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Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. (born June 11, 1956 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is properly the Mayor of Orleans Parish but is more commonly referred to as the Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, as the Parish coexists with the city. He was elected in May 2002, succeeding Marc Morial. Nagin gained international prominence in 2005 as the mayor of New Orleans during and immediately following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city.

Biography

Before his election, Nagin was a member of the Republican Party and had little political experience; he was a vice president and general manager at Cox Communications, a cable communications company and subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Nagin did give contributions periodically to candidates, including President George W. Bush and former Republican U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, as well as to Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston earlier in the decade.

Days before filing for the New Orleans Mayoral race in February 2002, Nagin switched his party registration to the Democratic Party. Shortly before the primary election, an endorsement praising Nagin as a reformer by Gambit Magazine gave him crucial momentum that would carry through for the primary election and runoff. In the first round of the crowded mayoral election in February 2002, Nagin received first place with 29% of the vote, against such opponents as Police Chief Richard Pennington, State Senator Paulette Irons, City Councilman Troy Carter and others. In the runoff with Pennington in May 2002, Nagin won with 59% of the vote. His campaign was largely self-financed.

Shortly after taking office, Nagin launched an anti-corruption campaign within city government, which included crackdowns on the city's Taxicab Bureau and Utilities Department. Nagin also made a controversial endorsement of current Republican U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal in the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff over current Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco, and only reluctantly endorsed U.S. Senator John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential race.

Nagin received a B.S. degree in accounting from Tuskegee University in 1978 and an M.B.A. degree from Tulane University in 1994. He and his wife, Seletha Smith Nagin, have three children: Jeremy, Jarin, and Tianna.

Hurricane Katrina

On August 26, 2005, the National Hurricane Center predicted for the first time that Hurricane Katrina would become a Category 4 storm, and thus exceed the design limits of the New Orleans levees . That same day, Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco declared a state of emergency .

Mayor Nagin issued a voluntary evacuation request late in the day on August 27. He was hesitant to order a mandatory evacuation because of concerns about the city's liability for closing hotels and other businesses.

On August 27, 2005, Governor Blanco released a request in the media for federal assistance and $9 million in aid to President Bush, which stated, "...I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal." Also in the requesting letter, the governor stated: "In response to the situation I have taken appropriate action under State law and directed the execution of the State Emergency Plan on August 26, 2005 in accordance with Section 501 (a) of the Stafford Act. A State of Emergency has been issued for the State in order to support the evacuations of the coastal areas in accordance with our State Evacuation Plan and the remainder of the state to support the State Special Needs and Sheltering Plan."

A White House press release of the same date authorizes aid by President Bush. FEMA, in a press release dated August 27, stated that President Bush authorized the allocation of federal resources, "following a review of FEMA's analysis of the state's request for federal assistance."

On August 28, Governor Blanco sent a letter to President Bush, which increased the amount of aid requested to $130 million.

On August 28, Katrina became a Category 4 hurricane , and Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation, opening the Superdome to those who couldn't leave. State governor-controlled National Guard troops were stationed inside the Superdome to screen evacuees for weapons , yet the situation within the Superdome was very difficult for evacuees and city government could not cope with the problems.

Katrina shifted eastward approximately 15 miles from its expected landfall point, which was to be a direct hit on the city of New Orleans, only a couple of hours prior to making landfall, minimizing the anticipated wind damage to the city. The resultant floods arrived many hours after the worst of the hurricane had passed, breaching and undercutting the levees in numerous locations and quickly inundating a wide area of New Orleans. An estimated 90,000 were still in the city when the hurricane made landfall on August 29, causing severe damage to most of New Orleans.

Nagin's Responsibility Under Louisiana's Evacuation Plan

Mayor Nagin's responsibility during Hurricane Katrina was to act as chief parish administrator in ensuring the responsibilities of the parish under the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Evacuation and Sheltering Plan were properly accomplished. Chief among the responsibilities was to manage designated evacuation shelters and ensure the evacuation of those who could not evacuate on their own. The plan cites this responsibility in the following language (Part 1 Section C2b and Part 1, Section D7):

"The parishes will designate staging areas for persons needing transportation, if necessary"

"Conduct and control local evacuation in parishes located in the risk area and manages reception and shelter operations in parishes located in the host area."

Other critical paragraphs, which are apparently meant to guide the actions of the Mayor, are (Part 2,Section B5 and Part 2 Section B12):

"The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."

"Risk area parishes will not normally open shelters for a catastrophic hurricane, with certain exceptions. Officials will direct residents to evacuate out of the way of the storm surge. Public shelter located outside risk areas will be needed for large numbers of evacuees."

A statement in the plan that defines the Governor's responsibility toward Parishes is (Part II Section B17):

"As a hurricane causes the need for a mass evacuation from the Southeastern area, the Governor will declare a state of emergency that will require host parishes outside the risk area to open designated shelters."

The plan bears the signature of Nagin's predecessor certifying Orleans Parish's agreement or acceptance of this responsibility and the signature of Governor Kathleen Blanco indicating the Governor's agreement or acceptance.

Despite the Governor's responsibility, the Superdome (in a risk Parish), was the only designated shelter for residents of the city of New Orleans.

Criticism of Relief Efforts

Mayor Nagin's performance has been criticized by several sources, including the state governor who publicly faulted him for the poor evacuation through statements by her staff indicating Blanco hadn't helped or requested Federal help in the evacuation because she thought "city officials were taking care of the evacuation."

On September 1, 2005, Nagin reacted to an Associated Press wire photo showing the Parish's school buses parked on low ground and flooded attacking other government officials and the lack of aid to the city of New Orleans in an emotional interview with Garland Robinette, on radio station WWL:

I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here. I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans." ...You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out." …And {the Orleans Levee Board]} allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives. And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.:…

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.:…There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.:…I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.…But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.…Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country. Expanding on his statements, he added, The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people.

Mayor Nagin again voiced his criticism of the Governor's response to the crisis in a CNN interview on September 5, "...what the state was doing, I don't frigging know. But I tell you, I am pissed. It wasn't adequate." He defended his own response to Katrina in stating, "Look, I'll take whatever responsibility that I have to take. But let me ask you this question: When you have a city of 500,000 people, and you have a category 5 storm bearing down on you, and you have the best you've ever done is evacuate 60 percent of the people out of the city, and you have never issued a mandatory evacuation in the city's history, a city that is a couple of hundred years old, I did that. I elevated the level of distress to the citizens."

On September 4, President Bush responded to Nagin's criticism by saying the crisis "created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable." .

Bob Williams of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative organization, criticized Nagin's preparation for the hurricane in a Wall Street journal op-ed claiming "Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation." However, when asked to confirm the claim that Bush had allegedly persuaded Nagin to order the evacuation Whitehouse press secretary Scott McClellan stated that he had no information to this effect.

External links

• The City of New Orleans
• Campaign contributions made by Ray Nagin
• Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses', CNN transcript and the audio of WWL-AM radio interview.
• Profile on CityMayors.com
• Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan Supplement

• 1956 births
• New Orleanians
• African American politicians
• Mayors of New Orleans