Nagin and Blanco Failed Their Constituents

Bob Williams, a former State legislator who represented the district hardest hit by Mount St. Helens in Washington, writes a scathing indictment of New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Louisiana Governor Blanco in the Wall Street Journal:

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

Williams gives a point-by-point analysis of all the things that were done wrong, or weren't done at all by the Louisiana "leadership". Read the whole thing here. The press and the Dems will continue to try and find a way to pin all the problems on the Bush administration, and though some blame for the aftermath may be reasonable placed on Federal agencies, this event was much worse than it had to be due to local failures. FEMA is not a first responder - that was the job of city and state officials, and they let their people down.

You'll find other good pieces on the subject here and here.