Is it just me, or is it a little insulting that the person chiefly responsible for the safety of the citizens of New Orleans — the city’s Mayor — seems to want to point the finger at everyone else in the country?
I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses. Man, they were talking about… you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here … I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me! This is a national disaster! Get every doggone Greyhound busline in the country, and get their asses moving to New Orleans. That’s them thinking small, man…. this is a major major major deal!
And I can’t emphasize this enough, man — this is crazy! I’ve got 15,000-20,000 people over at the Convention Centre, it’s bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines parish… they’re air-vacc’ing people over here in New Orleans… we don’t have anything and we’re sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines parish. It’s awful down here, man.
…and what about the city buses, which currently sit under feet of water? Why were they not headed to Houston, Birmingham, Memphis, Jackson, Nashville, or farther days ahead of the storm, since those buses are so desperately needed?
Essentially what we have is the mayor trying to save his own ass for his own poor decisions prior to landfall. I don’t think blaming these deaths on anyone will be a wise thing to do, but if we ever start down that path, the first man with victim’s blood assigned should be Mayor Ray Nagin.
UPDATE: Speaking of buses…
Any comment on how this has become a racial issue? CNN already has a musical collage on it.
When the 12 feet of flood water finally get pumped out of my house, and I settle my insurance claim (which was a total loss), I’ll be more than glad to explain to you why he was so mad.
I don’t begrudge him any sort of emotion — I don’t think he can be blamed for that.
His failure to act in advance of the storm, and his current need to blame everyone else in the country, however, is another matter.
It’s some policy structure bs that supposedly prevented Mayor Ray Nagin from commondeering the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA). I’m sure Bobby will be able to explain it better than me, but my understanding is that the Mayor of New Orleans’ powers are limited because he is not the Parish President. In fact, he had to find a loop hole somewhere to be able to even call for a mandatory evacuation of the city (this has NEVER been done before). If anything is to blame, its the miles of red tape and bureaucracy that Louisiana’s policy makers seem to love back in the day.
That may be true, but this is the mayor who has criticized the federal gov’t for abiding by their rules and beuracracy during the hurricane… color me shocked that he turns out to be a hypocrite. (And let’s not forget that he wanted the feds to commandeer 500 privately held buses — greyhounds — to help him out when he had nearly 500 buses in his own back yard that he couldn’t be compelled to use).
Besides… those buses in the picture are school buses, are those a part of the RTA also?
You have a point and nope, those aren’t RTA buses. Personally, I think everyone plays a part in what is definitely turning out to be a disaster, including the citizens who were, and those that still remain, resistant to the warnings of federal, state, and local officials. One has to wonder, even if every bus driver in the New Orleans area had commanded a bus to drive before the hurricane even hit, would these people have even bothered to board it? History suggests that they would not have. So, what is the solution?