In this short video (Real Media 34k stream). . at the very begining . . the 2nd sceen, shows yet another dozen unused blanco buses!
Under the first image is a link that says "VIDEO Aid Finally arrives".
The New Orleans plan called for evac to start 50 hours out. A blogger had done the math.
- 66 people per bus
- 2.5 hour trip to safety; estimate 6 hours roundtrip
- 3 shifts of bus drivers so that they contintually run
- one bus can make 4 trips in 24 hours, 8 trips in 48 hours
- in 48 hours, each bus can evac 528 people
- (with 570 bus drivers) 190 buses x 528 people = 100,320
This, of course, is a perfect plan. Things don't always go right. All the designated drivers will not show up. (then, you substitute a kid who proved that anyone can drive a bus). Buses may break down. There may be a problem getting fuel. The highways may be too congested for a 6-hr roundtrip to work. And, of course, many of the buses may be hijacked by the animal thugs from the city whose murder rate is 10 times the national average.
Galveston adopted its plan to use buses for the poor and helpless at the beginning of August 2005. The following is an article that identified the problem months earlier.
Feb. 19, 2005, 10:06PM
Officials: Region lacks plan to help vulnerable survive Residents with special needs would have few options to find a way out
By JOE STINEBAKER and RUTH RENDON
Houston Chronicle
SPECIAL REPORT • Are we ready? If the big one hits, what will happen in the Houston-Galveston area?
Some tenants of Galveston's public housing projects are among thousands who could face being stranded on the island and risk losing their lives should a major hurricane strike.
The tenants are among those identified by local and state officials as the region's most vulnerable residents who could be killed in a hurricane because local evacuation plans virtually ignore those without cars, in group-care homes or with no family to see to their safety.
Nearly all state, regional and local officials -- including many of those responsible for overseeing evacuations -- acknowledge that their current plans rely so heavily on self-evacuation that the poor, the old and the sick may have little chance of escaping a deadly storm.
"The reality is we don't have enough vehicles to get all these people off the island," said Sharon Strain, executive director of the Galveston Housing Authority, adding that her agency would rely on the city for help. The housing authority also has lined up a Houston bus company to pick up residents needing to evacuate.
"If we get a hold of them soon enough, they said they would come," she said.
Buses offered
Galveston housing project tenants include more than 300 elderly residents who live in a high-rise complex near downtown and another facility on 61st Street. Housing authority officials have told those residents, many confined to wheelchairs, that they will be provided transportation off the island should an impending hurricane approach. Strain said she has money in her budget to pay for buses if the authority has two days' notice of a hurricane.
Strain said many of the older residents and many residents of the 600 public housing units in four other locations in the city have friends or relatives who will take them off the island if an evacuation is recommended.
Authority and local emergency management officials hope to be able to provide bus transportation off the island to those residents who can't arrange their own, Strain said.
The authority is not legally required to provide evacuation assistance to its clients but Strain said she feels a "moral sense that we want to do that."
Facilities required to help
Officials estimate there are 8,000 Galveston County households -- or about 20,000 to 25,000 people -- that don't have a car. According to census and social service agency figures, thousands of the area's oldest and sickest residents live in group homes. And, although state law requires such homes to have evacuation plans, those responsible for overseeing the area's evacuation admit that many, if not most, probably are unworkable.
Jim White, director of Harris County's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management, said his office sometimes advises group homes on their plans, but acknowledges they don't have the time or staff to review every plan.
"If they tell us they have a plan and tell us they can implement it, we have to trust them," he said.
But many of those plans are inadequate. Many group homes are relying on ambulance companies to help them evacuate their patients and residents -- often the same ambulance companies on which dozens of other homes are relying. In some cases, White and other emergency officials warn that people with special problems had better have their own evacuation plans in place.
"That answer's going to get a bunch of people killed," Kemah Mayor Bill King said. "If we just sit around and say everybody's responsible for their own evacuation, just scratch out about 20,000-30,000 people when we get a hurricane. And that's not an acceptable result in a civilized society."
King said the current evacuation plans do not take the special-needs population into account because they are based on residents being able to get into their cars and leave.
