04 September 2005

Maturity, Responsibility and Accountiblity?

Asked whether he himself bore responsibility for the debacle, Nagin responded: “I'll take what responsibility I have to take. But let me ask you this: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a Category 5 bearing down on you, and the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people… and there's never been a mandatory evacuation in this city's history. “I did that, and I elevated the level of stress to the citizens. I said to make sure you have a fricking axe in your house[MATURITY]. And as a last resort, there are no buildings in the city to withstand a Category 3 storm other than the Superdome, and when that filled up, we started sending them to the convention center. You tell me what else I was supposed to do.[RESPOSIBILTY]” Nagin said the government needs to learn quickly from its nightmarishly slow reaction to Katrina. “Our response to a significant disaster is appalling,” he said. “What went down is a national and state disgrace [ACCOUNTIBLITY].” The mayor said his next fear is that the decomposing bodies of those who died in the storm and its wake will spread disease, via mosquitoes, across the region if the corpses aren't picked up soon. Again, he feels the response has lagged. “I requested a crop duster as soon as possible,” the mayor said. “I still don't see a plane flying."

MATURITY = Questionable
RESPONSIBILITY = Not His
ACCOUNTIBLITY = None

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