Hurricane Katrina Aftermath (and other stuff I find interesting)

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In a brief but wide-ranging interview, the mayor reflected on the tragedies of the past two weeks, acknowledging that he may have made some mistakes but said that he hopes others in positions of authority – including President George W. Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco -- are scrutinized as closely as he and his staff have been. “I’m not pointing any fingers at anyone,” Nagin said. “But I was in the fire. I was down there. Where were they? I’m confident the truth is gonna come out. But I want everybody’s record analyzed just as hard as mine.“Listen, this was unprecedented. Nothing has ever happened like this. For people to sit back and say, ‘You should have done this, you should have done that’ … it’s Monday morning quarterbacking. They can shoot if they want, but I was there, and I will have the facts.”
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“This is ridiculous,” he said. “I mean, this is America. How can we have a state with an $18 billion budget and a federal government with an I don’t know how many trillion dollar budget, and they can’t get a few thousand people onto buses? I don’t get that.“All I saw was a huge two-step, if you will, between the federal government and the state as far as who had the final authority. Promises made that weren’t really kept. It was frustrating. We’d analyze things, double-check them, and then, later in the afternoon, we’d find out that someone was changing the plan, moving resources around.”
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As hearings on the Katrina response start to crank up in Washington, Nagin said, those questions, among others, need to be asked.“ I think the government ought to be asking itself, ‘What happened to the resources? Why were people promised resources and they didn’t show up? Where were the military resources? Where was the National Guard? Why were we left with a city on the verge of collapse, fighting for the soul of the city, with 200 National Guardsmen and 1,200 police?
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“Analyze my ass, analyze everyone’s ass, man. Let’s put the facts on the table and talk turkey. Why was there a breakdown at the federal and state level only in Louisiana? This didn’t happen in Mississippi. That’s the question. That’s the question of the day.”
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Nagin saw a few bright spots amid the rubble of the city. He said the New Orleans Police Department – at least, the majority of it, given that there were a number of desertions – should be hailed for fighting an almost impossible fight, handling search-and-rescue missions while trying to keep an increasingly lawless city in check.“They were absolutely heroic,” he said. “The stuff they were dealing with, man … they spent the first two or three days pulling people out of the water. When the looting started to get to the point that it was a real concern, they had to get involved in serious firefights. I mean, we had radio chatter where police were pinned down in firefights and ran out of ammunition. That’s never happened.”
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Nagin also expressed cautious optimism about the city’s future.“I think we’ll be a better city,” he said. “I think we’re going to see an unprecedented construction boom, and some better-paying jobs. Small businesses will start thriving, and I think the tourist industry will bounce back stronger than ever.”
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“I think some people will probably not come back,” he said. “You know, Texas is treating people very well, probably much better than we treated people.’’“But I think once people start to see the rebuilding, and that the culture of the city will not be materially affected, they’ll be back.”