3:54 P.M. - FEMA Spokesperson: I'm probably going to lie awake at night for a long time second guessing how we responded.
3:52 P.M. - FEMA spokesperson: The magnitude of this overwhelmed us.
3:14 P.M. - St. Bernard Parish officials say that FEMA has not called them yet...five days after the storm.
Robinette interview with Nagin was unforgettable radio
By Dave Walker TV columnist (full text in comments)
8 comments:
Friday, September 02, 2005
Robinette interview with Nagin was unforgettable radio
By Dave Walker
TV columnist
Exasperated with the pace of relief response to his
dying city’s escalating crisis, New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin hit bottom during a Thursday afternoon interview
on New Orleans news-talk station WWL 870 AM.
Sounding royally pissed -- to borrow a descriptive he
deployed on the air during the interview – Nagin
unloaded to host Garland Robinette.
Other language Nagin used wouldn’t be normal fare for
conservative WWL, but normal blew out of town on
Monday.
To set the scene:
The naval support promised to save the city hadn’t
materialized.
Thousands of citizens were stranded at the Louisiana
Superdome and Ernest N. Morial Convention Center,
desperate for food and water and a ride out.
Outlaws had apparently taken control of the streets.
“You know the reason why the looters got out of
control?” Nagin said. “We have most of our resources
saving people. They were stuck in attics, man, old
ladies. You pull off the doggone ventilator and look
down and they’re standing there in water up to their
fricking neck.”
Relief managers, starting with the U.S president and
his flyover inspection of the Hurricane Katrina
damage, had let the city and its citizens down.
“They don’t have a clue what’s going on down here,”
he said. “They flew down here one time two days after
the doggone event was over, with TV cameras and AP
reporters, with all kinds of goddamn excuses.
“Excuse my French, everybody in America, but I am
pissed.”
Robinette asked: “What do you need?”
“I need reinforcements,” he said. “I need troops, man.
I need 500 buses.”
The relief efforts made so far had been pathetically
insufficient, Nagin said.
“They’re thinking small, man, and this is a major,
MAJOR deal,” Nagin said. “God is looking down on this and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are
going to pay the price. Every day that we delay,
people are dying, and they’re dying by the hundreds,
I’m willing to bet you.”
Rolling now, Nagin described distress calls he’d
heard. Nagin mocked the efforts to block the 17th Street
Canal breach.
“I flew over that thing yesterday and it was in the
same shape it was in after the storm hit,” he said.
“There is nothing happening there. They’re feeding the
public a line of bull and they’re spinning and people
are dying down here.”
With the national media obsessing at that exact
moment on the lawlessness in the streets of New
Orleans, Nagin seemed to say that the reports seemed
exaggerated and misleading (the looters were
desperate people “trying to find food and water, the
majority of them,” he said) and speculated that most
of the worst offenses were being committed by the
city’s junkie population.
Before Katrina, “drugs flowed in and out of New
Orleans and the surrounding area so freely it was
scary to me,” he said. “Now (the users) are walking
around this city looking for a fix and that’s the
reason why they’re breaking into hospitals and
drugstores looking for something to take the edge off.
“It’s drug-starving crazy addicts that are wreaking
havoc, and we don’t have the manpower to adequately
deal with it.”
Nagin then lashed out at the federal government’s
priorities.
In this case, it hadn’t been able to mobilize when its
citizens when were in peril.
“We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq,
lickity-quick,” he said. “After 9/11 we gave the
President unprecedented powers, lickity-quick, to take
care of New York and other places.”
New Orleans is just as special and just as wounded, if not more so.
Idea: In addition to 500 buses, let’s get 500,000
bumper stickers that say, “Screw Fallujah. Save New
Orleans.”
Nagin didn’t say that.
“You mention New Orleans anywhere in the world and
everybody lights up,” Nagin continued. “You mean to
tell me that (a place) where 1,000 people died and
1,000 more are dying every day, we can’t figure out a
way to authorize the resources that we need?
