together. the american public did not obviously know any of this. the fascinating thing is that missy, franklin's gull friend and alan norris turned out to be essential to helping these two figures become the great heroes of american history who led us through the great depression and the second world war. it is an essential piece of the story, these extra marital relationships, and it is an important piece which has been long barred by historians. >> you can watch this and other programs online booktv.org and now former mayor of new orleans recounting the day's preceding hurricane katrina and the aftermath from that storm. presenting his self published book, katrina's secrets at the jimmy carter presidential library and museum. >> thank you so much. good afternoon, everyone.

it is my pleasure. i am excited about being in hot plan that. i want to thank you for that warm introduction. i want to also think a cappella books. .. >> they say music and culture otherses up from the pavement in new orleans, and for you hip-hop fab fans, we're the home of lil

wayne, so we have it all in new orleans. and i'm sure most of you have been there or have heard about us, and it's a wonderful, wonderful city, and i'm going to spend about the next 20-30 minutes or so to tell you a little bit about an incredible story that most of you have probably followed, but you may -- there may be some things you weren't aware of that i hope to share. the first question i get is, it's almost five -- almost six years, ray nagin. why are you writing a book? to he honest with you, when i got the offer in 2010 i wasn't looking to write a book. i wanted to put together my own private library of my eight years in office. but when i got the katrina section, i thought, my god, this is some kind of story. and what got me also, if your were to google hurricane

katrina, you would get 66 million search results and what started to understand better is the entire story hadn't been captured. and as a matter of fact there are some things that have been reported that just don't quite get what actually happened. so, i decided to write this book, because this is much bigger than new orleans. this is a very instructive story about resiliency, about tragedy. about love and hate. you name it. and it's every kind of emotion in there. now, he mentioned earlier i talked to some publishers, and i did. i talked to some agents, and i did, and at the end of the day, they'll say once you turn this manuscript over to us, guess what? we have the final say how the book ends up. i don't like that kind of stuff. i like to tell my own story. so decided to self-publish, and i found amazon and we put this partnership together, and it's

been a really good experience. so any of you would-be authors, charles kroger, lord have mercy, a guy from way back when i what with cox communications, is in the house. anyway, i encourage you, if you're thinking about it -- but it's a lot of work. it took me over a year to put this project together. there's writes and rewrites, as you know, but i'm going to keep going. this story that i put together basically takes the reader on a front-row seat, a journey, into one of america's -- i think it's been classified as the worst natural and manmade disaster ever in the history of the united states. i enter -- interacted with earn, george w. bush, the john wayne dude, and i ended up being the

last leader standing, which is not necessarily the best thing. after a disaster. if you study disasters, most leaders after a disaster either are run out of town, run out of office, or killed. well, lo and behold, i decided to run for re-election in the middle of the madness, and was blessed enough to win. so i have been enduring quite a bit of torture, to say the least. it's all good i would do it again because new orleans was just that important. but if you boil this story down, the essence of it -- i'm going to cover some things with you. this story is about an historic catastrophic disaster that violently collided with politics, race, and class. everywhere you look those three elements come up in this amazing story about katrina. and you know, for those of you who have been following us, i made quite a splash during the

storm. i went on radio and did a little cussing, you know. god is still working on me, so y'all going to have to excuse me. i'm not going to cuss tonight, trust me. i'm not. but i made quite a splash expect was at a critical time when things were almost at their worst, and those words -- those sound bites will probably live forever, and people will aught associate, i think, me a with shared frustration. we just couldn't believe this was happening in the united states. the richest -- one of the richest countries, if not the richest country in the world, and we saw all sorts of stuff. devastation, people suffering on their roofs. in the superdome and the convention center. this storm was unbelievable, and the aftermath was just as incredible, and it literally brought the city and its leadership to its knees. now, we all were overwhelmed.

