Posted on 09/06/2005 10:27:35 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
Kristi Richie
Press-Herald Staff
The nine school buses Webster Parish sent to New Orleans Friday to assist with evacuation efforts returned only with their drivers.
The buses stopped at a checkpoint in LaPlace and sat for several hours.
“Somebody came and told them they didn’t have a mission for them, so we loaded up and came home,” Webster Parish Schools Superintendent Butch Williams said.
Webster wasn’t the only group of buses turned away, though. Several hundred school buses, which were sent by order of Gov. Kathleen Blanco, were also turned away with no evacuees — possibly because the buses are not air conditioned and have no bathrooms, and officials did not know how far the buses would have to travel with evacuees.
“We have no idea what happened or went on. It wasn’t the evacuees that didn’t want to get on — I don’t really know what it was,” Williams said. “We’re pretty upset. It took a long time to get down there, and they had to sit there so long.”
The order from the governor was handed down Thursday night, stating all school superintendents are to provide an inventory of all buses and drivers and they are to be made available “to be used as necessary for the mass evacuation of Hurricane Katrina evacuees...”
First Baptist Church also took two buses to South Louisiana and were turned away.
Drivers Bob Chandler and Tommy Davis were to take the two air conditioned buses to just outside the French Quarter and evacuate 70 residents and 10 staff members of Maison Hospital.
However, the buses made it only as far as Baton Rouge before being turned around.
The Webster Parish Sheriff’s Office did utilize two parish school buses to transport prisoners to high ground.
Ten deputies were sent to assist and arrived just after daylight Thursday morning. One bus took prisoners to Monroe, and the second load was taken to Union Parish.
The nine school buses Webster Parish sent to New Orleans Friday to assist with evacuation efforts returned only with their drivers.
Ask the staff reporter who wrote this:
krichie@press-herald.com
(318) 377-1866 x108
I agree but on Friday they still needed buses to get people out of the city.
I remember driving a school bus at the ripe age of 17... no air, no radio, no 'power' anything. Sometimes it was hot. We opened the windows. In the winter it was cold. We wore coats. Somehow we survived.
Gee should I stay in NO with no food or water and live in water toxic enough to give me a chemical burn, or, should I take the chance I may have to take a dump in a roadside ditch? On top of which, my MRE's were cold. These people are indeed stuck on stupid IMO.
Bush denies evacuees air conditioned buses, making the evacuation impossible!
Film of the empty buses at 11:00....
You know who's realling pissing me off? This President of Jackson Parrish who's all over the news insulting the Federal Government? Just what does a PRESIDENT of a Parish do? Why didn't he go house to house BEFORE the hurricane and force the people that were within HIS reponsibility to go. It's like nobody can fend for themselves about anything. It's sickening the CYA on this is embarrassing and so freakin obviousl
I heard an interview on FOX-NEWS with a retired Louisiana official who said that the department/association responsible for maintaining the levees had used the money to buy a casino and to invest in each others' businesses rather than strengthen the levees. I'm sorry that I didn't note the name, but I hope this info comes out on the Internet somewhere.
Indeed.
The parrish president takes the checks to da bank.
That's funny but true.
"Oh, I stubbed my toe! It's dark...blame Bush!"
"I remember driving a school bus at the ripe age of 17... no air, no radio, no 'power' anything. Sometimes it was hot. We opened the windows. In the winter it was cold. We wore coats. Somehow we survived."
Thats sounds terrible......what a poor childhood...
You are free to loot now...
""Who was responsible for turning these buses away?""
"Staggeringly bad reporting. I think the little reporterette just forget to ask that question."
Unbelievably, FEMA prefvented the Red Cross from entering NO - this is not boding well for the Repubs that need to run in 2008 - and we better start demanding that Homeland and FEMA fess up - Bush must shakeup NOW.
When I was in elementary school, we used to take long trips on school buses all the time. I never realized how deprived I was.
I saw a woman in FOX News complaining when a school bus stopped to pick up people, "We're adults. We can't ride a school bus."
Hey, whoa, Hildy. That's Jefferson Parish, not Jackson, which happens to be the home of Congressman Randy Alexander, R-LA (formerly Congressman Randy Alexander, D-LA).
I keep having this recurring mental image of Mayor Nagin sitting next to the fax machine in his office the day after Katrina blew through wondering why he hasn't received his DNC talking points for the day.
What the eff?
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