The Washington Post issued a correction in its story over the weekend that stated Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco had not declared a state of emergency in New Orleans.
Apparently she did declare a state of emergency on 26 August 2005.
That said, there is certainly more than enough blame to go around for the apparently slow response to Hurricane Katrina.
The primary responsibility still has to fall on the state and municipal officials. It is their responsibility to ensure certain core services, such as law enforcement can survive. It's not like New Orleans hasn't had a recent hurricane emergency.
This link to a 2004 Associated Press story about the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan sounds eerily familiar, except that this time, Mayor Ray Nagin was pretty quick to blame everyone else for his obvious failings.
The SuperDome issue arose in 1998 and again in 2004, just as it did in 2005. The difference this time is that no priority was given to making sure the state-owned facility could actually support 15, 000 with food and water even for a very short period of time.
While it is true that members of the Louisiana National Guard has been largely deployed to Iraq as of October 2004, the United States Department of Defense has other resources available in and around Louisiana that could have filled the role played by the Louisiana Guard. This would have required a bit of co-ordination between Baton Rouge and Washington, but the current political fracas between the Democrats and Republicans over the New Orleans monkey suggests contingency plans were never developed. Spread the blame for that failure around to however it can touch.
There are 3, 700 Louisiana National Guard soldiers in Iraq, according to the Washington Post. They are due to start their normal rotation home this week.
There are currently 58, 000 Active and Guard soldiers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama providing emergency support to residents affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Local angle: The United States Naval Ship Pollux is one of the U.S. Navy ships providing support in the Gulf. It is carrying fuel for military and civilian emergency agencies. A previous ship carrying that name ran aground on the Burin Peninsula, near St. Lawrence, in the early 1940s.
There is now video available on CNN of water rescue efforts including pictures of bloated corpses floating. Here's a link to the video of a piece of Christiane Amanpour's story. If it doesn't work go to CNN.