“Come on man, I’m not one of those drug addicts.”
Nagin called for a moratorium on all press conferences
until the resources to save New Orleans begin to
materialize.
“Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here,” he
said. “They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Get
off your asses and let’s do something and let’s fix
the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this
country.”
Nagin sounded depleted. Robinette, too.
It had been an exchange of only about a dozen minutes,
but nobody who heard it will ever forget it.
“I’m at the point now, where it don’t matter,”
Nagin said. “People are dying. They don’t have homes. They
don’t have jobs.
“The city of New Orleans will never be the same.”
After sixteen seconds of dead air, Robinette broke the
silence, anguish filling his voice.
“We’re both pretty speechless here,” Robinette said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ve got to go,” Nagin said.
“Keep in touch,” Robinette said. “Keep in touch.”
Note: The Nagin interview can be heard in its entirety at http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/
09/02/katrina.nagin/index.html.
6:26 P.M. - WASHINGTON (AP): Thousands of people stranded in two swamped parishes south of New Orleans are just as desperate for food, water and supplies as those trapped in the city, but they can't get the attention of federal disaster relief officials, Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., said Friday.
And to make matters worse, Melancon said in a telephone interview, he was unable to deliver that message to President Bush during his visit to New Orleans on Friday because the president's security detail couldn't clear him in to meet with Bush on Air Force One.
After waiting 90 minutes while a U.S. marshal using a satellite phone repeatedly tried, and failed, to contact Bush's plane -- located just 300 yards away at New Orleans' Armstrong airport -- a disgusted Melancon left.
"After an hour and a half of that, and two hours to get down there, I am now back on my way, without seeing the president, not accomplishing anything in my mind today. I've wasted time while people are dying in South Louisiana," he said. "It's not personal to the president. It's just that this whole thing has been handled terribly."
Melancon said the communications problems that kept him from meeting with Bush are symptomatic of the problems that have plagued the slow-moving federal response to the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina.
I heard a woman today, who's family is trapped in New Orleans, comment on Mayor Nagin's statements.
She said, "The man stopped being a politician. He's talking like a human being. He IS a human being. That's all we want. Real people! Real help."
Agnes, Ray earned my respect by staying in the city and living under the same conditions as his citizens. Like a true captain, he stayed with his sinking ship. I think the lady you quote is dead on.
Waiting for my flight from San Francisco to Orlando yesterday, I was sitting across from a gentleman with a FEMA badge around his neck. I watched him for about 15 min read his book, speak on his telephone, etc. When it was time to board, we both got up and were face to face. Restraining myself (because its not his fault after all), I just said-"You might not want to wear that badge on the outside of your shirt right now". He looked at me, stared for a bit, then looked at the floor and tucked his badge in. He looked up at at me and I just smiled back at him and said "thanks-do your best." We both had tears in our eyes...
Dont forget that even though we may not have lived this event and gone thru this hell first hand-for a lot of us, its almost as if we did. Please understand that and if your feeling overly depressed or out of sorts-get help.
J, great post and good advice. I wish we could fast forward to the time that the full scope of this tragedy is known. Katrina may very well move to the top of the list of natural disasters in our nation's history. Some understand this, others don't have enough information to grasp the full significance (which quite frankly I don't think anyone can fully understand the complete big picture at this time--the issue is just too large and still too unknown as of today).
I for one am wearing so much emotion so close to the surface that it doesnt take much to get me going-with grief, anger and happiness... usually all at the same time.
I do have a support system that relies on my family and my friends (thanks guys :) ) and I'm not afraid to express my feelings, shared or not with anyone. Likewise-I'm happy listening and let me tell you-I'm doing a lot of that too!
Hope-Today there is Hope again and it could not have come soon enough!
J, today is the first day of Hope in the city. Long, long way to go but action is finally occuring.
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