I like Ray Nagin and I won't apologize for it. Somebody is going to have to do an awfully good job of convincing me that he's as wrong as many claim. I think he's a scapegoat of blind partisans and is not getting the credit he deserves.
The problem with having an analytical mind and not a general dispensation towards advocacy is that this blog is not as popular as it might be. But as thoughtful readers have reminded me, that's a good thing. And so I'm going to be analytical again. The interesting thing is that I feel that I must advocate for Nagin because my analysis raises point I haven't seen discussed. Furthermore, it's because I like the guy and I see knees jerking all over the joint.
In my opinion, Nagin is the target of convenience for a lot of people who are shouting because shouting is what they do best, but any thoughtful and nuanced accounting will show that he acted selflessly in defense of his police force & staff, and most importantly the people of New Orleans. Furthermore, I contend that he did so with an unvarnished sense of realism without unrealistic expectations about the ability for government agencies to handle a crisis.
I am getting as my primary sources of information:
Wikipedia
Rightwing Nuthouse Timeline
City of New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Website
I'd like to bust up a couple myths:
Myth #1 - Ray Nagin is a typical liberal black Democrat, and that his 'failure' stems from fundamental ideological problems.
If we let Ray Nagin, Jesse Jackson, RFK Jr and the rest of the leftist mob define Katrina and tell us what went wrong, the coming big bang will be dangerous. These are dangerous people. They taste the air and sense blood. They feed on misery. They must be answered, they must be pushed back, or they will win.
First thing's first. Who is Ray Nagin? Well if you listened to Hannity or Limbaugh today and yesterday you would have heard him lumped in with the 'Democrats' and/or 'black leaders'. This is just appalling to me because the first thing I noticed about the guy was that he is not a career politician. He was a business executive at Cox Communications and a Republican in his life before becoming mayor of New Orleans. This seems to have escaped everyone's notice but mine in the tirades against him.
Furthermore as a Democrat, he campaigned for a Republican candidate for Governor, Bobby Jindal, whom I like for the some of the same reasons I like Nagin. The new professional face of the Republican Party these two could be, if people would stop and think for a minute.
Indeed much of the criticism of Democrats and of New Orleans talks about black mayors and cronyism. Yet Nagin campaigned on a reform platform. He came out swinging:
Mayor C Ray Nagin has defied the conventional wisdom from the beginning of his political life. His surprise victory in the New Orleans mayoral election in May 2002, proved that New Orleanians were looking for the city’s leadership to take bold new steps to protect their future. He became the first New Orleans Mayor to rise to the post in nearly 60 years without holding a previous elected office. Ray Nagin put his career in business on hold to lead the city where he was born.Shortly after he was elected, Mayor Nagin revealed that he would not tolerate the atmosphere of political corruption that had pervaded city government. He instituted a criminal and administrative probe with the help of the New Orleans Police Department and the Metropolitan Crime Commission – an area watchdog group - that resulted in the arrest of 84 city workers and the restructuring of the New Orleans utilities department. Mayor Nagin is resolved to erase the image of New Orleans as a place where graft is part of the old-world charm.
Myth #2 - Nagin Didn't Follow the Plan
This is a kind of tail wagging the dog and rather typical of internet nonsense. First somebody finds dramatic pictures of buses underwater and then decides that this is a problem. Then they went to find out where it had to be part of a plan that the buses were to be used. Given that buses could be identified as part of a plan, somebody must be to blame, Nagin has become the goat. The biggest promoter of this reversal of logic is the Junkyard Blog in an attempt to lay blame on Democrats and deflect criticism of the Bush Administration.
I have three rebuttals, the first of which is what I see as the backwards logic of finding a picture on the internet and then a clause somewhere that justifies the importance of that picture. This is clearly a meme gone awry.
