The Southern Louisiana Evacuation Plan specifically stated that people without private transportation were to be transported on public buses.
Here is the original post of the planThere 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.
Can anyone explain to me the 'paperwork from Washington' that they say kept 10,000 guardsmen from getting their until Thursday?
"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard
I'm trying to understand why paperwork would have to come from Washington on this. I thought that it was between the state governors and Washington had no jurisdiction over the Guard unless they were called up for foreign duty. I'm also wondering how they know when the paperwork got out of the state TO Washington in the first place. Just because he said that he would send them on Sunday and she accepted doesn't mean that both Louisiana and Arizona got the paperwork out that day and Washington knew about thier deal. Maybe Washington didn't recieve the 'paperwork' until Wednesday or Thursday from Louisiana. But, I'd still like to know what paperwork it was to begin with.