Hell Has Frozen Over: NBC Nightly News is talking about the flooded school buses.

6 Sep 2005 | PhilipFreneau

[PhilipFreneau]

The title says it all. NBC News is currently reporting on "Missed Opportunities" -- actions that could have saved lives. One of those missed opportunities is the 200+ flooded school buses. NBC is even referring to the evacuation plan and its reference to the school buses.

"Today the mayor would not comment [on the flooded school buses]," reported NBC's Lisa Myers.

I kid you not! The report is only five or six days after Free Republic reported it, and only three or four days after Drudge reported it!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I heard it reported from at least two sources, that New Orleans had legitimate access to approximately 2000 buses... All of them in the Metropolitan Area.

NOT the estimated 400 to 600 buses we've been talking about..

If proved true -- this will be an 81mm coming in through the bunker's smoke hole for the Democrat bitchers...

2000 buses x 60 evacuees per bus = 120,000 EACH TRIP!

As soon as I can find hard copy confirmation, I'll post.

Ping some of us, that will be a great find!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Hey, that's OK, I did get excited....see post #150 for a number of 2000.

[doug from upland]

I'll look at it, but I think I've done 4 or 5 Nagin songs already.

[river rat]

Only if I get something more reliable than "xxxx said", etc...

Semper Fi

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Man O Man.......

**************************************

Minutes From June 5 Meeting Of Orleans Parish School Board: Using School Buses In Evacs
Orleans Parish Shool Board ^ | June 5 2005 | None

Posted on 09/06/2005 6:19:29 PM PDT by angkor

Found this in the Google cache, the minutes from a June 5 meeting of the Orleans Parish School Board.

The Board members had a very specific discussion about releasing school buses to the City Of New Orleans for hurricane evacuations.

Sorry for the length, but it does provide some valuable insights, e.g., what took the City so long to conclude this deal? They'd been talking with the School Board for at least a year.

[T. P. Pole]

In the town, where I once live,
Was a mayor, he's one of us,
And he told us all to leave,
But he didn't use the bus.

We're going nowhere on a Nagin Yellow Bus
Nagin Yellow Bus
Nagin Yellow Bus
We're going nowhere on a Nagin Yellow Bus
Nagin Yellow Bus
Nagin Yellow Bus

All yours.

[Gideon7]

[supercat]

There's a fleet of yellow submaries.
Yellow submarines. Yellow submarines.
There's a fleet of yellow submaries.
Yellow submarines. Yellow submarines.

[msnimje]

I love the way they said "NBC News has obtained a copy of the official evacuation plan." Gee, we're so impressed. We've been reading it for THREE or FOUR DAYS!

Now it would be great if they could obtain a copy of the Constitution of the United States.

[river rat]

2000 buses mentioned in something a little more substantial than "verbal"...

They are mentioned in the Washington Times column by Pruden.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050906-122931-2126r.htm

The article was posted at FreeRepublic on the 5th.... Don't know how we missed it.... This is the Paragraph -- where the 2000 figure is mentioned.

".......in the early hours after Katrina loosed the deluge on the city that care and good judgment forgot. Ray Nagin, the mayor, ordered a "mandatory" evacuation a day late, but kept the city's 2,000 school buses parked and locked in neat rows when there was still time to take the refugees to higher ground. The bright-yellow buses sit ruined now in four feet of dirty water. Then the governor, Kathleen Blanco, resisted early pleas to declare martial law, and her dithering opened the way for looters, rapists and killers to make New Orleans an unholy hell. Gov. Haley Barbour did not hesitate in neighboring Mississippi, and looters, rapists and killers have not turned the streets of Gulfport and Biloxi into killing fields.

Semper Fi

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Wonderful!!!

The Archives are so valuable here on Free Republic!!!!

Nothing escapes the eyes of our many posters!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Hot link to the posted article here:

Not much traction with the abuse (Wes Pruden Rocks!)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See #190 and link at # 192.

[McGavin999]

I think they had to. Most Freepers have forwarded that photo all over the world. That photo is showing up in everyone's e-mail as they go back to work.

[Smokin' Joe]

The pig isn't so bad, but the emissions are another story...Thank God 'Dumbo' was only a cartoon...

[logician2u]

The school buses might indeed have evacuated a few thousand out of the stinkin' Super Bowl, perhaps more, and if they had been rounded up in time - a big if - could have taken residents who do not have cars to high ground to the north and west.

However, bear in mind that no one Sunday could have possibly predicted that 80% of the city was giong to be flooded on Tuesday, making ground transportation impossible in or out. Was the order to evacuate New Orleans issued on Sunday, or on Wednesday as I keep seeing on the "Mayor to blame" threads? I honestly don't know.

Regardless, there's a larger issue that needs to be addressed. In the city of New Orleans, nearly one-third of all households do not own a car. Certainly, there are other ways of getting around in New Orleans, but when disaster looms you really, really need a car to get yourself and your loved ones - and pets - out of danger.

I made the mistake of starting a thread yesterday, hoping it would generate discussion about the dependence city-dwellers have on government-provided transportation. Most of the comments indicate to me that the posters didn't read the article by Randal O'Toole, an expert on topics of smart growth, rail transit and other liberal fantasies; rather, they wanted to vent on the undeployed school buses.

This hurricane is going to change hundreds of thousands of lives in one way or another. The bigger disaster is what's currently happeningn in American urban areas, where we are becoming more and more dependent on someone in government to take care of our needs. It works across party lines, although Democrats are in the forefront simply because there are more of them in power in the big cities.

Take a look at "Lack of Automobility Key to New Orleans Tragedy" and tell me what you think.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Mnay were expecting to have transportation that didn't come. Many thought they were safe. Many were elderly, infirm or children. Many were ignorant. Tragic.

Yes. It is. What is equally tragic is the fact that we've raised generation upon generation of people who think that the government should take care of them. The survival instinct has been squashed.

This is a GREAT chance to turn that around...

[logician2u]

My sentiments exactly.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Ditto that, Ernest!

[PhilipFreneau]

Thanks for the new photo of unused school buses. I had not seen this one before.