Bush did the same thing,...the issue is the total lack of preparedness by the state and local Govt.
Agreed Gov Bush was way better then Blanco...she even recognized that, the people of LA did as well...and elected a Republican to succeed her
The former head of FEMA, Michael Brown, recently blamed much of the failed response to Katrina on the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco. NBC Senior Investigative Correspondent Lisa Myers takes a hard look at Governor Blanco's performance.
www.nbcnews.com
"I believe we are prepared," she said in Jefferson Parish on Aug. 27. "That's the one thing that I've always been able to brag about."
Though experts had warned it would take 48 hours to evacuate New Orleans, Blanco did not order a mandatory evacuation that Saturday.
"We're going to pray that the impact will soften," she said.
Blanco and the mayor waited until Sunday, Aug. 28 — only 20 hours before Katrina came ashore — to order a mandatory evacuation, the first of what disaster experts and Louisiana insiders say were serious mistakes by the governor.
"It certainly appeared that there was a lot of indecisiveness exhibited by the governor in the early stages of the disaster," says Louisiana State Democratic Senator Donald Cravins.
A key criticism: the governor's slowness in requesting federal troops. She told the president she needed help, but it wasn't until Wednesday, Aug. 31 that she specifically asked for 40,000 troops.
That day, in a whispered conversation with her staff caught on camera, the governor appears to second-guess herself.
"I really need to call for the military," Blanco tells an aide.
"And I should have started that in the first call," Blanco adds.
Another key mistake, experts say, was Blanco's lateness in getting the Louisiana National Guard, which she commands, on the streets to try to establish security.
"It would have been better if it had happened sooner," says Jane Bullock, a former FEMA official during the Clinton administration.