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Katrina: Bush 'misinformed'
11/09/2005 20:06 - (SA)
Washington - New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who has blasted the federal government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, said on Sunday President George W Bush probably misunderstood the gravity of the storm due to bad advice from his aides.
"I think the president for some reason probably did not understand the full magnitude of this catastrophe on the front end," Nagin told NBC television's Meet the Press.
"I think he was probably getting advice from some of his key advisers or some low level folk that had been on the ground that this was serious, but not as serious as it ended up being," he said.
But the mayor praised Bush's response to his requests when he talked with the US leader.
"My interactions with president, as any time I talked with him and gave him what the real deal was and gave him the truth, he acted and he made things happen," Nagin said. Evacuation
Bush, who has come under fire for his administration's sluggish response to the August 29 hurricane, was set to make his third visit on Sunday to the US Gulf states ravaged by Katrina.
Under tough questioning from NBC's interviewer over his own performance, Nagin defended his handling of the evacuation before Katrina struck the city.
He said he was unable to use available school buses to evacuate people because many drivers had fled the city. He added that he did everything to get people to higher ground, including into the roofed Superdome stadium, and he expected the government to rush to the rescue.
"We always assumed that after two to three days the cavalry would be coming," he said.
Nagin was critical of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA), whose director, Michael Brown, was stripped on Friday of his responsibilities overseeing the Katrina relief effort after coming under heavy criticism and calls for his resignation.
"I'll just tell you, I am not a big FEMA fan," Nagin said. "I saw some things and some inadequacies, some inefficiencies. "Regulations got in the way. Promises were made, they weren't delivered, on a fairly consistent basis."
"There needs to be a critical analysis of FEMA because this cannot happen again," he said.
- AFP
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