A few days ago I almost posted another entry using this title, but decided, “Huh? A hurricane is somebody’s fault?” Despite what the global warming crowd says, hurricanes are an act of nature which we can neither cause nor influence.

However, after seeing the aftermath of destruction, the total breakdown of society, and incomprehensible acts of both heroism and carnage, I think that blame can be placed squarely at the doorstep of two individuals.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin

The first individual to be nominated by The Right Track for Total Incompentence in a Leading Role for an Upcoming Disaster is Mayor C. Ray Nagin.

The City of New Orleans had a specific plan for dealing with hurricanes. This plan was even posted on the city’s web site.

The very first section defines the goals of any emergency preparedness plan:

The goal of emergency preparedness training is the preparation of individuals and organizations for effective and coordinated response to emergencies.

And who’s in charge of this plan?

Under the direction of the Mayor, the Office of Emergency Preparedness will coordinate activities in accordance with the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan to assure the coordination of training programs for all planning, support, and response agencies [emphasis added].

It was the Mayor’s responsiblity to make sure everything was planned for, and that the plan was executed properly. Specifically, it was the job of the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness — who reports to the mayor, by the way — to:

Coordinate disaster preparedness training activities with others in such areas as shelter operations, transportation, hospitals and nursing homes, hurricane evacuation and recovery, etc. The OEP shall work in conjunction with all elements of the disaster response organization to enhance emergency response training. Activities shall include identification of School Board and Dept. Of Health staffs to be trained in shelter management operations, providing educational workshops and seminars to public and private entities, develop and direct committees assembled to address critical issues of emergency response, develop specialized informational brochures directed at select elements of the community, and other activities as may be identified.

Now I don’t know about anyone else, but this sounds to me like they should have had a plan together for the transportation of those who did not have a way out of town. If the poor are looking to blame someone, blame Mr. Nagin, who comes from the mean streets of New Orleans himself, a genuine poor boy made good. (I’m just guessing here, but I’ll bet Mr. Nagin and his fellow Democrats didn’t have any problem finding transportation when it came to getting those poor folks to the polls last election day.)

Further down in the City’s plan for disaster preparation we find this interesting tidbit:

The safe evacuation of threatened populations when endangered by a major catastrophic event is one of the principle reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. The thorough identification of at-risk populations, transportation and sheltering resources, evacuation routes and potential bottlenecks and choke points, and the establishment of the management team that will coordinate not only the evacuation but which will monitor and direct the sheltering and return of affected populations, are the primary tasks of evacuation planning. Due to the geography of New Orleans and the varying scales of potential disasters and their resulting emergency evacuations, different plans are in place for small-scale evacuations and for citywide relocations of whole populations.

They were aware of the problem, of the special situation that New Orleans was in, and the need to act quickly, but did nothing to get the people out of the city!

Mr. Nagin should be impeached, tried before a judge, found guilty by a jury of fellow citizens, tarred, feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail for gross incompetence if nothing else.

But in today’s print edition — only its third since Katrina — the New Orleans Times-Picayune tried to blame President Bush for not evacuating the people:

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

Ooh, Ooh, me, pick me [waving hand furiously in the air]! Let me answer!

Could it be, perhaps, that the President didn’t have the authority to intrude on a local and state matter? Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the President of the United States the authority to override the contemptible lack of response by an American mayor to this disaster. Does the Times-Picayune not know the responsibilities of its own city government? Did it not see this AP photo of school buses under water? Buses, incidentally, that could have taken the poor, infirm, and those otherwise without transportaion out of the city in a timely manner?

Michael Brown, head of FEMA

The second person I nominate is Michael Brown, head of FEMA. Mr. Brown is hereby nominated as worst supporting actor in a position of authority for his portrayal of an amiable dunce, totally clueless of the needs of an urgent situation. He gets an honorary mention for physical comedy for the delicate placement of his thumb squarely between his gluteus maximii when the disaster-stricken area of the Gulf Coast needed him most.

I couldn’t say it any better, so I’ll refer you to Michelle Malkin’s post “Memo to Bush: Fire Michael Brown” for the sordid details.

TD