Someone was dragging their feet bigtime.
The comments indicate they'd been talking since "last year".
In any case Nagin did announce the City would commandeer all public transportation in his Sunday morning televised evac order.
I heard him say it with my own ears.
If that happened, I suspect Nagin would be complaining about it to cover himself. He seems real big on passing the buck.
How much do you want to bet that her name is Phyllis Landrieu (Senator Landrieu's queenlike aunt)?
If a seventeen year old could comandeer a bus and drive over 70 people to Houston, the Mayor, Chief of Police, or someone wanting out could have done it too. Sitting around in an emergency whining about "we can'ts" ends up costing lives.
Screw the regulations, steal the buses, hotwire them if need be and drive as many people as possible to safety, preferrably the elderly and women with small children.
Abel-bodied men should have been the last out, not the first, as was shown in the first busloads that arrived at the Astrodome.