Posted on 09/02/2005 9:36:25 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The cursing had stopped. The tears were gone. Mayor Ray Nagin returned from his meeting with President Bush a picture of calm.
He leaned back against a railing in a hotel lobby that for the first time in nearly five days was devoid of stranded, sweating, and generally miserable tourists.
"I feel much better. I feel like we've gotten everyone's attention and hopefully they'll continue to do what they're doing," Nagin said Friday night in the damaged downtown Hyatt hotel, where his temporary lodgings and command post have been set up since Hurricane Katrina made life in the Big Easy insufferable.
"I'm cautiously optimistic. I want to see it happen (Saturday). I want to see it happen next week. Then, when I see consistency of delivery, I'll feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel."
His comments came a day after he was heard on a radio interview erupting in tears and telling the government to "get off your asses and let's do something." By nightfall Friday, his tone had changed.
"Today was a turning point, I think," he said. "My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. ... I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out.'"'
Nagin said Bush gave him a hearty greeting and did not seem at all offended by Nagin's earlier outburst. Bush spent Friday on a daylong tour of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
"I do think the pleas for help basically got the nation's attention, and the nation's attention got everybody to stop and re-evaluate what was going on, including the president. ... He basically said, 'Look, our response was not what it should have been and we're going to fix it right now.'"
The mayor asked Bush to focus on helping New Orleans with law enforcement, finishing the evacuation and draining the flooded city. He said New Orleans also needs a fleet of crop dusters to spray the city for mosquitos that could spread disease after hatching from the stagnant water that has swamped most of the city since Monday.
"Look at me while I'm talkin' to you, son. That's right. I'll hold your hand. I'll even let you give the press a soundbite like you kept your dignity with me. But make no mistake -- you will stop the cussin' and get busy with what you're paid to do. Got it?"
Nagin used to be Republican before he entered the race to become NO mayor. Remember, he also endorsed President Bush in 2004 as the Democrat mayor of NO.
Hey, Nagin found himself in the midst of a clusterfock that he helped to create. It's a miracle that 80% of his citizens were evacuated before the storm--thanks to Bush's early disaster proclamation and urging to evacuate. For him to throw an unprofessional hissy fit is inexcusable. He started off by openly endorsing looting, thus delaying the import of needed humanitarian supplies and evacuation of survivors. He ought to know better about the chain of command than to start publically blaming Bush. A manly leader would have admitted he was out of his league and asked the governor (which would have been an exercise in futility in this case) or the president to take over.
You nailed it!!
And the Mayor of Memphis, who is going to "call out" anyone that does not agree with him.
Oh yeah, Ray, it was all because of you getting "everyone's attention"....(rolls eyes)
Mayor Ray Nagin and his subordinates and Gov. Blanco evacuated almost immediately after Katrina hit.
Then the people who voted for them took over.
I would love to have been a fly on that wall during THE conversation. Nagin appears to have emerged a new man. For the time being. Our president is a REAL leader. He knows how to manage people and bring out the best in them.
No doubt about that. This is a guy who's absolutely incapable of owning up to his own negligence or simply shuttin the he** up and helping. His behavior so far has been nauseating and I'd really like to punch his lights out.
I have no need to punish myself.
Man, you ARE an optimist!
If ten cents on the dollar gets spent on anything worth doing, it will be a bloody miracle.
Has busgate previewed in the anti-American media yet?
So... Nagin admits the feds have been doing good things.
Everyone should download this picture now.
For it is THE picture of the entire hurricane.
May everyone with a computer have this picture saved that history and circumstances not be altered.
And every time, EVERY time, either Governor Blank-O and Mayor Nogginhead mention slow response, SHOW them this picture.
It's a killer, those many school buses sitting under water. It says it all with but a few pixels.
The Mayor is a real A-HOLE BUMP! Where was the Mayor's plan? This has been known as a possibility since Moby Dick was a minnow.
City was warned levees wouldn't hold
World Net Daily ^ | Sept. 1, 2005 | Staff Writer
IN KATRINA'S WAKE City was warned levees wouldn't hold 'Terrible, devastating' damage foreseen by emergency planners
A number of Mississippi River engineers say they've been warning for years that New Orleans' system of levees and dams could not defend against a weather onslaught like Hurricane Katrina.
The warnings were all but ignored by the federal government, which failed repeatedly to fund needed improvements, USA Today reports.
"This is horrible, terrible and devastating," Claude Strauser, who retired from the Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year, told the paper. "But everybody knew it was vulnerable."
To add to the mayhem, more water than anyone ever expected still is hammering the city three days after Katrina dispersed, turning the city's rehearsed disaster responses into exercises in futility.
Joe Suhayda, a retired Louisiana State University engineering professor and oceanographer, said disaster planning in which he participated just last year clearly demonstrated a storm the size of Katrina would render useless the city's flood fortifications. He said the problems were "an acknowledged, likely scenario that was not dealt with in the sense that [officials] solved the problem."
In last year's drill by city, state and federal officials, a fictitious Category 3 storm – "Hurricane Pam" – with 130 mile-per-hour winds, left a path of destruction that nearly mimicked Katrina's damage: 1 million people left homeless, thousands needing rescue and about 600,000 buildings damaged or destroyed.
Katrina, by comparison, was a Category 4 storm with 140-mile-per-hour winds when it hit landfall Monday.
Despite the now-realized accuracy of last year's disaster model, Suhayda said it is still hard to fathom such destruction.
"The circumstances, the personnel, the weather conditions, the size, the location – these are all factors that make the real world more complicated than your planning," he told the paper.
Officials are working diligently to patch levees, pump out water and reinforce dams but, so far, are having only limited successes. Experts say the biggest need is to rid the city of as much excess water as possible so crews can gain access to sites requiring repair.
But the miscalculation will be costly in human and economic terms. Thousands of people are feared dead – trapped then drowned by the unexpected deluge of water now besieging the city – and billions of dollars worth of damage has been done.
Plus, much of the U.S. oil refining capability in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding region, home to 30 percent of American production capacity, has been severely disrupted or disabled. That has led to domestic retail gas prices skyrocketing as high as $6 a gallon and to rationing of fuel at truck stops and other fuel stations.
In a statement to reporters Tuesday evening after viewing the damage to New Orleans during a helicopter tour, President Bush said one of the nation's priorities will be to repair the infrastructure laid waste by Katrina.
"There's a lot of work we're going to have to do. In my flyover, I saw a lot of destruction on major infrastructure. Repairing the infrastructure, of course, is going to be a key priority," he said, noting that included "repairing major roads and bridges and other essential means of transportation as quickly as possible."
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