New York City has no official plan for a complete evacuation of the sort now being carried out in storm-ravaged New Orleans, Governor Pataki acknowledged in a television interview yesterday.

“I can’t sit here and go through a detailed plan to evacuate New York City – or even tell you that we have a detailed plan to move the 8 million people who live here, or the millions more who come here during the course of a day, in the event of some unpredicted catastrophe,” Mr. Pataki told CNN’s “Late Edition.”

The governor said the city’s buses, trains, and subways could help empty the city, if they survived the initial calamity.

“We have great mass transit, but who can say what the nature of the attack or the catastrophe might be that could knock out that system?” Mr. Pataki said. In New York, the city takes the lead in disaster planning, but plans are carefully coordinated with state and federal officials, the governor said. “We’re doing everything we possibly can,” he added.

Mr. Pataki said it was unrealistic to think there could be a flawless plan to respond to every possible type of crisis. “If anybody could tell you that some unpredicted or attack or catastrophe, if we could instantaneously promise that we would be able to make everybody in this city, everybody in this state safe, obviously that’s not the case,” he said.

While the governor said the response to Hurricane Katrina was “obviously” inadequate, he urged that efforts to investigate the sluggish reaction be placed on hold until the crisis has abated. He noted that the independent commission that probed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks produced its report three years after the assault on America. “I think there is a rush to judgment, when what we should have is a rush to help people,” Mr. Pataki said.

Senator Clinton has proposed legislation to create a commission to investigate the hurricane response. However, she wants the commissioners to begin work immediately and produce a report within six to nine months.