Governor Kathleen Blanco Calls Mayor Ray Nagin "A Total Void" During Katrina

In an exclusive excerpt from the new book "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" (Publisher: William Morrow) by Vanity Fair contributing editor Douglas Brinkley, Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco calls fellow Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin "a total void," during the Katrina crisis.

Blanco tells Brinkley that she was "flabbergasted" by Nagin's behavior and that when she met him aboard Air Force One for a meeting with the president five days after Katrina hit New Orleans, she feared he was coming unglued.

"It was bizarre," she tells Brinkley. "Nagin was falling apart."

Brinkley reports that following that meeting Blanco phoned Nagin and told him to get out of town and get some rest. "I said, 'Go sleep somewhere for a couple of days and then come back into it.' Well, then he left for five days!" she tells Brinkley. "In the heat of everything that was going on, [and] he's screaming about no leadership."

After Nagin left the city to spend five days in Dallas, some in the New Orleans Police Department dubbed him "Dallas One," a spoof on his radio handle, which was "New Orleans One." A few officers made "Dallas One" signs as a protest, posting them around the makeshift Sixth District headquarters at the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street. "I pulled the signs down," Police Superintendent Eddie Compass recalls. "I told the guys it just wasn't good for the city."

Regarding his five-day respite in Dallas, Nagin tells Brinkley, "Why would a governor of the state of Louisiana be ticked about that? I don't get that.  I mean, I took care of my city as best I could. I got it organized. I got rescues. I got just about everybody out. I didn't leave until that last bus left New Orleans.. Then I went to take care of my family. Why does that upset somebody?"

Also in the Brinkley book:

- Congressman William Jefferson describes a scene in which President Bush loses his temper aboard Air Force One while viewing Katrina's damage Noticing a fire down below, Bush snaps, "What's that?" Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff explains that the fire departments are in disarray and water hoses lack sufficient pressure to extinguish the blazes that are burning. "Put the fire out, now! There is water everywhere. I want that fire out!" Bush yells. [Interesting comments from a President characterized as "uninvolved" - Ed.]

- Brinkley describes in great detail the scene on Air Force One when, according to eyewitness Ron Forman (who recently ran against Nagin in the New Orleans mayoral primary). Nagin, offered a chance to take an on-board shower, then refused to get out of the bathroom, forcing a Secret Service agent to kick the door and demand that the mayor get out immediately because the president was about to arrive. It seems that a top priority for Nagin was that his head be shaved properly, possibly in case of a photo op with Bush, and after Nagin had been in the bathroom for quite a while, aides rapped on the door, telling the mayor, "You've got five minutes and then the president gets here." When Nagin finally emerged, Forman recalls that he said, "Damn, I wasn't ready to get out of the shower! I was shaving my head and I was showering and, God, there was warm and hot water!"

- Nagin couldn't find the ignition keys to the handful of Regional Transit Authority (R.T.A.) buses that hadn't flooded, let alone mobilize the drivers. Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu had wanted to ask Nagin face-to-face why so many R.T.A. and school buses hadn't been activated, but instead had been left in parking lots that were then submerged by flood waters. Arriving at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon, his request to see Nagin provoked howls of laughter, as Nagin was operating out of the 27th floor of the Hyatt hotel, listening to news reports on a hand-cranked radio. (In order to meet with Nagin, some visitors had to climb 27 stories to his temporary quarters overlooking the Superdome.)

Landrieu finally located Nagin's communications director, Sally Forman, who told him, "I'm looking for [chief administrative officer of New Orleans] Brenda Hatfield. We must find her.. We're looking for the R.T.A.-bus keys.. We don't know if she has them, but she'll know where they are."

- After Nagin went on Garland Robinette's New Orleans radio show and demanded that Bush and Blanco "get off [their] a***s and do something," he broke down crying, according to Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson, and then sequestered himself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out. For 20 minutes or so, Clarkson and Sally Forman tried to lift his spirits as they heard him tinkering inside, re-arranging knickknacks and toiletries. Nagin eventually emerged, then wandered into another room. "Let me be alone for awhile," Clarkson remembered him saying.

Ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown describes Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco this way: "Blanco reminded me of an aunt I have whom I love to pieces. But I would never trust this aunt to run a state. I just see Blanco as this really nice woman who is just way beyond her level of ability."

[Yet even today, in spite of all the facts to the contrary, the mainstream news media types continue to refer to Katrina as somehow the responsibility of the Bush Administration. - Ed.]