Update: Nagin's trip to Jamaica (Nov. 30, 2005)

At the behest of one of my commenters, I thought I would look into what the Jamaican newspapers were saying about Nagin. I found a few article in the Jamaican Observer, one of Jamaica's major newspapers. What I found interesting about this article is at the end they talk about Nagin giving advice to the Jamaican government about disaster prevention.

"Do a critical assessment of your disaster plans, from the standpoint of your evacuation techniques, make sure that you have them updated and that they are modern enough for the worst-case scenario," he said.

"I would also advise that in the event that a hurricane hits you, that you plan to take care of your citizens over the long haul and you make sure that you have multiple resources of getting food and supplies into the country," he
said.

Additionally, he said, it is necessary to have someone at the "top" who is willing to make tough calls in the event of an emergency.

"You need someone at the top who can make the tough calls so you don't have a dance going on which we experienced in New Orleans, where the federal government was trying not to step on the toes of the state government and the state government was trying not to look like they were so weak that they needed help from the federal government," said Nagin.

He added: "You need somebody at the top making the calls and getting things done during that critical first week after the storm happens."

Does Nagin really have the right to be giving other countries advice about disasters?

In an interview with Dateline’s Stone Phillips days after Hurricane Katrina, Nagin was asked if state and local government is to blame for the delayed evacuation. Nagin replied,

I think the spinmeisters are in full effect. I think the nation has realized that this was a big problem, and I think people are spinning. And I don't know who said what. I don't care if it was a secretary, I don't care if it was whomever, state officials, you know, that are running for cover. I will tell you, we as a nation failed a group of people that needed it the most.

This transcript can be seen via Newsmax. I guess he hadn’t exactly formulated a good answer yet to this question. Instead of taking responsibility for not evacuating early enough, he blames the media? I think he’s blaming the media or perhaps everyone who’s talking about it. I don’t know who the “spinmeisters” are, but apparently they are to blame.

A few days after the Datelin interview, Nagin was on the Meet the Press with Tim Russert. I think he had time to work on some of his answers a little bit. At least he wasn’t blaming the “spinmeisters” anymore.

MR. RUSSERT:
Many people point, Mr. Mayor, that on Friday before the hurricane, President Bush declared an impending disaster. And The Houston Chronicle wrote it this way. "[Mayor Nagin's] mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out. City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan." And we've all see this photograph of these submerged school buses. Why did you not declare, order, a mandatory evacuation on Friday, when the president declared an emergency, and have utilized those buses to get people out?

MAYOR NAGIN:
You know, Tim, that's one of the things that will be debated. There has never been a catastrophe in the history of New Orleans like this. There has never been any Category 5 storm of this magnitude that has hit New Orleans directly. We did the things that we thought were best based upon the information that we had. Sure, here was lots of buses out there. But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available.

MR. RUSSERT:
But, Mr. Mayor, if you read the city of New Orleans' comprehensive emergency plan-- and I've read it and I'll show it to you and our viewers--it says very clearly, "Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the mayor of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life-saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedure as needed. Approximately 100,000 citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation."

It was your responsibility. Where was the planning? Where was the preparation? Where was the execution?

MAYOR NAGIN:
The planning was always in getting people to higher ground, getting them to safety. That's what we meant by evacuation. Get them out of their homes, which--most people are under sea level. Get them to a higher ground and then depending upon our state and federal officials to move them out of harm's way after the storm has hit.

Russert goes on to say that Amtrak offered to help evacuate people from New Orleans the day before Katrina hit, but the city declined. Nagin said he had not heard anything about that.

Russert goes on to ask about the federal money that was allotted to better evacuate people if this kind of catastrophe happened.

MR. RUSSERT:
Since 2002, the federal government has given New Orleans $18 million to plan and prepare for events like this. How was that money spent?

MAYOR NAGIN:
It's my understanding that most of the money--I've only been in office about three years. So we've mainly used most of the money that we get from the federal government to try and deal with levee protection and the coordination of getting people to safety. That's primarily what we use the money for.

My point in bringing all this up is just to say that Nagin should not be giving anyone advice about disaster relief. The fact that he said that there needs to be someone at the top making decisions is hypocritical. Nagin said in the Jamaican Observer, "You need someone at the top who can make the tough calls so you don't have a dance going on which we experienced in New Orleans, where the federal government was trying not to step on the toes of the state government and the state government was trying not to look like they were so weak that they needed help from the federal government."

If he was the man at the top making the decisions, why didn’t he evacuate New Orleans earlier? The state government still looked weak regardless of if they used the aid of the federal government or not.

The whole thing is ridiculous. Though I looked into it, and there were plans in the works to have a New Orleans festival in Jamaica. So Nagin wasn’t just making stuff up.

Be that as it may, I still believe that Nagin shouldn’t be giving advice about evacuation and having a supplies ready for everyone when he himself didn’t make sure of that.