RAY NAGIN

At the Superdome, a young man came up to me holding a baby. He'd run out of diapers. He'd run out of medicine. His baby was sick. The guy's saying, 'Help me! Take my baby.' What could I do? That's the definition of helpless.

I always feel that in politics, you have a bridle on. Well, I took the bridle off. And I tell you, it felt pretty good.

I need a break from politics, that's for sure. This is the hardest job in America.

We're learning as we go. We're a lot smarter this time. We understand what it takes to mobilize away from the threat of a hurricane.

I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I have supported some Republicans. I'm all about results, man. If somebody can deliver, that's where I'm gonna go. It's about who can get the job done.

One of the best moments I've ever had in New Orleans is seeing Bourbon Street filled on a weekend night not long ago. Just watching the city breathe again.

We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. This is a threat that we've never faced before.

The reality of Katrina didn't really strike me until the first time I flew up in a helicopter and saw areas of the city that I had ridden my bicycle as a youth being fully flooded.

If it were my decision, I'd knock the Superdome down. If I couldn't knock it down, I'd just open the roof and gut the whole inside - totally modernize it. If you just dust it off and paint a little bit but don't reimage it, the legacy will be horrible.

When people are dying, bureaucracy should be thrown out of the water.

I want to continue to stay plugged into New Orleans and help people who are still struggling with the recovery here, and then, if I can help around the country and around the world, absolutely, I'll be open to that.

If we're unified, there's nothing we cannot do.

We could receive a storm surge of three to five feet.

The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows.

I was among the people in the Superdome. I knew what was going on every minute. I did not have air conditioning nor shower facilities. I made decisions based upon facts and not what I thought was going to happen. So history will judge me based upon those actions.

I don't think that any person can fix FEMA. I think FEMA needs a total restructuring. I think it needs to be taken from scratch and redone. The regulations are outdated; the rules are outdated.

I'll just tell you, I'm not a big FEMA fan.

Basically, the start of my thinking process is: 'OK, if you didn't have to worry about re-election, what would you be doing?' That's kind of how I'm starting to think.

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority-African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way.

At the end of the day, I believe truth is stronger than any lie that's out there.

Hurricane Katrina was a disaster. It exposed the soft underbelly of America when it comes to race and class.

You guys in New York City can’t even get a hole in the ground fixed. And its been 5 years. Let’s be fair.

It’s bullshit. When people are dying, bureaucracy should be thrown out. I saw a guy kill himself at the Superdome. Two policemen have committed suicide.

Let’s have a moratorium on press conferences …. Get off your asses and let’s do something and fix the biggest doggone crisis in the history of this country.