The Real Hurricane Scandal

From the so-called "right wing" Drudge Report to the editorial pages of the liberal Detroit Free Press, it is becoming more and more obvious in the media that New Orleans was the city that did not evacuate in the face of a Category 5 hurricane aimed right at the city. Yes, my own family and many others did leave, some reluctantly and with delay. But cable television is recording non-stop the thousands and thousands that never left and never had a plan to leave. The mayor of the city, the governor of the state, and the rest of local officialdom utterly failed to go out to the acres of poor neighborhoods that make up most of New Orleans to get these people out BEFORE the hurricane hit. News reports indicate that even plenty of elderly and sick people in various senior homes and centers were not evacuated.

As a native New Orleanian, I know well that laissez-faire attitude--I could use stronger words for it that you can fill in-- which is so true to type. The culture of New Orleans is the opposite of what the New Testament is always urging: be vigilant, be sober, be on watch. The roguish attitude of the "City That Care Forgot" is no longer even remotely amusing or entertaining in the face of floating dead bodies, masses of poor people living like animals, and the elderly finally being fished out of old folks' homes. The scandalous ineptness and stupidity shown by local and state officials in failing to enforce and implement a true evacuation of the most vulnerable is, unfortunately, a continuation of the long history of misrule that has marked my native city for decades. Remember that fact when you see local and state officials lashing out at the federal response. Their lashing out is an attempt at distracting from their own obvious responsibility for a self-magnified disaster.

Update: The Census Bureau estimated the population of the City of New Orleans, as of 2003, to be 469,032 persons. The AP is reporting today that Texas Governor Perry says that Texas is already caring for more than 220,000 hurricane evacuees, with 10,000 more per day expected for the next three days (see AP story).

Now, do the math. I assume that the evacuees the Texas governor is referring to are people who were inside New Orleans during the hurricane. So add 220,000 already in Texas plus 30,000 more expected in the next three days and you get a total of 250,000 persons who stayed in New Orleans to endure the hurricane. Let's round off the 2003 population figure to 470,000. That means that about 53% of the population of New Orleans may have remained inside the city during the hurricane. Let's be conservative and put the figure at about 50%. At this point, with the information noted above, I estimate that as much as one half of the population of New Orleans did not leave before the hurricane. And remember to add to these numbers the untold numbers of dead in the city, who also obviously did not evacuate. [For further updates to this estimate, see this link.]

The State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans did not implement the mandatory evacuation ordered apparently only one day before the hurricane struck on Monday morning. Hundreds of the elderly and sick were left in their homes and in assisted care facilities. The large ghettoes of New Orleans were left chock full of people. Gov. Blanco, Mayor Nagin, and other local officials failed to do the single thing that would have prevented the massive loss of life: a real pre-hurricane evacuation of those who could or would not get out on their own. I am confident that this truth will emerge with greater and greater clarity as time passes. The anger should be aimed, not at Washington, but at the governor's mansion and at city hall. But you won't hear that from state and local politicians seeking to cover their backs and change the subject. And you won't hear it from Democrats intent on using this disaster as their latest anti-Bush ploy.