praying that it didn't actually go off when the trigger was pulled at the shoreline and hoping to blame the world's universal scapegoat, George Bush, for racist genocide if it did.

The levees were designed to protect against hurricanes only in the lowest three of five categories of intensity, Strock said. Katrina was Category Four when it hit the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday.

"We figured we had a 200- or 300-year level of protection. That means that an event that we were protecting from might be exceeded every 200 or 300 years," Strock told reporters. "So we had an assurance that 99.5 percent, this would be OK. We, unfortunately, have had that 0.5 percent activity here."

"The intensity of this storm simply exceeded the design capacity of this levee."

Plans, working groups, more plans, an in-progress DVD, a near-miss, a relieved sigh, a folding of the hands, and then back to sleep. The city and state had directives to plan the planning session to start the process of making a plan, but little in the way of any real plan to deal with a real disaster. So the buses sat in their lots. The winds and the floods came, the unlucky local officials kicked in Plan B, and the city of New Orleans drowned with its least fortunate trapped inside. The evacuation plan was a plan, but it was really just a ghost plan with ghost buses and ghost drivers, with ghost emergency supplies kept in ghost "shelters" under control of a ghost police force with a ghost emergency communications system overseen by a ghastly governor.

It was a plan for a ghost town. That plan worked.

And here come the ghosts.

We'd better learn from them. The countless dead will expect nothing less.

— Chris Regan and Bryan Preston are freelance journalists.