The mayor and a delegation of city leaders are headed home Thursday night from a fact finding mission to Cuba dealing with emergency preparedness and hurricanes.
So far, the trip has generated far more controversy than safety solutions.
It remains to be seen whether this trip was worth taxpayer money, but a think tank from Washington, D.C. is defending the idea.
The Center for International Policy brought the mayor of Galveston, Texas down to Cuba this April to show her many of the things Mayor Ray Nagin has been looking at this past week.
The Caribbean island of Cuba often finds itself in the path of hurricanes. It takes a beating almost annually.
Wayne Smith from the Center for International Policy says that experience has translated into life saving knowledge and habits.
“While we lost 1500 people in Hurricane Katrina, Cuba only lost some 30 people in the past ten years," says Smith.
Part of the reason for the lower death toll: mandatory evacuations ordered by a dictator. Critics of Nagin's trip say that's a strategy that won't translate to U.S. soil.
“We can't simply emulate the Cuban system that's true - but there are things we could do," says Smith.
He believes Cuban policies that would work here include continuous media coverage of evacuation instructions and government replacement of property damage: that way people wouldn't be afraid to leave their belongings.
Smith also thinks cities like New Orleans could learn from Cuba's hyper-organized evacuation plan that identifies anyone who could be considered vulnerable.
“They have records of people in homes that need assistance, who will have to be carried out. They are ready when the signal goes to evacuate,” says Smith.
Nagin says Cuba's database on its citizens helps with that country's evacuation:
"They get down to very specific levels as far as understanding their citizens, and their needs and what needs to be done during an emergency. They pretty much go block by block."
So far that's as much detail as Nagin's given about which Cuban policies he'd like to try in New Orleans.
The mayor of Galveston told various media outlets she learned a lot from her trip to Cuba and wants to transplant some of the policies she saw used in Havana.
Mayor Ray Nagin is scheduled to lands in New Orleans Thursday night at 11:59.