The second rebuttal makes use of the nature of the plan. The evacuation plan clearly places the overwhelming majority of the responsibility for evacuation on the citizens themselves. One cannot logically parse the volume of information presented by Nagin's office and conclude that any government entity, city, county, state or Federal would bear significant responsibility for getting people out of harm's way. In statement after statement Nagin has explained clearly that the Superdome was a 'shelter of last resort'.
Junkyard Blog attempts to cite chapter and verse from the Emergency Plan:
They just didn't follow it. So they were planning to fail. By "they," I mean pretty much every government official in Louisiana, and by "plan," I mean a signed-off set of procedures they were supposed to follow in the event of a catastrophic hurricane. You know, like the one that just hit. And by "fail" I mean complete catastrophic failure.Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states:
5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.
I've bolded that first sentence in paragraph five. What part of that is ambiguous? Most people were to be responsible for their own evacuation and that is exactly what most people did. The Red Cross (see below) has tracked a maximum of less than 100k out of a city of 500k, which means at least 80% of New Orleans evacuated, at the order of the Mayor, under their own power. This is what was expected and this is what happened, according to plan.
We know however, that there were a maximum of about 30,000 individuals at the Superdome, but not how many thousands refused evacuation until the approval of the use of forced evacuation. But nobody was as clear on the shortfall of evacuation as the Mayor, when he went on the air and called for assistance.
Thirdly, no plan survives contact with the enemy. I see nowhere in any of the documented evacuation plans that people would be rescued by boat. In fact, thousands of people were rescued by boats manned by the New Orleans Police and obviously deputized volunteers. This is clearly the rescue operation that saved the most lives and yet Nagin has been given no credit or even benefit of the doubt for the sake of this bus story.
Myth #3 - Nagin's Unused 'Motor Pool' Would Have Saved Lives
This is actually not a myth. It's a fact, but the significance of this criticism depends entirely upon the number of lives lost because of a failed evaucation of navigable roads. The precise number of lives it could have saved would be all of those people who died within access to roads that school buses could use. Right now since the New Orleans death toll stands under 200, the deaths that could have been prevented maxes out at about 2 buses. But I'm willing to bet that only a couple dozen of those died on the side of the road. And considering the number of police vehicles available, buses weren't necessary to save lives.
The Red Cross has registered about 94,000 survivors from Louisiana. As of today they providing shelter for about 55,000 in over 200 locations. Assuming that the New Orleans death toll goes to 1,000 (and today there are only 118 confirmed by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals as of September 9th.) the most plausible explanation will be drowning because of the levee flooding, in which case the buses would have been of no use vis a vis evacuation.
It is more correct to assert that use of buses could have made the relocation process more expedient and greatly contributed to the comfort of evacuees at the Superdome.
I want to make some other points very clear here about the use and availability of buses that have could have been used to ease congestion and overcrowding at the Superdome.
1. Nobody could have predicted which of the levees would burst or how badly. Their bursting was not inevitable, nor was the combination catastrophe of multiple failures and failures of pumping stations. The severity of the need to evacuate after the passing of the storm was caused by this flooding, which is the same factor that disabled the buses. I will show below that this resulted in the loss of only relatively few lives anyway.
2. Nobody could have predicted that Highway 10 would have failed aross to Slidell. With that route closed, evacuation from the East became impossible. No buses could help from that direction.
3. If you haven't read it already, read The Anchoress on the first 100 hours.
The following negative and positive points are those I have considered in defending Nagin. You may assign different weights to them. In the end, I say Nagin ends up in the plus column or breaking even depending upon how many lives are lost. Considering that this was the greatest catastrophe to befall any American city since the Civil War, that kind of context must be maintained.
Minus Points (Goat Factor)
GF #1 - Nagin's Cops Quit
Nagin's police force bugged out on him, and as many as 200 have reportedly abandoned their posts and gone AWOL. The responsibility for the morale of the PD falls squarely on Nagin's Administration. With a force of 1500, that is a huge failure. This may have been the best way to get rid of the marginal cops and weed out the losers, but it's a huge divot. Nagin's leadership of his police force was not what it could have been.