i will be the first one to tell you. every level of government was overwhelmed. and you find that in major disasters that are historic. i wasover overwhelmed. everybody in leadership absolutely made mistakes during this particular damp. -- this particular disaster. but think about this. hurricane katrina was the most effective storm we have seen. it wasn't until 24 hours before she made landfall she revealed where she was going. think about atlanta. i always put this in perspective for people when i'm in different cities. how would you evacuate atlanta? in less than 24 hours. think about your traffic right now. but can you imagine everybody trying to get out at the same

time? there was a hurricane, gustav, and houston tried it. turned the interstates around and they tried it. and guess what? didn't work. they didn't really understand how sophisticated we had gotten in our practices, and we would phase each particular area, and it takes 72 hours for us to totally evacuate an entire metropolitan area of new orleans. so we had less than 24 hours to get people out. hurricane katrina hit, she devastated. we had never seen anything like it. 1800 people died unfortunately. over 100 billion, with a b, dollars in damage. she disrupted thousands and thousands of lives across the gulf coast. let me make a little note that most people don't understand about what we did. we got a lot of criticism about our evacuation plan. we got about 95 to 96% of all

the citizens in the metropolitan area out of harm's way before katrina hit. most people think there was some huge number of people left. about 4% of the people were left. unfortunately, those 4% didn't leave for one reason or another, couldn't leave, because of money or whatever, and they were stranded, and that's where the disaster unfolded. but keep in mind, new orleans is a city built like a bowl. the closer to the lake, the higher the ground. as time went on, the ground subsided in the middle of the city. so it's like a bowl. so when the levees breached and broke -- and they're federally designed and constructed and maintained levees. they breached cat struggle include, so -- catastrophically and rushed into the city, as high as 20 feet, over rooftops,

and matter of fact, 80% of the city flooded. 80%. almost 150 square miles of our city flooded. can you imagine that? can you imagine that happening here? i hope it never happens. but you never know. you never know what's happening with global warming. we were stuck at that point. and -- for some reason we were quarintined. nobody was coming in, nobody was coming out. we had always planned for a disaster -- if the big one ever hit, we planned we would hunker down for three days and then the cavalry would come. the cavalry would be in the states and the feds and would surely come and rescue us. if you can get to a tsunami across the world, surely they can get to news three days. guess what. we were quarantined for seven

days of smell high water in addition to that, some of our neighbors started tripping. you all have counties here, right? we have parishes. so, one parish decided to blockade a major road that would lead from the lower ninth ward out, and ended up blocking that road, thinking they didn't want new orleansers to looter and that blockage hurt them in the long run because it kept the water in their areas as well as ours. so it backfired on us. another one, jefferson parish, great partners. we shared pumping stations to pump our city out. and they ended up blocking a major canal that put all the pressure on the new orleans side that caused the 17th street

canal to also breach. and then to add insult to injury, they ended up taking a temporary pumping station, set it up in the night, draped a hose over and started pumping water out of their parish into a breached canal, which further flooded new orleans. then the big thing, the people in the convention center got so frustrated because that is the one we opened up at the last minute. had very little food. if the superdome didn't have anything, they didn't have anything. . decided to match across the bridge on a federal highway to try to get few andward. the officials met them at the foot of the bridge with police dogs and machine guns. fired over their heads and basically forced them to turn

around. this is america time talking about. i'm not talking about a third-world country, but in disasters, all sorts of things happen, and people either go superhelpful or they protect their interests like you couldn't believe. as i stated earlier, all levels of government was basically overwhelmed, and politics unfortunately mattered during this disaster. we had a republican president, democratic governor, and they were tussling over who would control the resources coming into the city, into the area, and more importantly, who would control the billions and bills of dollars that were coming late torii build our area. and the thing that i found amazing -- i hadn't taken a shower in five days, so i was not in the position to greet a president or a governor. so they let me take a shower on air force one.

unbelievablable plane. i call it the ultimate pimp mobile. you have not lived until you have been on air force one. and when i came out of the shower we had a big beating, -- big might, and i realized the president and the governor were tussling over control, and the governor was using a little-known federal law. it's call the possecomotatis. anyway. i learned something. this act is a little-known act that was passed after reconstruction. the south controlled congress and controlled the laws so they passed this law, basically designed to impede or slow down the federal government from enforce the end of slavery.

i was like, what? this this still on the books. and basically says that the president cannot come into a particular state or community without being invited in by a governor. for law enforcement purposes. now, so, she never invited him in. she is a democrat, saying, this is my moment. the president is saying, you don't want me in i'm not coming. so we had a standoff. for seven days. and the pressure got so great on the president that he inned up having to come in -- ended up coming in anyway, and she never gave him her approval for him to come in. so it's something that a lot of people really don't know and understand, but -- i covered that in the book. i take you behind the scenes on all that went on after katrina. so you can get a feel for what a mess in a catastrophic event like that. then share with you secrets of

grief. excuse me. i start the book off by explaining to you how new orleans operates, which to me is fascinating. i was mayor of the city for eight years, and until i became mayor i never really understood the departments depths of new orleans i was born and raised there. you have this mardi gras thing, and there's also stuff going on behind the scenes. there's -- all tied into the business relationships that keep new orleans in a certain economic condition. a city of haves and have-nots. i'm very direct. so you have to excuse me. i'm going to tell you the real deal and i hope i don't offend anybody. this is what i want to share with the world so you can understand the condition that created what you saw when katrina hit. why there was so much poverty in new orleans.

