Posted on 10/04/2005 1:42:04 PM PDT by LdSentinal
*** Wizbang Exclusive ***
Remember this gut-wrenching picture?
It was a picture of what was left of the Orleans Parish school systems bus fleet that was supposed to be used to evacuate the citizens of the parish BEFORE the hurricane. That picture was especially poignant because there where thousands of people trapped in the Superdome and the buses that could have saved them were ruined.
But last night I found a picture even more tragic in Google Maps.
On the left is the Superdome. On the right is the OTHER Orleans Parish bus barn (the Algiers Bus Barn at 801 Patterson Ave. [Document Link]), less than 5 miles from the Superdome. These buses never flooded and the route from there to the Convention Center and the Superdome was open the whole time. The hurricane blew in Monday morning and this picture was not taken until Wednesday. They did not finish evacuating the Superdome until Saturday.
To put a fine point on it... These were not private buses. They did not belong to a neighboring parish. These buses belonged to Mayor Ray Nagin. He could have used them at any time. He didn't.
Here's a close up:
Your count may vary, but I counted roughly 60 buses in the yard and presumably they filled the bus barns with buses to protect as many as possible. The 2 buildings could have held probably another 50 buses. But for the sake of argument let's say both buildings were empty. 60 buses X 75 people per bus is 4500 people per load. (you could put 100 per bus, but I'll be generous)
From the Superdome to Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, is about an hour with no traffic. They could have moved 4500 people every 3 hours. (time to load and unload) Or in other words, they could have had the Dome empty by sundown the day after the storm.
Once at Tiger Stadium they would have had water and sewerage and food would have been much easier to get to them.
Mayor Nagin didn't need to wait for the Feds to "get off their asses." All he needed to do was use the resources available to him.
~ And kudo's for the fancy graphics go to Kevin~
Nice work, but the "Bush blew it" line is just too satisfying to the MSM for them to pursue an alternate storyline.
Why is that picture tragic? 10,000 people did not die. The people who did die at the Super Dome did of natural causes or suicide. The other people who died in New Orleans for the most part elected to stay.
The people in the superdome were kept safe if not comfortbale during the storm. [Read the notes from the shelter at Keelser AFB, if you think any large group of people was going to be sheltered comfortably.]
That is just amazing. I hope someone can ask Nagin about this.
This was pointed with the the same photograph and similar graphics 3+ weeks ago.
But THOSE buses weren't AIR CONDITIONED.... NAGIN wanted nice, comfortable GREYHOUND BUSES to take the people out. I know that the red beaurocratic crap that FEMA puts everybody through, but they don't deserve the whole damn blame. Blanco and Nagin didn't get off THEIR asses to move people out in the beginning.
I hope New Orleans goes bankrupt.
But you forget that Nagin claimed he "didn't have drivers" for those buses. This is probably true, because if his police force is any indication, he was paying them but they never existed.
Anyway, any house-mom can drive a bus, I know lots who do drive school buses to earn a little extra money.
Around some parts of Alaska, the tour companies like to hire college girls to drive them because they tend to be way more careful, it being the biggest thing they have ever operated in their life.
Any number of evacuees or National Gaurdsmen could have driven these buses.
But further... I've been all over google earth, and there are at least 4 (count em four) bus parking lots in the city full of buses. Not to mention the train station.
INCREDIBLE. Good find. Of course, I'll bet that this connection will NEVER show up in the "transcendent MSM" (or so they think of themselves).
He sent the drivers away.
No, they belonged to the Orleans Parish School Board, which was "negotiating" with the City Of New Orleans to use school buses for hurricane evacs as late as June 9, 2005.
I posted those June 9th School Board minutes on several FR threads - they are quite detailed verbatim mminutes - and they also propagated externally to several blogs.
Reading the minutes, there is no question - I mean zero - about who "owned" and controlled the buses. On June 9th, the Board was still dithering about gas costs, paying drivers, bus security, etc. It's all there in the minutes.
Subsequently the Orleans Parish School Board was effectively replaced by a private turnaround/management firm in July 2005 due to corruption and financial mismanagement (e.g., being $25 million in the hole).
It seems highly unlikely that the school bus issue was ever resolved between June 9th and August 27th.
Problem is if he had any ____ he could have taken the buses and worried about the issue after the fact. The other problem is that the MSM, SO called hearings where Blanco refused to answer any questions and Nagin certainly isn't going to take the blame. Because GWB decided to take all of FEMA's responsiblity, and made it easy for the state and local to sit back and hehe about it. You certainly won's see Michael Moore commenting on cities stupity and lack of leadership.
One open question is whether these buses were operational.
For an unrelated example of FEMA messing up with buses, see this surprisingly ignored story:
http://katrinacoverage.com/2005/09/24/femas-buses-subcontractor-farmed-it-out-massive-confusion-landstar-to-blame.html
But do those buses have toilet facilities? Evacuation buses must have toilet facilities.
Those whom we speak of without a collective spine?
I'm not holding my breath.
They WON'T, they are too busy destroying Brown and criticizing FEMA and the President's SCOTUS pick to worry about such minor matters.
Besides they are too busy seeing how much MONEY they can throw at NO so they won't be called RACISTS.
Any attack on Nagin will NOT come from the GOP.
Nagin is clearly incompetent and indecisive, why would you guys expect him to accept the burden of monetary liability for school buses he wasn't authorized to use? It's clear he's not a man to take responsibility for his actions.
I'm also saying there are plenty of additional parties to blame here, and it's all documented in black and white in the June 9th School Board minutes, by name and title. The minutes indicate that yet another Louisiana Landrieu crony was running the Board meeting, and it was she who was throwing a monkey wrench into the negotiations. That's another reason there were no drivers available: the School Board hadn't gotten a commitment from the City to pay them, and so they simply dismissed them from work before Katrina.
By the way, the minutes indicate this issue had been in discussion for at least one year.
Sorry, I can't make Nagin the sole scapegoat for a system-wide conspiracy of bureaucratic bungling.
They could fit this in their schedule if they had any inclination at all.
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