New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin speaks during a press conference with The Associated Press at the Melia Cohiba hotel in Havana, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009.(AP Photo/Franklin Reyes)
(AP)
Under Cuba's communist system, the government calls all the shots all the time — but during monster hurricanes that may not be such a bad thing, New Orleans' mayor says.
In an interview during his six-day trip to Cuba's capital to study the island's disaster-response system, Ray Nagin told The Associated Press that "one of the biggest weaknesses we had during Hurricane Katrina is it wasn't clear who was the top authority."
"The president and the governor were going back and forth. ... in Cuba you don't have that problem," Nagin said Tuesday evening. "The government says, 'This is what we're doing, these are the resources we are going to deploy,' and it pretty much happens."
The mayor and 15 U.S. city and state officials, including from police, fire and port agencies, met with Cuban civil defense authorities and saw presentations on how the island's military mobilizes during disasters.
Katrina flooded 80 percent of New Orleans in 2005, killing more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and causing $41.1 billion in property damage.
Cuba is battered nearly every year by hurricanes but uses soldiers to close highways and enforce mandatory evacuations to keep death tolls low. Hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma all hit the island last year, causing more than $10 billion in damage but killing only seven Cubans.
"I think they do a much better job than we do on knowing their citizens at a very, very detailed level, block by block," Nagin said.
In Cuba, Revolutionary Defense Committees on nearly every corner watch their neighbors. They help with evacuations and provide social services such as vaccinations, but also are supposed to report any behavior considered subversive.
Nagin also met with the head of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce and spoke to authorities at the top tourism monopoly and at the Port of Havana. In the late 1950s, Cuba was the top source of trade for the Port of New Orleans.