it's institutionalized. when i got office, one of the first things i wanted to do was to attack the poverty rate, and we attacked it. we started focusing in on single-parent households, mothers and elevating their economic status, and we took 37,000 people off the poverty rolls in a relatively short period of team, but there was so many more we couldn't get to. so, i explain that in the book. i talk about justification. there was some bold stuff going on. i was in new orleans for two weeks. i wouldn't leave because i didn't want to leave the people who were suffering. i wanted to feel their pain. i didn't want to have air conditioning so it would keep me focused. so i was going to check on my family who evacuated to dallas, and i was called to a meeting of local business people, and is a was arriving at the meeting, they had already done interviews with the "wall street journal,"

the new york times, youname name it, saying they wanted to see a different new orleans after the storm. they didn't want certain people to come back, particularly poor people. and particularly african-americans in the city. and i rejected that categorically. i said, everyone, everyone had a right to return home, and after i did that, lord have mercy. all hell broke loose. and then i express disaster capitalism. naomi kline talks about this. i saw it up front and personal. one quick example. shock doctrine. after a major storm like katrina, you know you're going to have debris to clean up. right? trees, you know, homes are moved off their foundations and just tossed in the wind. you got dirt, you got

everything, mud caked up so you have to pay somebody to pick that up, right and clean it up and dispose of it. after katrina, the federal government issued four $500 million no-bid contracts. you hear what i'm saying? wouldn't you like to have one of those. four of them $500 million to pick up decree, and the contract called for them to pick up debris at $44 a cubicyard. there was million office cubic yards out there. immediately the company that was lucky enough to get the bid dish and you know these companies -- immediately subcontracted it so a middle person, $27 a cubic yard. $44, hadn't pushed a broom yesterday. contractor, 27. $27 guy, let me find some poor local guy or some out of town company that just want to come in and do good, and we're going to contract with them, 7-$8 a

cubicyard. they did all the work. seven-eight dollar guy. $27 a cubic yard guy, $44 a cubic yard guy, didn't push a broom. didn't rake a leaf. just pushed paper and basically waited for a check. and i calculated it, they made at least a billion dollars in product. paper pushing. all legal. should be wrong but it wag legal. so, i get into some of that for you. so you can understand that next time there's a disaster, hopefully we can clean some of this stuff up. then secrets of miracles. i'll never forget the superdome was about to explode. the day before there was a riot that almost happened where some guys were trying to overturn the national guard and get control of their guns. thank god we quieted that one down. the next day, august in new

orleans, one of the hottest augusts in history. it was hot. it was africa hot. and people were standing out on that ledge -- if you remember these images -- and they wouldn't move because the kept hearing that buses were coming. and then the buses wouldn't come. but they wouldn't want to lose their space so they stayed there to make sure that, if a bus did come, that they would get a seat. and they did everything right there. they didn't move. if you can imagine. so, this next day, the sun was beating down, it was so hot, unbelievable, and mid-day, people were pushing on the barricades. and there was 30,000 of them. and i only had 300 national guardsmen and a couple of police officers, and they could have easily overpowered us. and took over and who knows what would happen. and at the time that it thought

the barricades were going to fall, small storm cloud -- not a storm cloud -- a small cloud came over the superdome, and a quiet rain dropped, and it was just enough, about 15-20 minutes -- that it cooled the people off, and they calmed down, and they went back into the superdome. god helped us, and i'm not afraid to tell people about that. then there were heros heros and sheros, the coast guard came in with helicopters and flew and flew and flew and saved people. our first responders, the firemen, the police officers, we were have something trouble with police officers but most of the ems workers workers and fire det did incredible work and saved

