Let Them Rent Limos

Houston Chronicle ^ | Sept. 4, 2005 | Rick Casey

[Ajnin]

Didn't you hear about them ranting about the *cold* MREs?

You've got to be kidding.

[Jess Kitting]

"...this is a statement, not a plan. Who's in charge of making it happen? How do they communicate with each other and with the potential clients. How is it going to work."

Uh, the Mayor.

A man and a plan
but not a clue what to do.

[logician2u]

Despite claims to the contrary, no government I'm aware of has a "plan" that can be made to work for all people in any kind of emergency -- even if the bumblers in charge of carrying it out were to actually follow it.

The tendency for those of lower income and lower IQs to place their faith in the government to assist them goes hand-in-hand with the feeling among some in the elite classes of society that only the government can perform certain everyday functions (such as providing public transportation) for these unfortunates.

Reinforcing this, polticians of both parties promote costly public expenditures in rail transit as a way to improve the lives of those who don't own cars. In New Orleans, they also justify these projects as a way to attract tourists.

Not that anyone is seriously proposing it, but the money the nation's taxpayers and corrupt New Orleans politicians have dumped into just five miles of streetcar lines since the mid-1980s could have bought every low-income family in town a car -- and to heck with waiting for the bus that never comes.

Lack of Automobility Key to New Orleans Tragedy

[BenLurkin]

That bottom graphic should be on the front page of the LA Times, the NY Times, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Globe.

[ckilmer]

The Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan specifically stated that people without private transportation were to be transported on public buses.

There were not just "200 buses". There were 200 buses in just one photo and Freepers studying the post-Katrina satellite images have counted over 400 buses altogether at other city parking.

At 70 people per bus that is 28,000 people per round trip that could have been taken out of the storm surge area in the 48 hours prior the Katrina striking.

After the storm hit, what makes you think that buses sent from outside of New Orleans could drive through the flooded mess any better than the 145 New Orleans city buses that were parked 1.2 miles away from the Superdome?

Was Scotty supposed to beam the outside buses to the Superdome and them beam them back out so that they would not have to drive through impassable roads?

The time to evacuate those 200,000 low-income people on public buses OUT OF THE STORM SURGE ZONE was BEFORE the Category 4 storm struck.

That was what the Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan for New Orleans specifically called for.

The Democrat Governor and the Democrat Mayor did NOTHING to carry out that portion of the plan. They left 200,000 low-income resident abandoned and they now blame the Federal Government for not having Scotty beam down a massive logistics effort after a human disaster of their own making.

[A. Pole]

Have they no cars? Let them rent limos. Uhh... well, some did!

Indeed. So there was a comfortable way to get out!

Evacuating In Style: Families Flee Storm In Limo

It's not the quickest way, but it was the only way.

Marty Kogan says it's taking a good long while to get from New Orleans to his suburban Chicago home. That's because his family and another couple are making the trip in a limousine.

They agreed to pay the driver $3,700 to get them out of the Big Easy and back home ahead of Hurricane Katrina.

Kogan told AP Radio from the limo that they only managed to go about 120 miles in the first six hours, because of heavy traffic outside New Orleans.

Kogan said the family couldn't find any rental cars, so he started calling limo companies and asking for a ride. A couple from South Dakota joined in, and Kogan said they were lucky to find somebody willing to drive.

He said they've been having a good time, just chatting and sleeping. His family was in New Orleans to drop their son off at Tulane University, but the campus shut down, so he's heading home, too.

[Fenris6]

"You've got to be kidding."

Wish I was. In Somolia, I witnessed some poor creature hobble across a wasteland into Baderra to have a wooden *stake* removed from his foot. So I'm not very sympathetic to the "plight" of America's "poor" during Katrina - spoiled brats is more like it.

As another poster noted, thousands of *real* poor find a way across the Mexican border every year. So how hard can it really be to evac into Baton Rougue.

[Ajnin]

Simply unbelievable. I remember having cold MRE's that tasted like filet minot, LOL.

[ccmay]

Think about what might have happened if, on Saturday afternoon, the Mayor ordered all school buses to be placed into service, and volunteers could be drivers, and the buses were to be filled up with anyone who didn't have another means of evacuating the city.

The Mayor was thinking about how many millions of dollars in lawsuits would result if one of these volunteer drivers ran off the road. Our legal system kills again.

-ccm

[decal]

Mr Casey's "talents" are well-known to those unfortunate enough to read his columns in San Antonio as well as Houston...

http://www.publiustx.net/index.php?itemid=1115