BLOG PLAN TO BE USED FOR LATEST NOLA EVACUATION

Mayor Nagin finally gives in to the fatherly advice of the feds...again. Instead of his original plan to lure residents and tourists back in this week, he's going to get people out of town--using the JYB plan this time. From the Politically Incorrect Mom:

“The city requested 200 buses to assist in an evacuation. They would start running 48 hours before landfall from the downtown convention center and a stadium in Algiers”

Gee, I wonder where they got that idea?? I’d like to see the Mayor himself out there with a shop-vac, drying out the buses that weren’t good enough for him to use when he let hundreds of people die in their homes during and after Katrina.

You can read the article yourself, but I’m sure you get my primary rant. The Mayor of New Orleans wasn’t just under stress when he made poor decisions and used horrible judgment in not evacuating his citizens before Katrina. It would appear that he’s just a complete idiot who wouldn’t know good judgment if it bit him in the butt. It wasn’t until federal officials, including President Bush, “URGED” Nagin (for a couple of days) to reconsider letting people back in to [New Orleans] that he suspended his “re-opening”. It’s like a teenager is in charge and the President has to guide him in the right direction or he’ll keep making the same mistakes over and over. Even when he DID reverse his decision to allow people to re-enter, his reasons seem to be related to Tropical Storm Rita causing more damage – not the utter insanity of allowing people to re-enter when much of the city is not cleaned up and the mayor can't even provide healthcare or emergency services to the citizens. ...

I say it’s time for the feds to take a level of authority that matches their level of responsibility in this rescue/recovery/rebuilding effort. People just end up getting shot in the foot when they’re given a boat-load of responsibility and no authority to carry it out.

If the federal government really does change the rules, giving them the authority to step in and take over in cases of natural disaster – something the President hinted to in his speech, but I have a hard time envisioning it actually becoming a reality, they’re going to have to develop a protocol that will keep idiots like Nagin from muddying the process so much.

I think we’ve given him enough rope and he’s managed to hang everyone around him – the feds need to tell him to sit down and shut up so they can do their job.

What's amazing is that Gov Blanco still couldn't even straighten Nagin out this time before the feds had to step in once again to protect New Orleans from their local leaders. At least he had the sense to know he would be universally mocked, even in the mainstream media, if he didn't use buses this time around.

UPDATE: Joe Bastardi of Accuweather was on FNC predicting another monster CAT 4/5 landfall in Texas--"A worse hit for the Texas coast than Carla.” He was the first to call Katrina, but I hope he's wrong on this one. As was the case last time, most meteorologists think he's crazy predicting a CAT 4/5 so early.

UPDATE: Now everyone else is on the Bastardi bandwagon, agreeing that Rita will bomb from CAT 2 to 4 by Weds. The Texas National Guard is staging and ready to roll out of Austin. Galveston even had a plan to uses buses for the most vulnerable before the NOLA Katrina fiasco. So it looks like Texans are not planning to gamble and sit around and attacking Bush, FEMA and Fed troops if they lose.

MORE: Not only could Galveston be wiped out with a direct hit, but models show potential "massive devastation" in Houston. Up to $50 billion in damage. The exact landfall spot and strength for Rita is still a longshot prediction though. Currently it's headed south of Galveston/Houston and more towards Corpus Christi, which would also be devastated by a CAT 4 direct hit. Here's hoping other meteorologists are right that it will slow down later and hit the less populated coast at just a CAT 3.