Editorial: Katrina spin goes into overdrive

Monday, Jan. 2, 2006 | 7:36 a.m.

The Times-Picayune newspaper of New Orleans is reporting that some local officials are putting a new spin on the preparedness of the city and of Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina.

Mark Smith, spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, is referring to the evacuation of New Orleans as a "roaring success," the paper reported. And Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard told the paper, "The most successful thing of this whole operation was the evacuation of the city of New Orleans."

The officials are basing their post-disaster assessments on the fact that more than 1 million people successfully followed state and local evacuation plans in the days before the hurricane struck -- by getting in their cars and driving away.

But how can the plans be called a "roaring success" when they virtually excluded the 130,000 New Orleans residents who did not have a car? And when they made no provisions for people confined to hospitals and nursing homes? And when they failed to account for people's unwillingness to abandon their pets? And when they failed to provide emergency supplies of food and water for the Superdome?

The truth is that local, state and federal planners made many serious mistakes in responding to the storm that left more than 1,100 people dead. Thousands more suffered terribly for weeks before there was any coherent plan for them. No amount of post-storm positive spinning will change those facts.