Ragan Postcard

Why Some People Stayed Behind

For any rational person watching the debacle in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast from a distance, a logical question is "why did some people stay behind?" The media has played up the socio-economic angle, that many people did not have transportation. That's true - and perhaps the most compelling for television images - but it's not the whole story. Not by a nautical mile.

First, the storm turned toward New Orleans late during a Friday new cycle. Early media reports had assured people that a trough of high pressure would veer the storm elsewhere. If you missed the news, you were caught unaware by the deadly change in direction. There were no sirens, no police on the street urging people to evacuate.

Even I did not know. That Friday night, I was out entertaining members of the IABC Executive Committee who were in town for a meeting when I bumped into an acquaintance. He expressed surprise that I was not home making preparations? "For what?" I replied. I had been in commercial establishments all night and nary a word of warning was expressed. Police in the French Quarter were on the beat, but not one urged the crowd to go home. A killer offshore was taking aim, and many people were simply unaware.

Second, there was a local attitude of laissez-faire. Some people who had evacuated for Hurricanes Georges and Ivan - which jogged at the last minute and spared New Orleans - felt a false sense of security. They had become insulated to the warning signs, immune to the communication. The headaches of traffic and lodging which had plagued the last two evacuations likely remained top of mind for many, and escalating gas prices only made the situation more difficult.

For anyone familiar with behavior-based safety, this willingness to risk life and limb in the face of a storm four-states wide and packing a powerful punch is tantamount to civic suicide.

But the biggest factor, in my humble opinion, was the weak and indecisive messaging by leaders. They vacillated in the face of disaster, delivering wishy-washy statements watered down by lawyers. Calling for a citywide evacuation is no small undertaking, and the city was clearly unprepared. Rather than plainly state that people should leave, they rattled off impotent messages: if you have the means to go, now might be a nice time to go visit someone 400 miles northwest while this thing passes. They had a hard time making up their minds that this was a real emergency.

The clincher for me personally came at 10:40 p.m. on Saturday night when the mayor appeared live on television. The city wasn't calling for an evacuation, it was merely looking into a way legally that it could possibly maybe potentially call one in the morning. A sharp reporter picked up on this and asked if legal concerns were the only thing preventing him from calling a mandatory evacuation. The mayor mumbled something about exposure and liability if the city could not marshal the resources to provide transportation in time.

Politics before people. Liability before life. A legal system that betrays timely communication.

Studies indicate that it would take 72 hours to evacuate the New Orleans metropolitan area, but the order didn't come until less than 12 hours before the onset of gale force winds.

Thank God we had pulled the trigger and fled in the middle of the night.

posted by CP for Ragan @ 8:50 AM