[StBernard] EDITORIAL: We needed levees, not more buses

[Westley Annis]

EDITORIAL: We needed levees, not more buses 


>From The Times Picayune 

Written By: Jarvis DeBerry 
Posted Friday, December 16, 2005

One of the lingering myths about Hurricane Katrina is that everybody who
died here was trapped here and that, in fact, no one would have died if
local and state governments had provided buses out of town. That myth also
assumes that upon hearing of a mandatory evacuation, everybody with the
means to leave town does so. 

The falsity of both claims has been well-established. The Times-Picayune has
run dozens of obituaries under the headline "Katrina's Lives Lost." In their
interviews with relatives of the deceased, reporters have not encountered
one person whose loved one wanted to leave but could not. We might assume
that some of those who died at local nursing homes were trapped; not by
government, however, but by the folks who ran those nursing homes. 

There probably were some people who did not have transportation to leave and
declined a free ride to the relative safety of the Louisiana Superdome.
There is, however, no evidence to suggest that such people constitute a
majority -- or even a significant minority -- of the fatalities. The truth
is that many people made the fatal decision to stay. 

Some members of the House Select Committee, which is ostensibly
investigating the federal government's response to the crisis in the New
Orleans area, insisted that Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco accept
personal responsibility for the people who died. 

U.S. Rep Jeff Miller, R-Fla., giving himself over wholly to demagoguery,
told Blanco that the 1,086 Louisiana residents known to have died in the
storm are about half the number of American lives lost in Iraq. 

"You lost that many in one day," he said. 

She lost that many? 

Is Miller suggesting that Blanco's failure to drag people out by their
ankles makes her culpable for their deaths? Is he so committed to partisan
gamesmanship that he's willing to put Blanco's failings on par with the
crumbling of the federal government's floodwalls? 

Similarly, do Republicans Hal Rogers of Kentucky and Christopher Shays of
Connecticut really believe Mayor Nagin should have told residents to leave
New Orleans Friday morning when a mild-mannered Hurricane Katrina looked
destined to hit Apalachicola, Fla.? 

I realize that the city's own literature says evacuations should begin 72
hours before a projected landfall, but there can't be anybody in local
government who believed that residents would really have left three days in
advance of any hurricane, especially not one that looked like it was going
to hit 363 miles away. 

Rogers and Shays are pandering. What universe of people would simultaneously
be impressionable enough to be convinced to leave on Friday but so stubborn
that they wouldn't leave on Saturday or Sunday? 

By criticizing Nagin for a mandatory evacuation call that came 19 hours
before landfall, they leave the impression that the announcement was the
mayor's first word of warning. 

Actually, it was but one in a series of warnings that began early Saturday
and became increasingly more insistent. 

Nagin and Blanco have both made notable mistakes since this crisis began,
but it is dishonest and mean-spirited of Congress to suggest that mistakes
made by either one makes them liable for nearly 1,100 lives. 

Maybe a small percentage of those who perished would still be alive if Nagin
and Blanco had worked together to provide transportation. 

But if the federal government's floodwalls had held, it's doubtful anybody
would have died at all. 


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The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF), Louisiana's fund for
Louisiana's people, has been established by Governor Kathleen Babineaux
Blanco in order to support long-term family restoration and recovery and
help provide assistance to our citizens in need through a network of
Louisiana charities and non-profit agencies.

1-877-HELPLA1 (877-435-7521) www.louisianahelp.org