Did FEMA identify New Orleans as the highest risk factor after returning from the tsunami? Didn’t the city of New Orlenas run an evacuation drill en early 2005? Weren’t the results a unacceptable failure to evacuate? Did the city ask for help in altering it’s evacuation plan, or did it just keep the plan as is and say “Oh well, if they don’t want to go, they don’t want to go”. Did the city ask FEMA for help in repairing this huge issue?

Did not the National Hurricane Center Director have to call Nagin at home Saturday night to plead: “Get people out of New Orleans.” Didn’t numerous officials urged Nagin to evacuate the city? Didn’t Nagin express his worried about the legality of ordering people out when New Orleans has few safe hurricane shelters? Didn’t the National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield in Miami called Nagin at home Saturday night (8/27)and told him: Get people out of New Orleans? Didn’t the Director Mayfield say ”I could never sleep if I felt like I didn’t do everything that I could to impress upon people the gravity of the situation,” Didn’t Mayfield say. “New Orleans is never going to be the same.” Didn’t a grim Nagin issued the mandatory evacuation order finally on Sunday 8/28, two days after he was urged to evacuate the city? Didn’t Nagin say “We are facing a storm that most of us have feared . . . God bless us.” Didn’t Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said “President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding”? How much more was Bush expected to do? Go there and carry Nagin and Blanco around by the hand and force them to do their jobs?

Did Nagin execute the evacuation plan as spelled out in the already identified “flawed” evacuation plan? Did Nagin consider using those school buses, trains, cruise ships BEFORE the hurricane? Did the Governor fail to authorize the National Guard until Tuesday after the hurricane? Did she even understand that SHE had to authorize the National Guard, that the president is not allowed to step in over state law? by law? Does she not understand the relationship between states and federal government?

What I would like to have seen on TV this morning:

My fellow Americans, we have a crisis. It is customary for a president to tour disaster areas, but I am not doing so. This is for several reasons. First and foremost, when I travel the security requirements are enormous because of the terrorist threat. The disaster areas are not equipped to handle this without seriously detracting from rescue and relief efforts. I have trusted assistants in all of the effected areas, and I am in constant communication with them. They are my eyes and ears, and they are guiding me in my efforts to bring help to people in need. My place is here in the oval office – coordinating the largest relief effort ever known, not out grandstanding and posturing for the news media.

In addition, we have an energy crisis. I would not feel right burning tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel in Air Force One while ordinary
Americans cannot afford to fill the tanks on their cars.

Today I am diverting all resources currently dedicated to the rebuilding of Iraq to the gulf coast. Americans live on the gulf coast, and
Americans come first.

Thank You.