"If they were a fleet of school buses, why the hell didn't they float??!!!"
Posted on 03/28/2006 7:31:36 PM PST by Pikamax
Starved for cash, the New Orleans school district is taking a long shot and hoping to sell its flooded, unsalvageable school buses on eBay.
Some submerged to their roofs in the black flood waters, the yellow school buses were widely photographed in the days after Hurricane Katrina and have become an icon of the city's devastated school system.
School officials acknowledge the sale of the buses on the Internet auction site may puzzle some people used to more traditional school fundraisers like bake sales.
"There's no shame in it. Not one bit," said school board president Phyllis Landrieu. "This is a new mechanism for selling things. I think it's very upbeat what we're doing."
Only 23 of 117 Orleans Parish public schools have reopened. They face a $111 million shortfall - about a quarter of the district's $430 million annual operating budget. The district also has $264 million in outstanding debt, carried over from before Hurricane Katrina.
A total of 85 schools flooded, and wind damaged many more. It took three months for the first public school to reopen. Now, the schools that are holding classes have around 9,500 students, about 15 percent of the 60,000 enrolled before the storm.
The school district plans to put one bus up for sale on eBay this week. If it succeeds, more of the 259 ruined buses will be offered.
"It's an example of how bad the situation is that we would have to come up with this idea," said Richard White, schools spokesman.
The district plans to contract out its student transportation.
"...buried old schoolbuses in his back yard as a storm/fallout shelter."
Koresh had one buried at Waco....Bunker/Arms room.
Rename it the SS Ray Nagin.
Those eBay ads may be interesting to read. "Flooded bus for sale dirt cheap. Engine block is rusted. Only 25,000 miles on odometer. Bus was never driven over 40 mph. It was parked during Katrina."
But have no fear......when they come at the voters with yet another gazillion dollar school bond, they'll assure the masses that they'll spend that money wisely.
And the dummy voters will believe them.
I thought I saw that as a joke somewhere.
ONLY SUBMERGED ONCE!
"Rename it the SS Ray Nagin."
Even better
Coincidentally, look what Neal Bortz had posted on his web site today:
Cool. I would lower it just a little more and put grass on the top though:')
Hello!!!! Dumbass AP 'journalist'!!!!! Hellooooo!!!
Those buses have become an icon of failed local and state efforts to do what FEMA and Jorge got blamed for.
LOL, I had envisioned them totally covered with dirt and wondered how you got to the door. I keep thinking about Helen Hunt's dad that gets sucked out with the door of the storm shelter in one of the movies. If the suck zone went right over that bus, would it rip the roof open or would that be a sufficient shelter?
I would lower it and have grass on top too.
"If the suck zone"
The WHAT????
"According to Rasmussen, "Early in a tornadic thunderstorm, the pressure falls due to increasing rotation. This causes the inflowing wind near the ground to accelerate as it rises toward the updraft. This is what our fictional counterparts in Twister called the tornado's 'suck zone'." A few thousand feet above the ground, this inflowing updraft of air collides with air overtaking the storm from the rear in a region where evaporating raindrops are cooling the air, causing a strong downdraft to form."
Would you use the top escape hatch or have the back open, like in the pic?
Rednecks have no Tacky-meter. It would have cost anuther case of Pabst Blue Ribbon to dig that thar hole a foot deeper.
The rugrats would be roller skating around up there & makin all sorts 'O racket!
I didn't realize there was a top escape hatch. I probably would use it. It's be easier and safer than leaving the whole end open.
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