"What else could we have done?"
A Transcript from CNN's Soledad O'Brian's interview with Mayor Nagin:
S. O'BRIEN: One week after Hurricane Katrina struck, we're in New Orleans. And you can still see the damage, and you can still see the rescues that are continuing to be under way often with volunteers, often with the police department as well. It is a big problem. They're getting some people off the roofs, but in many cases when you're talking about an elderly population that cannot possibly pull themselves up on the roof or wave to a helicopter, you are certainly to see at this point now people dying. They cannot survive without water and food for this long, especially the older populations.
Mayor Ray Nagin says the big problem too, now, is disease, because the bodies that are, frankly, in these homes and in the water, along with the sewage, could breed some disease. We got a chance to speak with the mayor yesterday, and asked him very bluntly, how much blame should he shoulder for all of these problems now?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)S. O'BRIEN: There are people who say your evacuation plan, obviously in hindsight, was disastrous.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Which one?
S. O'BRIEN: Your evacuation plan before -- when you put people into the Superdome. It wasn't thought out. You got 20,000 people in there. And that you bear the brunt of the blame for some of this, a large chunk of it.
NAGIN: Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens.
And I don't know what else I could do, other than to tell them that it's a mandatory evacuation. And if they stayed, make sure you have a frigging ax in your home, where you can bust out the roof just in case the water starts flowing. And as a last resort, once this thing is above a category 3, there are no buildings in this city to withstand a category 3, a category 4 or a category 5 storm, other than the Superdome. That's where we sent people as a shelter of last resort. When that filled up, we sent them to the Convention Center. Now, you tell me what else we could have done.
S. O'BRIEN: What has Secretary Chertoff promised you? What has Donald Rumsfeld given you and promised you?
NAGIN: Look, I've gotten promises to -- I can't stand anymore promises. I don't want to hear anymore promises. I want to see stuff done. And that's why I'm so happy that the president came down here, because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. And they were telling him things weren't as bad as it was. He came down and saw it, and he put a general on the field. His name is General Honore. And when he hit the field, we started to see action. And what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate. And then, the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.'
S. O'BRIEN: What date was this? When did you say that? When did you say...
NAGIN: Whenever air Force One was here.
S. O'BRIEN: OK.
NAGIN: And this was after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two need to get together on the same page, because of the lack of coordination, people are dying in my city.'
S. O'BRIEN: That's two days ago.
NAGIN: They both shook -- I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, 'Great.' I said, 'Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.' There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, 'Everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.'
S. O'BRIEN: And was that done?
NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, "No, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane, and we're going to make a decision."
He called me in that office after that. And he said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor." I said -- and I don't remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.
S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?
NAGIN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?
NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.
S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.
NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died. (END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: The mayor making it clear that much politicking was going on, even as people here were continuing to suffer. The mayor clearly thinking that the governor did way too little, way too late for her part.
I call to your attention the line that was said by Mayor Nagin, whom I don't know personally and who has only been in office 5 months. I'm not trying to pick on him, or even point a big finger at him, because I know that accidents happen, mistakes get made, and we must work to correct them and not cast too much blame.
But this guy is going on all the talk shows pointing his finger at someone else. And I just don't think that's right.
But to the point. The section that I bolded. "What else could we have done." Well to start you could have put food and water in the Superdome. Just to start. You could have placed some of the NOPD in the superdome, just to start. You sent 20,000 people to a stifling, empty building. With no food and water. What were they supposed to eat? What were they supposed to drink?
The truth is, I think, is that no one thought the levee's would break. At least, not really. People even in my office said, oh the levees are fine. They will hold. No one really thought the catacysmic event that they had been warned about for years would occur. They live charmed lives, nothing like a flooded New Orleans would ever really happen. Because if it ever really did, what would all of those people do?
We now know they would be absorbed in neighboring Texas. And other states around the country. Even as far away as New England, where an abandoned military base is being used as temporary housing for those seeking refuge. Though I agree with the President, these people are not refugees they are Americans, and we should do everything we can to help them.
But Nagin, quit calling people names and quit cussing on the radio and take care of your city. States Rights. It's written in the consituttion. Your state is your responsibility and if you want Federal Assistance you should ask for it and delogate it. After the state of emergency is declared you have access to all of the FEMA funds. I say funds because really that's what FEMA is. A distribution organization. They write checks, they don't help people off roofs. But that's what we looked to FEMA for this time. And it really isn't fair to blame them any more than it is to blame Nagin. Who didn't know what to do any more than anyone else did. It's like the Titanic. You hit the ice berg and you just kind of stared at it, knowing that your ship was doomed and not knowing what to do.
