Ray Nagin

Ray Nagin’s response to Hurricane Katrina centered on a stark command: New Orleans had to evacuate immediately. Yet the order could not by itself move residents without cars, and its exemptions left hospitals open in a city facing catastrophic flooding. Nagin’s role in the crisis is defined by this tension between the urgency of his public warning and the limited means available to carry it out.

Mayor and public warning

As Katrina approached, forecasts described a storm capable of making much of the area uninhabitable and leaving power outages for weeks. At around ten in the morning, Nagin signed a mandatory, immediate evacuation order for New Orleans. The decision came after a delay of several hours while his staff worked through logistical and legal questions, including whether he had authority to require residents to leave. As far as Nagin knew, no previous mayor of the city had mandated an evacuation, although state law permitted the governor and parish presidents—and, by extension, the mayor—to do so.

Nagin read the order aloud at a press conference with Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco. He warned that the storm surge could topple the levee system; Blanco said flooding could reach fifteen to twenty feet. The announcement made the danger unmistakable, but the public command was only one part of an evacuation. The city’s transportation plans had serious gaps, including too few drivers, while residents able to leave on their own were already caught in traffic on the interstate.

The limits of evacuation

Many residents had no car or other way to get out. The New Orleans Superdome was designated a shelter of last resort, and shuttle buses were to take people there if they could not leave the city independently. Nagin specifically urged people with medical conditions, including those on dialysis, to move there quickly. His appeal offered a destination, but did not explain what assistance people could expect once they arrived.

The order also exempted essential hotel workers, who were needed to serve tourists stranded after their flights were canceled, and essential sheriff’s office employees, who had to watch prisoners at the parish jail. Those groups, like residents without transportation, were not being moved. The exceptions reveal how evacuation depended on keeping parts of the city operating even as the order called for its population to leave.

Hospitals kept open

At the press conference, a questioner asked whether people should remain in hospitals. Nagin said hospitals and their workers were exempt from the evacuation order. His stated reason was that people might be injured during the hurricane and that turning them away if hospitals closed would create a dangerous situation. The policy treated hospitals as necessary protection for the public, but it also left patients and staff inside facilities exposed to the storm.

That risk was already visible to officials discussing hospital preparedness. In flood-prone areas around New Orleans, only two of roughly eighteen hospitals had located both generators and electrical switching gear above ground-floor level; Memorial Medical Center was not one of them. A federal response leader later reported that about 2,500 hospital patients remained in the city as Katrina advanced. Planning exercises had anticipated more than 2,000 patients in a catastrophic hurricane, but officials had not worked out how to move so many people to safety in a flood.

Significance in the crisis

Nagin’s announcement made evacuation an immediate civic imperative, while the city’s transportation shortages and hospital exemptions exposed how little the order alone could guarantee. The contrast is central to his appearance in the unfolding crisis: he named the danger publicly and directed residents toward escape, but the people most dependent on organized help—including patients—remained bound to institutions and systems that were themselves vulnerable. His hospital policy preserved access to care in principle while concentrating risk inside the facilities expected to provide it.