Dan Among Den

1. Was the New Orleans evacuation plan followed? The city of New Orleans had an evacuation plan. It was even posted on their website. It was supposed to be able to get everyone out, including those without transportation. Did they just not use it, or did someone in the city screw up in its implementation?
2. When was the Louisiana National Guard called up, and what were its orders? Specifically, I'd like to know if the Louisiana governor ordered the national guard to assist in the New Orleans evacuation, and if so, when? We may not get an answer on that anytime soon. I've heard unconfirmed reports that the governor has issued a gag order to the Louisiana Guard not to answer press questions on that subject. Sooner or later, though, some of them are going to get asked under oath, and we'll find out.
3. Why did the strengthened levees fail? While we've all been endlessly badgered about how "Bush cut the levee funding!!!", it seems that many of the levees had already had the scheduled work completed. At least one of the levees that failed had already had this work done. Why did it still fail? I think I already know the answer to this, and the answer is that the improved levees were designed to hold up to a Category 3 hurricane, not a strong Category 4, bordering on Category 5.
4. Given that Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes occur every one to two years in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, why was this 15-year levee project only designed for Category 3 hurricanes? Was this a serious effort to protect the city, or just a Congressional pork project to send money back to the home district? It would seem that this money was largely a waste, given that it failed. How much more would have it cost to improve the levees to withstand a Category 5 hurricane? Was this even seriously debated?
5. Why weren’t the local government buses used to evacuate those who could not get out on their own? I’ve read that the city and school buses could have held 15,000 per trip. I noticed that one lane of the seaward-bound side of the highways was being reserved for emergency vehicles heading out during the evacuation, i.e. they were driving on the wrong side of the highway since hardly anyone was driving back in. Those buses could have been granted the status of those emergency vehicles and made multiple trips out to Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and Houston. In the two days warning they had, how many trips could they have made this way? How many stranded people could they have gotten out? 30,000? 60,000? Why were most of the buses left in place instead? They sat in New Orleans parking lots, many flooded, even as the mayor called on the national private buslines (Greyhound/etc.) to come help with the post-flooding evacuation.
6. As I understand it, Bush declared a federal state of emergency before the hurricane hit. This put a lot of resources at the disposal of local and state officials whose job it is to coordinate the efforts. What requests did they make? What, if any, requests went unfulfilled?
7. Where was the Red Cross in all of this? This is an organization with an excellent history of being quick to the scene of the disaster, both domestically (think of Florida hurricanes and Mississippi flooding) and internationally. Why were they so slow to get supplies into the city of New Orleans this time? Why was there so little food and water at the Superdome and the convention center? I’ve heard unconfirmed reports that the Red Cross had trucks upon trucks ready to roll in with food and water, but that the Louisiana governor’s office ordered that they not be allowed into the city since the governor didn’t want to turn those sites into attractive havens that would keep people from leaving the city. The governor’s office is silent, but this report came second hand from the Red Cross.
8. For those clamoring at the notion that the feds should have seen the poor local coordination coming and just federalized the operation at the first sign of Katrina’s strength and rolled in with troops and martial law, was it legal for the federal agencies, FEMA in particular, to have usurped local control? Could they have done more earlier without breaking the law?
9. And finally, where is Rudy Giuliani? I don’t literally mean Rudy, but where is the local figure rising up to be the The Man? (Withhold the sexism complaints. You know exactly what I mean by this.) Yes, New Orleans got hit far worse than New York, but all I’m hearing is “Bush didn’t help us enough.” Within days, the feds had unleashed a huge some of money, money that is apparently being spent at the heady clip of $1 billion per day. I don’t see a local official stepping up to the plate to be in charge and make sure things happen.

I’d like some of those answers, and we all should. But then, it’s much easier to cast the blame on someone you already hate.