Don Imus this morning asked why Bush wasn't Guiliani in this instance. Well I'll tell you why. Because he's not supposed to be. Nagin or Blanco is supposed to be Guiliani and neither of them were. In this transcript Nagin says Blanco waited to long to accept Bush's proposal. I think she was playing a little partisan game. She didn't trust the long proposal (written document mind you) and wanted to take some time to talk to lawyers and political experts before agreeing. Did this cost lives? Probably. Will Blanco be re-elected? Not if her opponent is worth his salt. "Who do you want in office? Someone that will take ask fof 24 hours to think about what to do? Or someone with a plan!" End sound bite, cut to election results, Blanco is out.
Nagin? I'm not so sure about. He's definitely a man of the people as his speeches point out. He doesn't talk fancy and he swears a lot and he says "I don't care" a lot. Which - not to be too partisan - is typical. He doesn't care what people think and he doesn't care what the television and radio pundits are saying he did wrong.
Well, when the people get back to voting for Mayor, you better hope they don't care either. Because unlike the President, who is catching his own share of flak and rightly so, Nagin will be up up for re-election. The President should have gone to New Orleans on Tuesday, not Thursday. He should have ignored what people were telling him (because I believe they all sugar coated it "oh its not that bad") and then he could have seen for himself. Instead people were left in that horrible Superdome with looters and vagrants when they should have been evacuated on buses.
Mom said some laywer says they didn't have time. Baloney. The storm didn't REALLY hit till Monday morning early. And Nagin gave the "mandatory" evac order on Sunday morning. They could have found people willing to drive those buses.
But the thing is -- those people didn't want to leave. I wouldn't either, but I would go. I luckily have family and means to get myself to safety. All of those people didn't. And the local government should have set up shelters with food, water and radios (because communications was crap during this too). That's what Nagin could have done. That's what should have been done.
We know that now. Now rather than casting blame and calling for commissions that will only serve to cast even more blame, why don't we learn from this experience and set up these shelters. Have plans. Have contact people. It's called a CAT plan people! Commercial companies use them all the time. Cities should have them too.
S. O'BRIEN: One week after Hurricane Katrina struck, we're in New Orleans. And you can still see the damage, and you can still see the rescues that are continuing to be under way often with volunteers, often with the police department as well. It is a big problem. They're getting some people off the roofs, but in many cases when you're talking about an elderly population that cannot possibly pull themselves up on the roof or wave to a helicopter, you are certainly to see at this point now people dying. They cannot survive without water and food for this long, especially the older populations.
Mayor Ray Nagin says the big problem too, now, is disease, because the bodies that are, frankly, in these homes and in the water, along with the sewage, could breed some disease. We got a chance to speak with the mayor yesterday, and asked him very bluntly, how much blame should he shoulder for all of these problems now?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)S. O'BRIEN: There are people who say your evacuation plan, obviously in hindsight, was disastrous.
MAYOR RAY NAGIN, NEW ORLEANS: Which one?
S. O'BRIEN: Your evacuation plan before -- when you put people into the Superdome. It wasn't thought out. You got 20,000 people in there. And that you bear the brunt of the blame for some of this, a large chunk of it.
NAGIN: Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens.
And I don't know what else I could do, other than to tell them that it's a mandatory evacuation. And if they stayed, make sure you have a frigging ax in your home, where you can bust out the roof just in case the water starts flowing. And as a last resort, once this thing is above a category 3, there are no buildings in this city to withstand a category 3, a category 4 or a category 5 storm, other than the Superdome. That's where we sent people as a shelter of last resort. When that filled up, we sent them to the Convention Center. Now, you tell me what else we could have done.
S. O'BRIEN: What has Secretary Chertoff promised you? What has Donald Rumsfeld given you and promised you?
NAGIN: Look, I've gotten promises to -- I can't stand anymore promises. I don't want to hear anymore promises. I want to see stuff done. And that's why I'm so happy that the president came down here, because I think they were feeding him a line of bull also. And they were telling him things weren't as bad as it was. He came down and saw it, and he put a general on the field. His name is General Honore. And when he hit the field, we started to see action. And what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate. And then, the president and the governor sat down. We were in Air Force One. I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two have to get in sync. If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die.'
S. O'BRIEN: What date was this? When did you say that? When did you say...
NAGIN: Whenever air Force One was here.
S. O'BRIEN: OK.
NAGIN: And this was after I called him on the telephone two days earlier. And I said, 'Mr. President, Madam Governor, you two need to get together on the same page, because of the lack of coordination, people are dying in my city.'
