New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin defended his performance during Hurricane Katrina Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press."
Nagin said that as the storm approached, he might have had the buses to move people out of the city, but he did not have the drivers. Instead, he urged residents to gather at the Superdome.
"My biggest mistake is having a fundamental assumption that in the state of Louisiana, with an $18 billion budget, in the country of the United States that can move whole fleets of aircraft carriers across the globe in 24 hours, that my fundamental assumption was get as many people to safety as possible, and that the cavalry would be coming within two to three days, and they didn't come," Nagin said.
Nagin did not directly criticize President Bush. He said Bush responded every time they met face to face, but he suggested racism contributed to the delayed federal response.
"I will just tell you this, that I think the imagery that came out across the nation portrayed that this was primarily poor black people that were affected," Nagin said.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
