How long has Nagin been in office? I saw him and the former mayor of New Orleans almost get into a fistfight on TV the other day about “what should have been done.” Did Nagin have time to implement a plan? And—knowing what I do about the famous crookedness of New Orleans politics—has he been a good mayor otherwise?
He’s been in office three years. Here’s a reasonably evenhanded Slate article:
Lots more that may be of interest to you in that article.
Nagin had a much worse problem than Rudy did, namely, the post disaster rescue needed. In 9/11 the people in the towers either got out or got killed. People in the rest of NYC were physically safe. If the people got out of the towers they were safe and could go home to their still safe houses. If they didn’t get out of the towers they were already dead. There weren’t a lot of survivors that needed emergency medical care. In New Orleans, the survivors couldn’t just go home and they needed a huge amount of care.
Interesting—thanks! He seems like a naive, well-meaning reformer who’s in over his head. (And I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking he’s kinda hot!)
Giuliani may be “America’s Mayor” now, but prior to 9-11 he was regarded as a paranoid control freak. But as fate would have it, there was a major crisis in New York City and a paranoid control freak was the right man in the right place.
Nagin was elected in May 2002 in a mayoral race with several candidates (Nagin, who received the highest total, got only 29% of the votes). He’s never held political office before. He also stands on the fence between the two parties; he’s been a Republican most of his life but ran as a Democrat and has supported other candidates in both parties. He ran on an anti-corruption platform and had made some attempts to deal with government corruption problems in his city before the flood.
I don’t know New Orleans politics, but it looks to me like Nagin has had to deal with some pretty big problems while working with a fairly small power base.
I wouldn’t say he’s in over his head. I just think his vision for New Orleans is something that needs to be implemented over several administrations of different, but like-minded, mayors over a period a few decades. Reform has to start somewhere, and it has to start small.
Nagin’s real problem is that the Pubbies are DEFINITELY gonna go after him as the one responsible for mucking up the post-Katrina disaster response, to conceal the Homeland Security Dept’s failures. Look for the pundits to start spinning Real Soon Now.
Although there is plenty of room for criticism of Nagin, comparing him to Giuliani is apples and oranges. As horrible as 9-11 was, the scope of the NO disaster far outweighs what happened in NY.
I thought infrastructure is funded from mostly other-than-local funds. They’ve been working on this project for 40 years, and it was 80% complete and inadequate, seeing as it was designed to withstand a cat. 3 storm.
The blame goes all around on this one, and I would say Nagin probably will get the lesser dose. The census study indicated 30% of the population had no car to evacuate with. The response time was laughable, and the in-fighting amongst the various government players was (and still is) downright shameful. Fuck these people and fire 'em all. There’s no good excuse anyone can come up with for the extent of the failures on this one.
[hijack]
I’ve been wondering how those outside of New York and New Orleans would weigh the two tragedies against each other.
[/hijack]
Could we possibly change that to “some thought Giuliana was a control freak”.
Rudy took a NYC that was mighty low and by the time he was done, Businesses were moving back, Apartment values skyrocketed quality of life was much greater and NYC became and still is the safest large city in the USA.
I was born in Bronx and still love my birthplace. I used to be afraid to visit my Grandmother or go to Yankee Stadium or the Bornx Zoo.
My Grandmother has sadly passed away but before she died, it was no longer a worry to go into the Bronx, not even the South Bronx.
Rudy did a great job before 9/11 and was the perfect man for 9/11.
Sorry for the Hijack.
And the trains were running on time.
Impartial history books 100 years from now will read:
September 2001 - Hijackers Use Planes to Knock Down NY Office Buildings, Part of Pentagon.
September 2005 - Hurricane Destroys Major American City, Much of Gulf Coast
Article in National Geographic, October 2004 (bolding mine):
From National Geographic, August 2005 (bolding mine):
So while the chances of a powerful hurricane hitting a particular city are small, the danger is increasing and will do for the next decade or three.
Cheers! 
Mayor Nagin is much more goat than hero, IMHO. He was the one who decided that, in event of a hurricane evacuation, poor people without cars were basically on their own.
He put a warning to that effect on a DVD that was supposed to be distributed through churches in poorer neighborhoods, but it wasn’t widely distributed before hurricane season.
I don’t know whether he is a Hero or a Goat, but I do know one thing: he is downright handsome.
Pan-pan greek god Pan. One half goat. The other half man."
Before the hurricane, he could have done more, so he deserves plenty of the blame.
After the hurricane, to blame him would be like blaming someone stuck inside a burning building. That person can’t really do much, and it’s up to folks on the outside with access to things to do the saving.
‘Pan-pan’ is also a distress call, though unlike ‘mayday’ it does not indicate immediate assistance is required.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. The NO tragedy appears not only worst but also way more difficult to handle.
That’s kinda how I feel about him too. As a mayor, he should have done more to get people out of town and take care of those left behind. But even if he had done all the things he was supposed to do, there were still going to be plenty of victims. NO would still have been needed FEMA. And FEMA’s delay would have still resulted in the tragic loss of life (as apparent in Jefferson Parish, which was not under Nagin’s control).
He was a hero in that 1) he did not abandon his city and 2) he put his neck out by calling the government out on its incompetence. The former is required but the latter is not.
I don’t think he’ll come out of this unscathed, but I don’t think his constituents will blame him that much (not that there’s much they can do now, being dispersed to the four winds).