I am a Katrina survivor.
Here are the reasons that I became such:
1. I owned no vehicle at all.
2. I do not have any family member alive to count on.
3. The friends I knew were all families, and their vehicles were full up.
4. At the moment that the decision to leave town was broadcast over radio and TV airwaves, both Amtrak and Greyhound stopped operations to and from New Orleans.
4. At the same time, the two city bus lines that connected Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish, which connected Metairie and New Orleans, ceased operation, so I could not get to my place of employment, the V.A. Medical Center New Orleans.
I had the money to go, but had no means to go. I ended up in middle Louisiana, after a month-plus stay in a guarded camp of other Katrina survivors, and have no intention of going back to New Orleans. I live “uphill, on the top of a hill, in the top floor.”
The reason so little thought is put into this problem is because city ‘elites’ don’t have to worry - they put their families in the new SUV - call in to say won’t be coming to work for a week or so - and they leave.
It’s the same reason public transportation doesn’t work - the people who design it don’t use it...
Why people even live in New Orleans is in itself foolish....