thousands and thousands and thousands of people. so i tell you stories about that. and then i share with you secrets of hope. i'll never forget my first flight up after the storm and the winds died down. i wanted to see for myself because they was shooting me a lot of bull. people were telling me things ts and it wasn't real. so i wanted to fly over. i hope i never have to fly in one of those military helicopters again in life again. the first time i flew up, i told the helicopter pilot, i want to see everything. so we flew over the 17th 17th street canal. there was water everywhere. i could see playgrounds where i was a kid and played and went and looked at my house and i didn't want to go too close, and everything was flooded, and we went to new orleans east and we saw where the storm waves picked up whole sections of concrete on the highway and cut off all exit routes to the east. then i went to the lower ninth ward and i could see people who

hadn't made, and then i saw -- i burst out in tears. i couldn't take it anymore. and then i said, well, let's just fly slowly up the river and take me to see what the french quarter looks like. that's our cultural jewel. and when we got in front of the st. louis cathedral, i told the pilot, stop. and the cathedral looked like a post card. it looked like it had just been manicured, and in the background i could see out of the corner of my eye a little rainbow, and that was the sign to me that it was going to be all right. even though we were going through hell and high water, it would be all right, because our cultural asset was still in asset. treme. a great place. the french quarter in the french quarter, bar that stayed open throughout. they served warm beer by candlelight. i had one.

and it was good. in the midst of the storm. so i share withos those kind of things, and also share how i was think can -- thinking about planning to recover the city because this was catastrophic. there was no example. i looked everywhere. i went on the internet. i went to libraries, talked to every expert. there was nothing that i could use as a comparable precedent. nothing that happened like this. so guess what i did? one day i was in prayer and opened up my bible and went to the book each nehemiah, and in the book of nehemiah, jerusalem, they were just totally destroyed. and i kind of followed that and studied it and, sure enough there was a plan, a way for us to start to deal with this, in a logical way that made sense to me and that's kind of what i used to get us started.

then recovery dollars, billions and billions. i think $134 billion for the entire gulf coast, louisiana, i think, got 34 to $36 billion. all those recovery dollars were starting to flow. the federal government said, guess what, never got to us until two and a half, almost three years after the storm. we almost went bankrupt. had to lay off half my work force. half of the city workers, 3,000 or 4,000 of them. i don't want to bring you too far down but there was challenges with everything, and we lad h -- had to improvise. and i shaved that. and here's the kicker. i don't know if our country is better prepared today for another disaster. the federal law that governs how we deal with a disaster is called a stafford act. written many, many years ago,

and it really hasn't been updated to this day. we got some better people. we have beater people -- i will just leave it at that since this is on c-span2. we have better people, but the institutional struggles that we went through with that law, which basically says you have to -- i'm going to give you one example. you have to replace things for similar kinds after the storm. so guess what? we had a whole bunch of buses, city buses, rta buses, got flooded. they wanted us to go to california and buy a bus of the same age and retrofit it with air conditioning for new orleans. that's what that law basically says. you have to replace it. you can't improve it. you replace it. that silliness is still on the books. so you still have some challenges. and guess what? we as a nation do not have a national evacuation plan.

so, if -- i use this example. let's say -- you have gaslines in atlanta. right? let's say there's a major explosion. and it does something where there's a chain reaction and explosions going all over atlanta and it's your worst-case scenario. there's no national evacuation plan for getting you out of here. so you're stuck in gridlock on interstate 85, 75, of whatever 5 it is -- a bunch of them -- your going to be stuck. how are you going to get out? that's why i go around the country and tell people, start to think about -- this is something that is not easy. what would you do if you had to get out of here? how would you do that? where would you go? which routes would you take? don't forget about your mayors. make sure -- don't forget about your meds and your cash and credit cards and you have place

to go. most people don't think about that and you won't be able to think about it at the heat of the moment, but we have at this moment no national evacuation plan. we have since in new orleans used trains, buses, and planes, but that's specific for new orleans. it's not in place for any other community. let me wrap this up and then i'll take some questions. in spite of everything i said, ladies and gentlemen, the city of new orleans is an amazing, amazing, resilient place. in spite of all this, thiscity is still ahead in my opinion -- >> we live in a fast-food mentality. so everybody beating me up saying we're not move can fast enough. but when you study history and you look at kobe, japan, the wattses riot. and even look at new york -- i got in trouble for that, won't go there -- takes 10-15 years to