GF #2 - Nagin Sent Cops to Vegas
This should have been kept on the QT. One week of pure hell duty and fungus infections on the feet merit time off in anybody's book, but such matters should have been kept quiet if possible. This was a pure press disaster.
GF #3 - Nagin Failed to Cooperate with Blanco
Nagin's antipathy to Blanco evidenced itself in his ignorance of what Blanco's plans were to engage the National Guard and other disaster plans. It can't be determined whether Blanco was refusing to communicate with Nagin or vice-versa which mitigates this factor.
Plus Points (Hero Factor)
HF #1 - Nagin Blew the Whistle at Great Political Risk to Himself
Whatever you think about Nagin's November 1 radio broadcast - love it or hate it, there is one thing that is perfectly clear: Nagin sounded the alarm in an emotional way that is risky for a politician. Depending upon your point of view, you either love this kind of demeanor or you hate it in a politician but there was no doubt that he was willing to take that risk in order to bring attention to the crisis he faced. He wasn't afraid to say he needed help, and he did it in an unselfish way.
Nagin gave credit where credit was due to George Bush for sending in General Honore to oversee the developing crisis. He called for centralized authority, but didn't demand it for himself. From the first we heard of Honore, Nagin was perfectly willing to give the general full control.
HF #2 - Nagin Upheld Civil Liberty
Whatever you think about the looters or what it may signify, one thing you have not heard is any charges of police brutality. Nobody was shot by accident. No great numbers of innocent people were arrested.
HF #3 - Nagin Redirected All Police Efforts towards Safety.
When it became apparent that shooting was taking place in the city and gangs of junkies (as far as we can tell there was only one sniper, however) and thugs, Nagin took the risky move and redirected his entire police force from rescue to safety. Nagin clearly understood that no rescue could take place if rescue workers had to fear for their own safety. This was a smart move and the right thing to do. He didn't hesitate, he didn't half step.
Non Points (No Factor)
The following points I don't think merit serious consideration in regards to an evaluation of Nagin. Either they are trifling and petty or they are things beyond the reasonable control of any human being or bureacracy during a catastrophe.
NF #1 - Squallor at the Superdome
Long before the Superdome situation degenerated into typical refugee camp status, Nagin called for resources to help move people out. It is this context that gives whatever credibility could be assigned to the weight of the lost buses. Nagin also directed evacuees toward other refuges such as area hospitals and the airports. There were no such reports of squallor. At no time can it be said that people were safer on the streets than in the Superdome. Americans may be squeamish about the way it is in refugee camps, but that's the way it is. If the Red Cross gives any weight to the suggestion that conditions at the Superdome ran below what they typically see, then this moves to the negative column. Remember that according to the plan, the Superdome was the refuge of last resort, it being the only building certified to withstand Category 3 in New Orleans.
NF #2 - Nagin's Use of Profanity
That's a weak ass argument. Dismissed. But seriously, you cannot support General Honore and diss Mayor Nagin on the question of cursing.
NF #3 - Nagin Overreacted & Exaggerated the Number of Potential Dead
I say this one balances out to zero. While it's true that lots of people may have panicked at the news, most unfortunately the cowards on his own police force, it's better on the whole to say that the sky is falling than it is to say everything's under control.
Add all these things to what I've said prior and I think Nagin comes off as well as anyone could expect under the circumstances. I certainly welcome retorts, corrections, and broadsided criticisms. I'm willing to admit where I am biased, but I think an objective view of the situation leaves Nagin less damaged than some people have wrongly tried to make him.
I say he breaks even. He made some tough calls and they were all correct and timely. He may have lost his temper, but I say that's a good thing when lives are involved, so long as it's not counterproductive. There are some plusses and minuses to be considered, but at the end of the day Nagin is the man who called for and oversaw the most complicated and largest evacuation of a major American city in history, a city of 500,000, while only losing 118. That's commendable. He did his job.
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