Response to Hurricane Katrina
Hundreds of firefighters from other cities who volunteered to help in the response were relocated to Atlanta and sat through two days of presentations on sexual harassment and the history of FEMA. At the federal level, the government did not waive the Stafford Act, which requires localities to contribute 10 percent of the cost of reconstruction and clean-up projects, until May; it was later immediately waived after September 11th and the arrival of Hurricane Andrew. As with the 17th street canal breach of the levees around St. Bernard’s Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward, the Bush Administration, and especially, Mayor Nagin were singled out for the way the anticipation of the storm and its aftermath were handled. It turns out that Mayor Nagin did not order the evacuation of the city unless than 24 hours before Katrina’s landfall, even though nearby, the Plaquemines Parish had ordered an evacuation a day later. As for President Bush, on Tuesday, August 30th, he claimed that he thought Louisiana had dodged a bullet when in fact the White House had been informed the night before that the levees in New Orleans had broken and the city was flooding.
There were however other efforts made to alleviate the devastation. Then- New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, offered 200 members of his state’s National Guard to help Louisiana the day Katrina hit, but a letter from Washington authorizing the move did not arrive until five days later. Before the storm hit, Amtrak ran equipment out of the city and had a train with rooms for several hundred evacuees, and of which they offered the spots to the city. Officials declined, and with that, the train left with no passengers.
