Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (D), flanked by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (I) and Councilman Oliver Thomas.
From the Monday Times-Picayune:
OUR OPINIONS: An open letter to the President
Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."
That’s unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud.
EXCUSE ME?
I know the members of the editorial board at the Times-Picayune have been under enormous stress since Katrina hit. No doubt, they are enduring tremendous hardships. Katrina took out New Orleans. Their city, as they knew it, is gone.
Unfortunately, also gone is the board's ability to discern the reality of how the gathering storm was allowed to become cataclysmic as a humanitarian disaster.
In general, the mainstream media have failed miserably in their reporting.
Why is it that the "government's shame" rests with the Feds?
Rather than scrutinize the role of Louisiana's officials, they have chosen to focus solely on the federal government. In the case of this open letter, the Times-Picayune apparently prefers to give Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin a pass and spares Governor Kathleen Blanco any criticism.
Maybe someone should notify the editorial board that Blanco refused federal aid.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday, "Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent [Blanco] a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans."
Newsmax writes that Gov. Blanco's office rejected the request.
The Post said Blanco was "concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law.
"The Louisiana Democrat had also failed to use more than a hundred school buses parked near the Superdome to transport stranded citizens who didn't have the means to obey earlier evacuation orders.
"After the 17th Street Levee broke on Tuesday, the buses were rendered usless by rising flood waters.
"State and federal officials also told the Post that Gov. Blanco did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday - more than 24 hours after New Orleans descended into chaos."
According to the Post, in addition to refusing to "sign over control of the National Guard to the federal government," Blanco "turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts."
The editorial board of the Times-Picayune needs a remedial course in American government. Its members don't seem to understand the relationship between state and local governements and the federal government. As a former governor, Bush is certainly aware of the responsiblities of a state's top executive to the people.
Why has the board removed Louisiana officials from the equation?
Has the board forgotten that the issue of states' rights led to a Civil War?
The Times-Picayune asks the President, "So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately?"
I have a question.
WHY DIDN'T THE EVACUATION OCCUR BEFORE KATRINA HIT?
Another question:
WHY WEREN'T CITIZENS BEING EVACUATED ON MONDAY BEFORE THE CITY FLOODED?
There was an opportunity for the state to get more people out of New Orleans even after Katrina made landfall.
That was not done. Why not?
The more than 10,000 rescues that various branches of our military have conducted never should have been necessary. The residents should have been long gone; but thanks to an incompetent mayor and governor, the residents were stranded if they were lucky, dead if they were not.
The issue is not that the people "deserved to be rescued," as the letter states. Instead, they deserved to be evacuated before the flooding. They deserved to be protected by the state and the city.
It is tragic that Blanco, Nagin, and their cohorts reacted to the impending disaster in such an abysmal fashion.
At some point, the liberal media will need to face the truth.
Thousands of deaths could have been prevented if the state and local officials in Louisiana had done their jobs. THEY failed to evacuate the city.
THEY failed.
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