[goldstategop]

I keep hearing Democrats insist on the need for "a plan." There sure wasn't one in New Orleans. I must have missed the news.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[coconutt2000]

Now I know why all those people were stealing TV's and DVD players. They were wondering what was on those DVD's they got before the hurricane hit.

[t2buckeye]

"The primary message is that each person is primarily responsible for themselves, for their own family and friends," Truehill said.


Wow! Sort of changes things for Nagin and BLanco, doesn't it? And contrast THIS story by the NO paper and the recent editorial calling for resignations of everyone...
Verrrrry interesting!

[t2buckeye]

Somebody should this to the paper's editorial board who just insisted that Bush fire everyone.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

"EVERYONE IS ON THEIR OWN ?"

I bet that's the first time the welfare group heard THAT one! No wonder there was chaos.

[djsunzi]

The URL for this link is on the Times Picayune site:

http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1122184560198030.xml?nola

[tazman3]

Doing some research and stumbled on this. Not totally off topic.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html

Some juicy bits here for later use. A lot of folks don't remember what was said days ago (not you, those OTHER folks). This stuff is priceless and a good 'local' resource.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Oh. My. God.

If this is not the ultimate rope to hang Ray Nagin, I don't know what is. No wonder he looked like looked like he had just swallowed poison in his news conference when he finally announced the mandatory evacuation.

DVDs???? Poor people don't have DVD players. Old people sure as hell don't have them. (My 80-year-old parents, who are not poor, do not even have a VHS player, nor do they want one.) And THEY DO NOT HAVE CARS.

Bottom line, the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority has almost 400 buses. They can hold 40-50 people each. That's 16-20,000 per trip. If those buses had taken just 5 trips on Saturday and Sunday to Baton Rouge, they could have moved close to 100,000 people. And that doesn't even count the school buses. And God knows they could have at least moved the damn things to high ground so they could have been used to get all those folks away from the Superdome and Convention Center.

Much blood is on these people's hands.

[popdonnelly]

The people of New Orleans might do better on their own without the help of the Mayor, the Governor, and the Times-Picayune.

[Chaguito]

Let's see...

500 buses x 40 souls/bus x 4 roundtrips per day x 2 days = 160,000 souls.

[JRios1968]

In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.

What do they call these?

"But we don't have the transportation."

They don't have it now!

Their message will be distributed on hundreds of DVDs across the city. The DVDs' basic get-out-of-town message applies to all audiences, but the it is especially targeted to scores of churches and other groups heavily concentrated in Central City and other vulnerable, low-income neighborhoods, said the Rev. Marshall Truehill, head of Total Community Action.

Well, now we know why so many looters...oops, I mean "dispossessed" were stealing DVD players and plasma TV sets...they needed to waych the DVD!

[grellis]

Truehill, Wilkins and others said emergency preparedness officials still plan to deploy some Regional Transit Authority buses, school buses and perhaps even Amtrak trains to move some people before a storm.

[VeniVidiVici]

After reading this no wonder the Democrats are against "No Child Left Behind".

[lonestar67]

someone needs to get a hold of this DVD.

The video clips of local officials would be invaluable in placing blame at the end of this torrid affair.

[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.

[finnman69]

Nagin was criminally negligent.

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

An RTA emergency plan dedicates 64 buses and 10 lift vans to move people somewhere; whether that means out of town or to local shelters of last resort would depend on emergency planners' decision at that moment, RTA spokeswoman Rosalind Cook said

TEXAS sent 500 buses how many times?

[WestSylvanian]

From the start of the rooftop evacuations, I've noticed something peculiar. Healthy, muscular black guys have been plucked off the roofs of what appear to be rather substantial houses. I've been up on the roof of my own house for repairs numerous times and I know how big it is. These houses are two or three times as large. They have solid looking roofs with newish shingles. How is that people in such circumstances lack transportation or the means to leave the city? These aren't shanties and their owners certainly weren't destitute.

It appears to me that Coast Guard and Army guys are risking their lives to rescue lots of fools who had plenty of opportunity to leave New Orleans and refused to do so. And taxpayers are footing the bill. Infirm elderly, poor people with no means to leave--by all means we should do everything to help these hapless victims. Perfectly healthy idiots who refused to leave are a disgrace.

[finnman69]

We better get thse DVDs out telling folk they are on their own. Yeah, thats a good plan

[mylife]

Bombshell