recover from major disaster. major disaster. we're only in year six. got about 85% of our population back, and growing, and we're basically reinventing ourselves, and i'll never forget, miya angelou. one of my favorite poets, came to new orleans a year after the storm, and she talked to us and came to the university, and it was packed. she talked about rainbows and clouds and i couldn't follow it at first. the said the thing you must understand is before you get to see a rainbow, you must go through the storm. and the best time to see a rainbow is when the storm clouds are kind of in the distant. half of the sky is dark and half of the sky is bright. that's when you see the brightest rain bow of them awesome we're in that mode right now. we still have a few storm clouds in new orleans but we have some bright clouds in front of us. our population, depends upon who

you talk to. the fences -- a little below 80. local demographers in the low to mid-80s. even president bush. i read his book. it didn't quite jive with what i experienced but that's okay. it's his book. we have freedom of speech in this country. he said we're at 87%. so we're somewhere in the mid-80s, i think, and growing, and census has us growing as one of the fastest growing cities in the america. our public school system, totally revamped. one of the worst systems in america. more charter schools and we're building brand new schools. we have $2 billion worth of brand new public schools under construction. there's a lot of debate whether we're heading in the right direction, but it's better than before. housing. all of our public housing units were torn down, except for one.

very controversial, bought we converted them from concentrating poverty and time into mixed income communities that are beautiful and gorgeous, and the crime in those areas have gone done. wages went up 40%. unemployment is at historic lows in the city of new orleans. we have a 70-acre biomedical research center with two hospitals under construction, and i added up the infrastructure, and we have $26 billion in the city worth of activity going on in the city, and our evacuation system, i submit to you, we have the best evacuation system in the country, and we tested it successfully a while back. here's what we also learned during hurricane katrina. people did not leave because of their pets. some people just wouldn't -- just couldn't think to part and leave their pets. so now we have a pet evacuation

process. you want to evacuate? bring your pet. we scan them, put them on crime controlled 18 wheelers, they're taken care of during the storm, and they come back and we reunite you with your pet. during gustav, we didn't lose a pet. except the only thing left was a parrot, and that was a parrot. and the coup de grace, in 2010, the new orleans saints won the super bowl! [applause] >> and we partied like never before. we had 800,000 people on the streets of new orleans. we had the ying-yang crew singing the song that was our anthem. we had everything going on. the previous year the super bowl party had 300,000 people.

so i was big deal for us after 43 years of mainly losing teams. so, i close. i've written this book. i have gotten some pretty good response from it. i've gotten people who don't like it at all. just depends upon your perspective. what i wanted to do is tell the story that to me is much bigger than just the hurricane. it's a story about the ultimate disaster that can happen to any of us, and how you deal with that and how you come back from something that devastating. it's instructive, and something we can all learn from, and i submit to you, what would you do if your ultimate disaster hit you today? how would you deal with it? would you look at the dark clouds or look at the sunny sky? would you see the rainbow? because regardless of what you

go through, there's always going to be a rainbow that shows up. you just have to work through and get there. so i thank you for listening and i look forward to take something of your questions. [applause] >> if you will raise your hand when you have a question, and mayor nagin will recognize you, and please wait until the microphone comes over to you. so, a question over here. right here. >> president carter was very critical of what happened to fema when it was put into dhs and the director got so much criticism after the quit. what is your opinion of what happened to fema? >> i share with president carter's concern. i watchedded it up close and personal, and fema is such a critical organization when a disaster happens, it needs to have direct access to the president.

a big part of what was going on during katrina was that -- well there was a lot going on in people marks -- fema, but the communication change did not work well and it needs to go back the way it was. i worked with the u.s. conference of mayors and we put together a white paper that outlined specific changes we lobbied congress on, and that's one of them. >> two questions, really, "60 minutes" did a piece on the current mayor, and it was flashy, nice, and he is as spirited about new orleans as you are, and it came across as somewhat of an upgrade, and i wondered what you think about things the has been able to do since you left and is there any criticism of what was going on? and there have been some conspiracy theories about katrina. can you dismiss any of them? is it in your book? >> well, yes, i do. i do.

