Is the BBC lying here about Katrina evacuation?

[Nikki Stone 1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4216508.stm



"It was announced at a news conference by the Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday 28 August, less than 24 hours before the hurricane struck early the next morning.

The question has to be asked: Why was it not ordered earlier?

The Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said at the same news conference that President Bush had called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation.

The night before, National Hurricane Director Max Mayfield had called Mayor Nagin to tell him that an evacuation was needed. Why were these calls necessary? "

[chebychev]

1. Of course the're lying.

Fucking Bush doesn't care about African Americans.

[NYCGirl]

2. That's not a news article, that's an editorial.

They call it "analysis". And yes, they're mistaken.

[Nikki Stone 1]

4. Please supply a link refuting this.

Thank you

[NYCGirl]

7. Here are a couple:

http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline

http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

[Birthmark]

3. Yeah,

Cities can afford to evacuate the very moment a hurricane threatens. Had they evacuated NO, say 72 hours before the storm struck and the storm then turned, the wailing and gnashing of teeth would break more records than the hurricane. And hurricanes do change direction.

Ask me or anyone else in FL about Charley.

[pitohui]

13. charley is a great example

many ppl were trapped in their cars on an evac route that put them in the path of the storm

i've heard different #s of how many ppl died in their cars in charley, from a handful to dozens, but it isn't a trivial issue

storms often turn east, say the storm had turned & there were in fact bus loads of poor ppl trapped on bridges in a high wind

bushco would still be pointing fingers & playing the blame game

so in my humble opinion--
the reality is that not everyone can safely get out of this city, so the damn levees need to be fully funded & the damn nat'l guard needs to be building up its own country instead of tearing up iraq

i'm not aware where ray nagin can force the republican congress to fully fund the army corps of engineers, damn, that would be some powerful black man

[Birthmark]

17. Yup. Charley was a bastard, fer sure.

Around 11 am, it was a Cat 2 forecast to go to Tampa which I could ignore. :) By early afternoon, it was a Cat 4 and had radically changed direction. By 11 pm, I was cringing in my interior bathroom with the eye passing over my house...on the opposite side of the peninsula from Tampa. We barely had time to get ready.

[ThoughtCriminal]

5. Look at the forcast Strike Probabilities

Looking at the "Strike Probabilities *" from NOAA, it was a very tough call. When the voluntary evacuation was ordered on Saturday afternoon, the stike probabilty was 21%. Even on Sunday morning when Manditory evacuation wa ordered, the probablitity was still only 35%.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4717614&mesg_id=4717614

*This is the estimated chance the the center of the hurricane will pass within 65 nautical miles of a location in the next 72 hours.

[tom_paine]

6. BBC got it wrong or perhaps Operation Mockingbird is now international

http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

"Operation Mockingbird"

http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_louise_01_03_03_mockingbird.html

[AX10]

8. I find it hard to believe that the BBC would accidently get...

something this big, wrong.

[Garbo 2004]

11. They were getting their info from an AP story. n/t

[Nikki Stone 1]

9. Sent an email to columnist with the snopes link

Thanks

[Garbo 2004]

10. God there were many threads on that before. The idea that Bush

asked her to call for a mandatory evac (which is how it's been interpreted by many) is from a sloppily written AP article that covered Blanco's press conference where she and Nagin announced mandatory evac on the 28th. At the press conference she said that right before they stepped out to conduct the conference Bush called to express his concern for the people and to encourage all the folks in the path of the storm to evacauate.

The press conference transcript is available through lexis nexis but relevant portions have been quoted verbatem in some places. (TPMcafe as I recall.)

Saturday on the tv I saw Nagin was pushing for voluntary evacuation and said they would likely go to mandatory evacuation Sunday morning. He was all over telling folks to get out. Legal issues held up the mandatory order like whether as mayor he had the authority to order mandatory evacuation and also exempt hospitals and certain businesses like hotels (which they were in the mandatory order). (Liability issues.) Calling for a mandatory evacuation is great, but without the resources and ability to enforce it....

Just another red herring by the media that's been trotted around.

[pitohui]

12. traditionally there is never a mandatory evac order for orleans parish

the mandatory evacuation order given by nagin was the first ever given to my knowledge, reason, because there has never been a way to completely evacuate the city because of the large pop. of poor, elderly, & disabled who do not own cars & cannot drive

there is no use giving an order that can't be followed, if bush did ask nagin (a relatively inexperienced mayor) the suggestion to make it mandatory, i wouldn't be surprised, it was setting nagin up for a no-win situation, he would be the fall guy no matter what happened

this is just paper-shuffling, with or w.out a mandatory evac order, ppl who can't drive ended up in the same situation, in attics or at the superdome

it would have ended the same way if georges in 1998 had hit the city, fortunately, that storm turned aside at the last moment but not before the interior of the superdome suffered extensive damage from ppl unable to leave the city

i should mention that in past evacuations, contraflow had never worked well, there was NO reason to believe that large #s of ppl could be bused out of the city w/out stranding 1000s of ppl on the roads in high winds

nagin & blanco are almost a victim of their own success, contraflow has never worked so well to move so many ppl out of the city out by car, there were issues as recently as dennis

if 1000s of (white) ppl had been stranded & killed by wind because of the traffic jams experienced during ivan etc. then i guess blanco & nagin would look better to the know-nothing, do-nothing media

but they learned from ea. evac. & worked w. mississippi to perfect the contraflow for ppl who could evac. by car

many lives were lost but less lives than would have been lost if this storm had been georges (1998) or even ivan (last yr)

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. It looks like Nagin told the truth

when he claimed that 80% of the city had evacuated before the storm. When even in the models, the best they could get was 60%. 20% more is an enormous improvement, especially considering the lack of response from the Federal Government, even when it was requested.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Which bit are people saying is a lie?

The questions "why was it no ordered earlier" and "why were these calls necessary" may have good answers (that the hurricane was increasing in strength, and that you have to have some chance of organising the evacuation - policing it, doing what you can for those withotu personal transport), but what's the lie?

From the Times-Picayune (as referenced by Snopes):

"The governor also said that President Bush had telephoned shortly before the 9:30 a.m. press conference began. She said Bush said he was “very concerned about the storm’s impact” and urged Blanco and Nagin to order the evacuation. "

From the St. Petersburg Times (as referenced by Snopes):

"On Saturday night, Mayfield was so worried about Hurricane Katrina that he called the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi and the mayor of New Orleans. On Sunday, he even talked about the force of Katrina during a video conference call to President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas."

So what are people saying the BBC is lying about?

[pretzel4gore]

16. upper class twits...

the bbc (and cbc) are both full of upper class twits who know the bush slant and beef it up, as if it's from on high....fortunately, common people see the class difference regarding NOLA; even the rightwing republicans, and the more the gopig party line gets aired, the further away these organizations will be from reestablishing themselves as honest news orgs....