The tragedy could have been avoided. First: Nagin could have ordered that city school busses be used to evacuate most of NOLA. Probably three trips would have sufficed-and he could have requisitioned AMTRACK trains as well. Just think, if the population had been sent to Baton Rouge, and the hospital patients sent to Houston, the whole mess could have beenavoided.
Ray Nagin says that he had to consider the legal implications-what implications? :smack:
To where?
That’s not a snarky question, but a serious one. I’m not from the area. I don’t know how this would have worked.
For the people who didn’t have the means to evacuate (ie - no transportation, no family or friends to go to, no means to stay in a hotel) where would the busses have taken them?
What about the people in the nursing homes and the hospitals?
Also, am I mistaken that it wasn’t the hurricane that caused the tragedy so much as the levees breaking?
ralph124c, while I’m sure you could have done a much better job of running our little metropolis down here, let me run some numbers by you:
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Roughly 1/4 of the pre-Katrina New Orleans population did not have cars. Pre-Katrina New Orleans population has been estimated to be 465,000 people, meaning that if these carless and population estimates are accurate, roughly 116,000 people needed some type of ride out of town.
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School bus capacity is 66 students. Likely they can hold fewer adults passengers due to the size differential between children and adults. Let’s call it 60 persons.
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Given these figures, New Orleans would need around 1,750 buses or bus trips to get that many people out of the city.
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Except that New Orleans only had 324 school buses and 364 RTA buses for a total of 688. That’s almost 1100 buses short. And not all RTA buses will hold 60 people.
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Interstate highways had been converted to contraflow on Saturday afternoon. Buses that made it out to Baton Rouge couldn’t have made it back to get their next load.
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I don’t know how many medical patients could have been put on each bus. Probably fewer than 60.
So… how would you have handled the equation to get everyone out, ralph?
As for the train, let’s also let you be the guy to go to the dome and select which couple of hundred folks get to go out on the last train.
Nagin’s no saint and I’m sorry he was mayor during the storm and I’m astounded he was reelected. Long story, that.
Still, mouth in foot and all, you should hop a few miles in his shoes before laying all the blame on his doorstep.
The Spike Lee documentary made the claim that Nagin turned down an offer by Amtrak to evacuate the people saying “the city can handle it.” IIRC, there was another form of transportation that it claimed he turned down as well.
Anyone know the veracity of those claims?
I don’t know, but I will say that on the Frontline episode he stated the reason he left so many school busses unused is because he didn’t have drivers.
I don’t know (again) what to think about that in context, though.
But, regardless of Nagin’s actions/inaction, I will say again that from where I sit there is more than enough of a heaping helping of human failings to go around. The whole thing just makes me sick. Sick to my stomach and sick in my heart.
Going on memory here. Amtrak offered Nagin the opportunity to fill their last train out sometime Sunday. I don’t know how many people coud have fit on that train. Nagin did decline the offer.
It’s my recollection that he did so because identifying, marshalling, and moving the people to the train station - - some parts of which are in view of the Superdome - - was a huge logistical challenge with the potential to start a mass migration to the train station.
Curiously, a few of the airlines had quit servicing New Orleans on Saturday. Why they couldn’t keep flying in large planes Saturday night and much of Sunday remains a mystery to me.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Nagin, Compass, Blanco, Red Cross, FEMA, Brown, Bush, Chertoff, Broussard, Corps, Jefferson, Gretna police, etc., etc. There’s a really really long list of officials and bureaus at all levels of government. It’s a sad story that I hope yields improvements for all.