Author Topic: New Orleans evacuation plan was never delivered by FEMA  (Read 2096 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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New Orleans evacuation plan was never delivered by FEMA
« on: September 18, 2005, 10:30:00 AM »
New Orleans evacuation plan was never delivered by FEMA

Congress issued the order in 1997

By Rita Beamish
ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 18, 2005

As much as eight years ago, Congress ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop a plan for evacuating New Orleans during a massive hurricane, but the money instead went to studying the causeway bridge that spans the city's Lake Pontchartrain, officials say.

The outcome provides one more example of the government's failure to prepare for a massive but foreseeable catastrophe, said the lawmaker who helped secure the money for FEMA to develop the evacuation plan.

"They never used it for the intended purpose," said former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La. "The whole intent was to give them resources so they could plan an evacuation of New Orleans that anticipated that a very large number of people would never leave."

In Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, attention has focused on the inability of local and federal officials to evacuate or prepare for the large number of poor people, many of them minorities, who had no access to transportation and remained behind.

That possibility was one of the concerns that led Congress in 1997 to set aside $500,000 for FEMA to create "a comprehensive analysis and plan of all evacuation alternatives for the New Orleans metropolitan area."

Frustrated two years later that nothing materialized, Congress strengthened its directive. This time it ordered "an evacuation plan for a Category 3 or greater storm, a levee break, flood or other natural disaster for the New Orleans area."

The $500,000 that Congress appropriated for the evacuation plan went to a commission that studied future options for the 24-mile bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, FEMA spokesman Butch Kinerney said.

The hefty report produced by the Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission "primarily was not about evacuation," said Robert Lambert, the general manager for the bridge expressway. "In general, it was an overview of all the things we need to do" for the causeway through 2016.

Lambert said he could not trace how or if FEMA money came to the commission. Nor could Shelby LaSalle, a causeway consulting engineer who worked on the plan.

LaSalle said it would be "ludicrous" to consider his report an evacuation plan, though it had a transportation evacuation section, dated Dec. 19, 1997. That part was tacked on mainly to promote the causeway for future designation as an official evacuation route, LaSalle said.

"We didn't do anything for FEMA," he added.

Asked why the congressional mandate was never fulfilled, Barry Scanlon, senior vice president in the consulting firm of former FEMA Director James Lee Witt, said he believes the agency did what it needed when it gave the money to the state.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Anonymous

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New Orleans evacuation plan was never delivered by FEMA
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2005, 04:51:00 PM »
Please provide the link to this article?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline FrankWalton

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New Orleans evacuation plan was never delivered by FEMA
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2005, 06:16:00 PM »