4 Places Where the System Broke Down

(2 of 7)

1 The Mayor

Did C. Ray Nagin do everything he could to save his city?

Despite all appearances to the contrary, New Orleans had a plan. A week after the storm, Nagin summarized it for the Wall Street Journal: "Get people to higher ground and have the feds and the state airlift supplies to them--that was the plan, man." But in fact, the plan was more substantial. And it makes clear that the mayor was in charge when disaster struck. Nagin, a former executive with Cox Communications who was elected three years ago on the promise that he would purge the city of corruption, was supposed to prepare New Orleans for a hurricane and call for an evacuation. He was supposed to get help from his office of emergency preparedness, which was responsible for helping the elderly and sick get out of town and asking the state to request National Guard troops.

To date, we have heard much from the mayor about what the feds did not do; he has been less specific about what he did. He did not respond last week to repeated requests from TIME for an interview. But the paper trail shows that the mayor did indeed follow the agreed-upon course of action, more or less. It just wasn't a very good one for a city with so many poor people.

"This is not a test. This is the real deal," Nagin announced, urging people to evacuate at an afternoon press conference with the Governor less than 48 hours before the storm hit. Still, he didn't make the evacuation mandatory, as at least one nearby parish had done. According to a New Orleans Times-Picayune story written that day, the mayor said he was having his staff research whether he could issue a mandatory evacuation, which he said was unprecedented.

In fact, the city's plan clearly allows the mayor to do just that. But Nagin also hesitated because the city might be held liable for unnecessarily closing hotels and other businesses, according to the article. That was a practical, if coldhearted, calculus in a city like New Orleans. "Any place that has a lot of tourists, it's very expensive to evacuate," says Kate Hale, who was director of emergency management for Dade County, Fla., when Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992. "It costs $1 million a coastal mile to evacuate. You're shutting down businesses. It's not something you do casually."

But it's not clear that calling for an evacuation earlier would have made a huge difference. As with every hurricane, some people don't leave, for all kinds of reasons, including that they simply can't. In fact the plan itself estimates that 100,000 residents would have no means of transport. At the press conference, Nagin said the Superdome would be a shelter of last resort for people with special needs. But even then, they were expected to come with enough food and drinks to last three or four days, Nagin said. The city's website advised people who needed a ride out of town to "try to go with a neighbor, friend or relative." Those who had to go to the shelters were advised to "eat a full meal before arriving."