Did New Orleans have a hurricane evacuation plan?

New Orleans did have a hurricane plan on the website of the city’s Office of Emergency Preparedness. But on a quick glance (this is by no means a definitive evaluation), it seems to be generalized, bureaucratic gobbledegook rather than the concrete steps of an actual protocol. Here’s one part of it:

PART 1: WARNING

I. GENERAL

Evacuation planning and actual implementation has to be based upon certain assumptions. It must be understood that the need to evacuate elements of the population can occur at any time, events resulting in evacuations occur with various amounts of lead time and every evacuation will be unique and offer unexpected challenges to those conducting the evacuation. Evacuations in response to hazardous material spills or sudden severe weather are provided with little or no warning, and often have to be accomplished after the fact, and in a disaster response environment. Throughout the Parish persons with special needs, require special consideration regarding notification, transportation, and sheltering. Resources of equipment, facilities and personnel are more difficult to locate and coordinate when an evacuation is required during late night or early morning hours. If possible, advance warning should be given so an evacuation can be coordinated. Adequate provisions should be maintained at all times in order to conduct a warning or alert of an area.

Certain hazards, such as a hurricane, provide some lead time for coordinating an evacuation. However, this can not be considered a certainty. Plus, the sheer size of an evacuation in response to an approaching hurricane creates the need for the use of community-wide warning resources, which cannot be limited to our City’s geographical boundaries. Evacuation of major portions of our population, either in response to localized or citywide disasters, can only be accomplished if the citizens and visitors are kept informed of approaching threats on a timely schedule, and if they are notified of the need to evacuate in a timely and organized manner. If an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials.

In this day of high-speed communication and wide-spread availability of information, mechanisms do exist to transmit emergency related information to the vast majority of the community. For our most serious threat, hurricanes, information from the National Hurricane Center in Miami and our local office of the National Weather Service, can reach the general population through local governments and mass media outlets. It is the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Preparedness to guarantee that not only is the public alerted, but that other emergency response organizations and personnel are alert and in position to meet the real or potential threat.

Warning for an emergency requires notification at two levels: notification of public officials and response organizations and the warning of the general public. The mechanisms chosen to accomplish these critical events must be rapid in execution and comprehensive in application. This annex outlines the procedures which will be implemented for notifying the emergency response network of its activation, and of informing the general public of the potential or actual occurrence of life threatening events and hazards.

The extent and methods of warnings issued will be determined by the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and are based upon the geographic area impacted. When events necessitate the immediate evacuation of threatened individuals, these decisions may be made by the on scene Incident Commander. Decisions affecting larger geographic areas will be made by the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness in conjunction with the Superintendent of Fire and Superintendent of Police.

General evacuations that may result from an approaching hurricane will be ordered by the Mayor of the City, upon the recommendation of the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The area affected by the warning may range from blocks and portions of neighborhoods, to the entire city.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 02, 2005 10:34 AM | Send