By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY
In a new memoir, former New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin recalls the chaos that reigned after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005.
By Leo Sorel, for USA TODAY
Ray Nagin, right, meets with host Jon Stewart before filming a segment for 'The Daily Show' to promote his new book. The former mayor says that in some ways, New Orleans is better now.
By Leo Sorel, for USA TODAY
Ray Nagin, right, meets with host Jon Stewart before filming a segment for 'The Daily Show' to promote his new book. The former mayor says that in some ways, New Orleans is better now.
The storm had overwhelmed the city's levees and flooded it. The federal government was indecisive, a Republican president quarelling with a Democratic governor. City residents were rioting. Surrounding communities had closed their doors.
"Hurricane Katrina left us on a quarantined island of sorts where we were surrounded by evil and ill intentions," Nagin writes in Katrina's Secrets; Storms After the Storm, Vol. 1, due Wednesday. "Our neighbors were not very neighborly when it really counted. They along with others helped make an intolerable Katrina experience akin to being in hell without ice water."
While he uses the opportunity to throw missiles at federal, state and local authorities, Nagin also acknowledges mistakes of his own.
"We all had issues, because it was such a catastrophic, historic event," he says. "We all did some good things. We all had shortcomings."
Nagin faults himself for not calling a mandatory evacuation before the storm eight to 10 hours earlier than he did. He says he should have pushed the federal government for someone to be put in charge of the recovery sooner, a job that went to Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honor� after several days. And he says a 50% jump in the suicide rate shows he should have devoted more resources to mental health services.
Dana Perino, who was President Bush's deputy press secretary at the time, says the confusion was evident in a meeting on Air Force One with Bush, Nagin and Louisiana's governor then, Kathleen Blanco.
"President Bush asked, 'Who's in charge of security?'" Perino says. "They both pointed at each other, the governor and Nagin."
The former TV executive, now working on disaster preparedness and green energy, recalls, "I had to keep pinching myself to remind myself that we were in the United States. I never would have thought that this could have happened."
The book covers the first 30 days after the storm. The outspoken Nagin says he chose to self-publish on CreateSpace, a division of Amazon.com, after contacts with publishers left him worried about the editing process, feeling uncertain "that my voice would come out at the end of the day."
Amid the horrors, the storm and aftermath also brought "lessons from God," he says. At one point, the crowd outside the Superdome began surging against police barricades held by National Guard troops, demanding supplies and transportation out of the city, Nagin recounts. They were on the verge of rioting.
"Right when this started, a rain cloud came over the Superdome, and it cooled the people off," he recalls. "The tensions were reduced, and we lived to fight another day."
In some ways, Nagin says, New Orleans is better off:
?More educated young entrepreneurs are moving in, and homeownership is up in a city once dominated by rentals.
?The public school system has been rebuilt in an innovative way that could not have happened "if it wasn't for Katrina."
?The city's infrastructure is being rebuilt, including streets, parks, playgrounds, a new medical center downtown and a levee system that Nagin says will withstand a Katrina-like event.
"In a lot of respects, the city has a lot of good things going," he says. "And in some respects better because of Katrina."
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