S. O'BRIEN: That's two days ago.
NAGIN: They both shook -- I don't know the exact date. They both shook their head and said yes. I said, 'Great.' I said, 'Everybody in this room is getting ready to leave.' There was senators and his cabinet people, you name it, they were there. Generals. I said, 'Everybody right now, we're leaving. These two people need to sit in a room together and make a doggone decision right now.'
S. O'BRIEN: And was that done?
NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, "No, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane, and we're going to make a decision."
He called me in that office after that. And he said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor." I said -- and I don't remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.
S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?
NAGIN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?
NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.
S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.
NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died. (END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: The mayor making it clear that much politicking was going on, even as people here were continuing to suffer. The mayor clearly thinking that the governor did way too little, way too late for her part.
I call to your attention the line that was said by Mayor Nagin, whom I don't know personally and who has only been in office 5 months. I'm not trying to pick on him, or even point a big finger at him, because I know that accidents happen, mistakes get made, and we must work to correct them and not cast too much blame.
But this guy is going on all the talk shows pointing his finger at someone else. And I just don't think that's right.
But to the point. The section that I bolded. "What else could we have done." Well to start you could have put food and water in the Superdome. Just to start. You could have placed some of the NOPD in the superdome, just to start. You sent 20,000 people to a stifling, empty building. With no food and water. What were they supposed to eat? What were they supposed to drink?
The truth is, I think, is that no one thought the levee's would break. At least, not really. People even in my office said, oh the levees are fine. They will hold. No one really thought the catacysmic event that they had been warned about for years would occur. They live charmed lives, nothing like a flooded New Orleans would ever really happen. Because if it ever really did, what would all of those people do?
We now know they would be absorbed in neighboring Texas. And other states around the country. Even as far away as New England, where an abandoned military base is being used as temporary housing for those seeking refuge. Though I agree with the President, these people are not refugees they are Americans, and we should do everything we can to help them.
But Nagin, quit calling people names and quit cussing on the radio and take care of your city. States Rights. It's written in the consituttion. Your state is your responsibility and if you want Federal Assistance you should ask for it and delogate it. After the state of emergency is declared you have access to all of the FEMA funds. I say funds because really that's what FEMA is. A distribution organization. They write checks, they don't help people off roofs. But that's what we looked to FEMA for this time. And it really isn't fair to blame them any more than it is to blame Nagin. Who didn't know what to do any more than anyone else did. It's like the Titanic. You hit the ice berg and you just kind of stared at it, knowing that your ship was doomed and not knowing what to do.
Don Imus this morning asked why Bush wasn't Guiliani in this instance. Well I'll tell you why. Because he's not supposed to be. Nagin or Blanco is supposed to be Guiliani and neither of them were. In this transcript Nagin says Blanco waited to long to accept Bush's proposal. I think she was playing a little partisan game. She didn't trust the long proposal (written document mind you) and wanted to take some time to talk to lawyers and political experts before agreeing. Did this cost lives? Probably. Will Blanco be re-elected? Not if her opponent is worth his salt. "Who do you want in office? Someone that will take ask fof 24 hours to think about what to do? Or someone with a plan!" End sound bite, cut to election results, Blanco is out.
Nagin? I'm not so sure about. He's definitely a man of the people as his speeches point out. He doesn't talk fancy and he swears a lot and he says "I don't care" a lot. Which - not to be too partisan - is typical. He doesn't care what people think and he doesn't care what the television and radio pundits are saying he did wrong.
Well, when the people get back to voting for Mayor, you better hope they don't care either. Because unlike the President, who is catching his own share of flak and rightly so, Nagin will be up up for re-election. The President should have gone to New Orleans on Tuesday, not Thursday. He should have ignored what people were telling him (because I believe they all sugar coated it "oh its not that bad") and then he could have seen for himself. Instead people were left in that horrible Superdome with looters and vagrants when they should have been evacuated on buses.
Mom said some laywer says they didn't have time. Baloney. The storm didn't REALLY hit till Monday morning early. And Nagin gave the "mandatory" evac order on Sunday morning. They could have found people willing to drive those buses.
But the thing is -- those people didn't want to leave. I wouldn't either, but I would go. I luckily have family and means to get myself to safety. All of those people didn't. And the local government should have set up shelters with food, water and radios (because communications was crap during this too). That's what Nagin could have done. That's what should have been done.
We know that now. Now rather than casting blame and calling for commissions that will only serve to cast even more blame, why don't we learn from this experience and set up these shelters. Have plans. Have contact people. It's called a CAT plan people! Commercial companies use them all the time. Cities should have them too.
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