i had -- like i said, i don't want to offend anybody but i had an incredible day that i point out in the book. i was getting ready to fly back to new orleans from dallas, and lewis farrakhan got ahold of me and he wants to meet at the airport. so he talked to me about -- his big concern was, did they blow the levees in the lower ninth ward. did they purposely blow them up and i told him, i don't see how it's possible. what i do know is that there was some barges that got loose in the canal, and as the wind was blowing, the balances were going back and forth and they were banging up against the levee, and one even broke through and ended up sitting on top of some homes and, i said i'm almost certain that is what the people heard down there. i don't think -- i don't know how they would know where -- we

had so many breaches. i don't know how they could know where to -- now, as far as the other conspiracy. there was definitely a move to change the social fabric of new orleans. that's well documented. no doubt about that. and they don't like me to talk about it, but it was. as far as the new mayor, "60 minutes" is an interesting group. they interviewed me when i was in office and promised this wonderful puff piece, and i bought into it hook, line and sinker, and the day i was going to do it, tim russert wanted to do an interview with me so aagreed to do it around the same time, and "60 minutes" got very upset, and they turned the piece into this huge negative thing that kind of got me in trouble with dismurk -- with new york and the 9/11 site. but what they're doing now? i'm done. i don't have any aspirations to run for public office. they can say what they want, do what they want. the new mayor, god bless him.

i hope he becomes known as the best mayor that new orleans ever had. i will tell you this. a lot of things that are coming out right now, i think everybody has to acknowledge that they were put in motion when we were in office. so, you know, i think it's good. as long as my city continues to improve, i'm okay. i really don't care. but there's all kind of stuff in new orleans going on right now. and unfortunately a lot out if is race and class and politics. this is historic. you go way back in new orleans' history and you'll fine it. you're asking some good questions. >> just cure you did you have a triage system in place, and if so, where were the senior citizens in the 4% that didn't have an option to move or go anywhere? implemented anything new since then? >> yeah. there was a lot of lessons learned.

what we did was, at 72 hour mark when the storm was in the gulf, we started moving senior citizens and started moving them as best we could. now -- >> nursing homes they abandoned and people died there. >> i'm going to get to that. we made a call out to the senior citizens that needed support and we picked them up with ambulances and got them out. some of the senior citizen centers did not answer the call and they were supposed to have their own evacuation processes and they did not in addition to that, the ones who stayed and when we got wind there was some struggling, they were rescued and brought -- we had the superdome and right next to the superdome was the arena, the basketball arena, and that's where we brought the senior citizens we rescued. >> what about the nursing home? they were abandoned. no one went there? >> the nursing home -- yes, lots of problems with unders homes that go abandoned.

and some of the hospitals it happened. >> there is a triage -- i'm not being critical. i'm curious. >> you can be critical all you want. >> senior citizens, we can get the weakest out, and i read reports, the weakest are not always the first to be evacuated. >> i think you're raising an excellent, excellent point. since katrina we now have a better grasp on that. each nursing home has to have a very specific evacuation plan that is followed and there's criminal penalties now if you don't follow those. >> city coordinates -- >> the city coordinated with the state. >> that's wonderful. see some of those plans and guidelines published anywhere that -- >> i'm sure -- i haven't -- they revamped the city's web site but used to be on the city's web site, the current evacuation plan. it's probably still there. >> i can't find it and i don't want to belabor this, but i saw

a professor, and they listed a triage in america, not just for new orleans, and senior citizens were way at the bottom of the list, and when i called the professor that co-authored this article, she clammed up quickly and said that was just an experiment, and so that's the reason i'm asking the question. you were in the heart of this situation. you know better than anyone in america just how crucial it is that we get our crippled, old, defenseless people out that can't tend for themselves. >> i'm totally with you've and that's why i made the point earlier we do not have a national evacuation plan, and senior citizens are going to suffer again, like in katrina. new orleans is kind of upgraded their stuff, but i just don't get the sense that other cities have practiced or are as sensitive to this issue as you; it's challenge, bro -- sorry, i

called you bro. i'm from nos. got to excuse me. >> what are you doing now? are you in a political position? >> absolutely not. politics for me -- this is my first time in public office, running for mayor, which is different, and i'm happy to have served. don't get my wrong. the eight years i served were incredible. even with katrina. but i was happy to get out and i'm damn happy to be out. >> is anybody using your experiences from -- >> well, yeah, i've been called for all kind of stuff. most of it is international. i've done haiti. i've gone to the czech republic. i'm getting ready to go back over to australia, thousand brussels, and i do some stuff in the united states, but unfortunately we don't pay attention to disasters until they happen. that's just the way wear. don't believe they're going to happen to us and new orleans was some ultimate reality tv show,