"And if you're physically not capable of doing that, or if you don't have a car, there is no plan for you," he said.
Looking for solutions
State and local officials say they are hard at work on solutions to the problem. The first hurdle is to identify and find those who need help and then to concoct a workable plan to provide early transportation for their evacuation.
When tenants move into any of the Galveston Housing Authority's complexes, one of the questions asked is whether they have a vehicle and would they be able to evacuate in case of a hurricane.
The housing authority has standing arrangements with the Red Cross in Belton as a destination should any residents need to evacuate, Strain said.
"We have to come to the realization that if a Category 4 ever comes, it would be hard to get everybody off the island," she said.
Resident has nowhere to go
Harris County Judge Robert Eckels has said plans for the evacuation of nursing homes and those without transportation are "inadequate," but said he doesn't yet have a solution.
"That needs to be an integral part of the plan," Eckels said. "It is our responsibility for the plan. And we have not done adequate planning for special-needs folks for a massive evacuation.
" ... But if we don't know where they are, we can't help them. I don't know the answer to what that plan is going to be."
In Kemah, many workers at the popular Kemah Boardwalk get to work on bicycles and don't own cars. One is Santiago Rivera, a cook at Joe's Crab Shack who commutes 25 minutes on his bike from his home in Seabrook.
A potential hurricane was hard for Rivera to imagine on a recent sunny afternoon, on which he rode over the Kemah-Seabrook bridge to get to work.
"I'm not sure where I'd go," said Rivera when asked what he'd do should a major hurricane strike the area. "I don't have anyone to pick me up. I don't have anywhere to go."
Rivera said he hopes to save enough money to buy a car before any major hurricane hits the area.
State reviews strategies
Steve McCraw, the homeland security director for Gov. Rick Perry, is overseeing a major review of the state's hurricane evacuation plans. The results of that review and McCraw's recommendations were due in Perry's office this week but may be delayed.
McCraw said planning for the evacuation of "special needs" residents will definitely be one area on which the review focuses.
Emergency planners hope to compile a list or database of those requiring special attention during a major storm or hurricane. Because of the time involved in transferring the elderly or those reliant on medical care, officials probably would have to evacuate them first, perhaps as much as 48 hours before the outer bands of a major hurricane come ashore.
"You need more than the 33 hours to deal with the special-needs situations," said Tesa Duffey-Wrobleski, Galveston County's emergency management coordinator until last month. "The special-needs people need to be encouraged to leave early or we need to find a way to get them out early. If they end up leaving midway through an evacuation, they could end up sitting on a highway for potentially several hours, and many of them are really going to have some health problems if they do that."
Big job for island
Eliot Jennings, the city of Galveston's emergency management coordinator, said organizing such an evacuation in a hurry is a major undertaking.
"Galveston has a tremendous number of special-needs people," he said. "Based on the 2000 census, there are probably somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 people in Galveston who have no transportation. Transportation for those who don't have it, and taking care of special-needs people are two big issues we're working on and trying to solve. We haven't been real successful at it."
Jennings said he and others are considering working with area school districts to use school buses if a major hurricane were to threaten the region.
"The district is willing to commit its buses, but they can't guarantee us how many drivers will be committed to that," he said. "We have city buses, but not enough to move thousands of people. Some churches have buses, and we'll try to use some of them."
Brazoria County is perhaps even less prepared, although officials there say they have fewer sick and elderly people or residents without cars. John Vanden Bos, the assistant county emergency coordinator, said the county can do little to provide early evacuation for residents with special needs.
"The state says that's when you activate your local transportation system," he said. "Well, sorry, we don't have a local transportation system."
Vanden Bos said most residents who lack transportation can evacuate with family or friends. But some local emergency officials say they are seeing a new attitude among state officials.
"Before, there was really no big push to take care of the special-needs problems," Duffey-Wrobleski said. "But, especially after what Florida experienced this last summer, the governor has really got the state folks coming out and talking to everyone and trying to find out what we need to do for infrastructure."
Chronicle reporters Kevin Moran and Richard Stewart contributed to this report.
OK all . . . we now have an acurate sence of the capacity of each bus (around 40) and a number of busses (at least 220 in NO)
