Originally Posted by vautrain

I don't believe that's the case. New Orleans was a long shot when Katrina was hitting Florida.



I apologize for the assumption. I don't live in the area, but I have plenty of family who live in Houston, and as far south as the gulf coast. My sister lived in New Orleans until this time last week. Family members in Texas are now housing my sister, as well as several friends from New Orleans.



The final chapter has yet to be written, but my contention is the mayor could have evacuated some people, only at the expense of the ones who remained. In other words, police and other resources would have been devoted to the evacuation process (and many would have had to leave with the evacuees) and the remaining people would have been left with nothing- probably not even the shelter of the Superdome.



Well, maybe if the Army Corps of Engineers levee projects hadn't been underfunded over the past thirty years, we wouldn't be having this discussion.



I wouldn't say they didn't do anything. Whether their plan was adequate, I don't know. I do know there was no way given the timeline and resources, as I understand them, to evacuate even half the people that needed to be evacuated. Obviously, the best case scenario would have been to evacuate 500,000 residents in 24 hours, and to have had Cat5-resistant levees. But, that didn't happen.

Hospital evacuations are tricky. It's not even as simple as loading everyone on buses. Many or most patients need to be evacuated by ambulance, and many other patients need to be airlifted out. I have a close family member involved in emergency planning at a major hospital here, it's not an easy thing to do.