which i'm really concerned, and i don't want to bum you guys out but i've been tracking major disasters, and since hurricane katrina there have been over 400 major declared disasters just in the united states, and if you look at the trends around the world, the thing that bothers me the most is natural disasters are now being linked with man-made disaster. katrina in levees. japan, tsunami and nuclear, and we have nuclear plants all over the place. one of the biggest fault lines in america today? you're thinking camps right? tennessee. tennessee has a huge faultline. so, i'm really concerned, and that's why i'm out here to -- i'm out here talking to people all over the place about this experience, so they can learn and work. i'm trying to deal with this global warming stuff because i believe it's real. so i've been working with

entrepreneurs about solar and l.e.d.s also, so keeping busy but not too busy. >> n.o.p.d. i'm not going to ask you to comment negatively or positively. >> the case is over. i can talk about it. >> we inherited some of the leadership -- atlanta inherited some of the leadership in n.o.p.d. we're through with that but there were some problems with the leadership. where i'm asking you is -- we have new leadership now. could you comment on how we can develop a more positive leadership in the atlanta p.d.? >> well, you know, police are very -- i don't know how to describe it -- it is probably

one of the most difficult organizations to manage from a leadership standpoint. i can speak to new orleans and i'll try to talk -- new orleans has had a long history of all kind of police stuff going on. so when i went in office, i wanted to make sure that whatever went down there, was an independent investigation. so we brought the feds in, we did all kind of stuff. even with that, there was still some stuff going on, and katrina dish -- i mean, i share some things in my book. there was hate crimes by the police department. so, it's just an organization that, with power, the power of being able to tell you, get on that car' put your hand behind your back -- some can handle that and some can't. so you have to have processes in place and you have to have check ipoints on the police as well as you do citizens to keep that

under wraps and it's a very difficult task. as far as atlanta is concerned, i been kind of following that out of the corner of my eyes, and you guys have some challenges. get the feds involved. they're going to come in, do an assessment, they're going to tell you some somethings you don't want to hear and expose some dirty laundry, but it keeps the police, who are kind of susceptible to going in the wrong direction -- keeps them on their toes. the federals, you go to federal court and they're not. whatever your sentence, 85% minimum you're going to serve, and they know that. with state court, they don't have to serve only a few years on a ten-year sentence, but the feds, that gets their attention. >> you know, a professor, doug his brinkley, wrote the book, the great deluge. >> my friend.

>> basically kind of a failure of bureaucracy communicating with one another. what was your experience with that, and also, in the fog of the storm, the outer world got a perception of you that may not really capture the real you. what did you see that changed your image or impacted who you were when you were there in the fog of war and everybody on -- and the storm and everybody was seeing your sound bites. >> douglas brinkley wrote a book, and he's a historia. he worked with the guy who did the work on world war ii. steven ambrose. doug and i didn't see eye-to-eye on that book. he tried to interval me after the storm, and it was clear to me once he interviewed me he already made up his mind, and he wrote the book a little premature. it didn't have any congressional testimony in it. but it's america so you're free

to write what you want. and i have said this publicly. i think doug was part of kind of a group that didn't want to see me in power a second time. so that book was time released. and i dismissed it as such. i said, look, it's politics. and now, your other question is, how do people perceive me? it just depends, man. i go all over the world. i was in china not too long ago, and a little chinese guy was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and he comes up to me and kind of bowing and says, you ray nagin. you cuss out bush. [laughter] >> i mean, this is in china. so i get some of that. and then i get other people that look at me like, man, you did a horrible job during katrina. so, it just depends, man.

but like i said earlier, most leaders either -- they quit or they run out. bush got out of office quick. kathleen blanco decided not run for office. so i was the last man standing. controversy sells. my book is doing all right. i'm going to sell a little controversy. what else y'all want to hear about? >> would you comment on what the engineers did to the levee post-katrina and how comfortable and confident are you with what they did? >> there's a guy who headed up the corps of engineers, general kreer. he was in charge of the entire design and build of the levees. i feel pretty comfortable with

the levee system. i used to meet with them to go over the progress and the man. -- and the plan. i'm not engineer, but i i've spoken to the dutch, and what they built is probably second in the world. if you have chance, go and see the structure the built, and the storm surge came from the lake. it's 25-foot structure that goes for miles and has this huge gate that closes. nothing else like it in the world. so, i feel pretty comfortable. and they spent $14 billion-$15 billion, and the first time we have had a comprehensive hurricane protection system in new orleans. i think near good shape, put we'll see. >> two more questions.

