The city leaders had at least two full days to use these hundreds of buses to evac the poor, exactly as their own emergency management plan called for.
Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states:
5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.
Seems as if I've heard that before somewhere.
Idiot N.O. Mayor bump
It's Bush' fault.
Actually, everybody is misreading this rule in the plan. It says that "School and municipal buses...may be used to provide transportation for individuals..." It doesn't say they must be used for that purpose.
The mayor made a bad call: the proviso makes it his or her call to use the busses. His call was not to. That's not a deviation from the plan. He 'may' choose to use buses, and he chose not to.
It was the wrong decision, but not in violation of the plan.
THANK YOU!!! Cars, my butt ... they just needed a mayor and governor who were conscious and could hear.
So lets put this into prospective. All they had to do is trudge 1.2 miles to those silly stored school buses...hot-wire them (which over 15,000 NO residents are very capable of)...put at least people on, and drive out. Of course, it wouldn't have taken care of all SuperDome folks in one trip...but if you just drive 10 miles up the road, and return for more folks...you fix the problem. And 24 hours after the hurricane ends...no one starts to think of that? I wouldn't have stayed in the Dome more than 12 hours max...and I would have hit the road. I just can't understand the lack of survival skills in this town. They know how to be corrupt, and sell drugs, and rob you...but they don't even have the basic skills of survival.