king. During and after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin attempted to work with the New Orleans Police Department and the Fire Department to develop plans for such important activities as evacuating the city should Hurricane Rita make its impact felt, to create shelters that would provide for the safety and security of residents who are unable to evacuate, and to provide for ongoing police and fire services in the event of major power losses (Ripley, 2005).
Additionally, Nagin also contacted Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, President George W. Bush and a host of elected officials serving in the state capital in Baton Rouge and those serving in Washington, D.C. to ask for assistance and to coordinate efforts. He interacted regularly with neighboring local officials and service agencies. As Gordon Russell (2005) notes, Nagin feel that he had a plan and that the city was ready and able to respond in the event that Hurricane Katrina would make a direct hit on the region. One might anticipate that a transformational leader faced with such circumstances would seek to create precisely such alliances and to empower subordinates to take command of their own special fields of activity.
Tragically, while Hurricane Katrina was not a Category 5 hurricane when it made landfall, it nevertheless wreaked such havoc that it has been characterized as creating the biggest natural disaster in American history (Russell, 2005). In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Nagin and his closest advisers took shelter on the 26th floor of a downtown New Orleans hotel from which they attempted to manage the remnants of a plan that was not, in fact, executed effectively or perhaps even adequately (Barone, 2005).
Michael Barone (2005) notes that Mayor Nagin made several key errors as a leader and as the person most directly accountable for the safety and well-being of his city. First, critics believe that he should have ordered an evacuation on ...