>> i'd like to know where were the politicians, like yourself, where were they housed when katrina came? >> lord have mercy. >> yes. >> you're going to get me in trouble. you know, most everybody left, you know. politicians, tv stations, newspapers, they all -- most of them left. and they were hanging out in air conditioning in baton rouge and all over the place. and, you know, everybody has to make the decision. it was horrific. i was scared. and i was there. when we noticed that the levees were breaching at the 17th 17th street canal, the water was coming downtown, i told my staff, everybody leave except for the most essential people. we had a skeleton crew that stayed behind. and everyone was leaving. because we didn't know whether the water was ever going to stop

flowing. so, it was a tough -- i wish they would have come back, now, after kind of the water went down and really dug in and tried to help, but politics kicked in, and scapegoating and all that stuff. so it was something. all right. a couple more? >> i thought i'd try one more question about political as separations. i'm recalling an interview youd did with anderson cooper. >> my buddy. >> you indicated after you saw how poorly president obama did in louisiana in the last election, that was telling you that perhaps your chances of being governor of louisiana weren't good. so i guess my question would be,

if that or two change, if you knew you had reasonable chance to be elected governor, is it a job you would like to have? >> my wife would kill me. if i even talked about it. i well tell you this. there's only two positions in politics i have coveted as far as being a political leader and that was mayor of new orleans and the governor of the state of louisiana. like you said, i watch barack, and he was so popular around the world, and louisiana is a democrat state on paper. 65% of all the voters in louisiana are democrats. but they don't vote that way all the time. when i saw barack got less than 10% crossover vote -- i'm a candidate, i crossed over big-time the first time i ran. i got 85% of the white vote the first time i ran. 45% of the black vote. and then it totally flipped the

second time. but that's for a lot of different reasons. so i understand the crossover appeal, and when i saw barack only got 10%, i was like, this is a superred state. and there's no way in hell they're going elect me every did the city speech, too? huh-uh. ain't going to happen. [laughter] >> them little cajuns have not forgiven me about that yet. lord have mercy. i'm a peaceful guy. i'm sorry. george clinton and funk adeleics. you know the song. totally misunderstood. totally misunderstood. one more? >> there was a group of people who had a lawsuit and they actually won the lawsuit, i think it whereas -- was dealing directly with the levees. do you think they'll ever get

paid, dealing with the economic situation? >> there was so many lawsuits i'm trying to think of which one. there was one major lawsuit that was thrown out of court because they said the corps of engineers and the federal government had immunity and you couldn't sue. there was one that made it through, and it was for a couple million dollars, the settlement. and i think that they probably will get paid. but it wasn't a lot of money for a tremendous number of people. there was another lawsuit i found interesting. at the end of 2010, when i was getting out of office, somebody sued the state and the federal government and claimed the road home, which was a grant, the rebuilding grants for citizens, was discriminatory, and they won that lawsuit. so that one could be interesting. the state is still sitting on $3 billion in federal recovery money. so that could be interesting. >> this his -- has been a

fascinating even. mayor nag begin is going to be signing copies of his book in the lobby. let's give mayor nagin a thank you for his wonderful evening. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. >> for more information, visit the author's web site, cray -- nagin.com. >> what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> there's a book about machiavelli on my desk that came out several weeks ago. so, i want to read about it. i want to read that book. and then there's a book called reckless, which is about what went on in terms of the

financial crisis in the country, and what led up to it, and involves two local businesses, freddie mac and fannie mae, and ill know the players and i'm curious to read and find out what happened there. and then there's some things i want to go back and read. there was recently a controversy about huck finn and the use of the n-word and there was a professor who took it out of the text, and this sparked a controversy about sanitizing american history, or in the context of my own book, sort of politically correct speech code. and how inappropriate it was, given the fact that mark twain, samuel clemens, wrote it with the power of that word intended. so i wanted to take a look at what the sanitized, if you will, text looked like, so i picked up

that book and it's sitting on my desk. and then there are two books, i'm trying to remember their names, and -- this is such an opportunity to help out authors i'm reading, but one is a book by lawrence block, who is a mystery writer, and i think it's called, a drop of the hard stuff. it's a mystery novel. and lawrence block is, to me, a terrific, terrific mystery writer. that actually is at the top of my list. if i wasn't here tonight i'd read lawrence block. i think lawrence block is terrific. and then george pellicano, writes about mysteries that are set in washington, dc. his wif