Ray Nagin

File:Orleans ray nagin.jpg

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, LA

Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. (born June 11, 1956 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is properly the Mayor of Orleans Parish but is more commonly referred to as the Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana. Orleans Parish is coextensive with the City of New Orleans. He was elected in May 2002, succeeding Marc Morial. Nagin gained international prominence in 2005 as the mayor of New Orleans during and immediately following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city.

Biography

Before his election, Nagin was a member of the Republican Party and had little political experience; he was a vice president and general manager at Cox Communications, a cable communications company and subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Nagin did give contributions periodically to candidates, namely President George W. Bush and former Republican U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, as well as to Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston earlier in the decade.

Days before filing for the New Orleans Mayoral race in February 2002, Nagin switched his party registration to the Democratic Party. Shortly before the primary election, an endorsement praising Nagin as a reformer by Gambit Magazine gave him crucial momentum that would carry through for the primary election and runoff. In the first round of the crowded mayoral election in February 2002, Nagin received first place with 29% of the vote, against such opponents as Police Chief Richard Pennington, State Senator Paulette Irons, City Councilman Troy Carter and others. In the runoff with Pennington in May 2002, Nagin won with 59% of the vote. His campaign was largely self-financed.

Shortly after taking office, Nagin launched an anti-corruption campaign within city government, which included crackdowns on the city's Taxicab Bureau and Utilities Department. Nagin also made a controversial endorsement of current Republican U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal in the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff over current Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco, and only reluctantly endorsed U.S. Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential race.

Nagin received a B.S. degree in accounting from Tuskegee University in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Tulane University in 1994. He and his wife, Seletha Smith Nagin, have three children: Jeremy, Jarin, and Tianna.

Hurricane Katrina

President George W. Bush and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin September 2, 2005.

On August 26, 2005, the National Hurricane Center predicted for the first time that Hurricane Katrina would become a Category 4 storm, and thus exceed the design limits of the New Orleans levees [1]. That same day, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency [2].

On August 27, 2005, Governor Blanco sent a request for federal assistance and $9 million in aid to President Bush, which stated, "...I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal." Also in the requesting letter, the governor stated: "In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan."[3][4] [5]

FEMA, in a press release dated August 27, stated that President Bush authorized the allocation of federal resources, "following a review of FEMA's analysis of the state's request for federal assistance." [6] A White House press release of the same date also acknowledges this authorization of aid by President Bush. [7]

On August 28, Governor Blanco sent a second letter to President Bush, which increased the amount of aid requested to $130 million. [8]

Mayor Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation request late in the day on August 27. He was hesitant to order a mandatory evacuation because of concerns about the city's liability for closing hotels and other businesses. [9]

On August 28, Katrina became a Category 4 hurricane [10], and Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation, opening the Superdome to those who couldn't leave. State governor-controlled National Guard troops were stationed inside the Superdome to screen refugees for weapons [11], yet the situation within the Superdome was very difficult for evacuees and city government could not cope with the problems.[12]

Katrina shifted eastward approximately 15 miles from its expected landfall point, which was to be a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, only a couple of hours prior to making landfall, minimizing the anticipated wind damage to the city. The resultant floods arrived many hours after the worst of the hurricane had passed, breeching and undercutting the levees in numerous locations and quickly inundating a wide area of New Orleans. An estimated 90,000 were still in the city when the hurricane made landfall on August 29, causing severe damage to most of New Orleans.

Criticism of Relief Efforts

On September 1, 2005, Nagin expressed his frustration and anger at the response of other government officials and the lack of aid to the city of New Orleans in an emotional interview with Garland Robinette, on radio station WWL:

You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

[...]

And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives. And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.

[...]

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.

[...]

There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.

[...]

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

[...]

But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

[...]

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

Expanding on his statements, he added:

The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. [13]

Mayor Nagin again voiced his criticism of the state's response to the crisis in a CNN interview on September 5, "...what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate." He further defended his response to Katrina in stating, "Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens." [14]

On September 4, President Bush responded to Nagin's criticism, stating that the storm's magnitude "created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable." [15].

Criticism of Nagin

Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank, criticized Nagin's preparation for the hurricane in a Wall Street journal op-ed claiming "Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation." [16] However, when asked to confirm the claim that Bush had allegedly persuaded Nagin to order the evacuation Whitehouse press secretary Scott McClellan stated that he had no information to this effect. In fact, the only reported conversation between Bush and Blanco regarding the hurricane prior to its arrival had taken place immediately before the mandatory evacuation was announced at a pre-arranged press conference [17].

Mr.Williams, a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, further raised questions about the extent to which state and city officials refined and developed evacuation plans for the city.

"The Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved."

External links

• The City of New Orleans
• Campaign contributions made by Ray Nagin
• Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses', CNN transcript and the audio of WWL-AM radio interview.
• Profile on CityMayors.com
• Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan Supplement
• Lampoon style site with many actual Nagin audio cuts