Who's to Blame? Let's ask Mayor Nagin about this:

Yahoo ^ | 2 September 2005 | Self

[AD from SpringBay]

Little bit of sarcasm there - left off the tag - my bad.

[freema]

NO Mayor

[JasonC]

You move the buses, then you give the mandatory evacuation order. Duh.

[JasonC]

Hysterics help nobody. Helos have been evacuating people continuously. The AKs involved are on the ground, and are shooting at the rescuers.

[JasonC]

He needs to resign. He can wait a month if he likes.

[bethtopaz]

Oh.

[Flux Capacitor]

----Who's to Blame?----

Three words that are gonna be FR's epitaph.

-Dan

[expatguy]

bttt

[VeniVidiVici]

If those are standard 55pax school buses, and only 200 of them, they'd have been able to move about 11,000 people out of the city

The one good thing Greta did tonight was interview that teenager, Jabbar Gibson, who took a school bus from a bus depot in New Orleans and drove it Houston, picking up folks along the way.

He said by the time he got to Houston he had 80 people on that bus.

He seemed a bit overwhelmed by the attention but appeared to be a good kid.

[Old Student]

On another thead on this subject, I suggested this kid for the next Mayor of New Orleans. Decisive, bold, willing to take risks to help others. These are good characteristics for a mayor to have in a city where hurricanes are a regular occurance. This is one seriously high-potential kid. (absolutely no sarcasm at all)

[Bernard]

I remember when the Superdome was built, somebody mentioned using it as an emergency shelter for floods. I don't know if there were any signs or other mechanisms designating it as a shelter, like the old nucelear attack shelters.

Of course, any intelligent plan to get people in there during an emergency should include a plan to get them out as well and provide services while they are there, just like a recovery plan for computer systems must include procedures to get back to normal operations.

Too bad nobody took it seriously. Now the only tourist attraction in NO might be boat rides to see what the second floor looks like - at eye level.

[Miss Behave]

I am STILL unclear about the busing plan to get the citizenry out of town beforehand. James, a couple of nights ago, noted all the school buses just sitting there in the water, and said:

"There was no plan to get the people on buses out of the city."

Holwin replied back to him:

"You are wrong. They used city buses."And a little later added: "There were buses picking up people all over the city."

Which was it? Anyone know?

[Miss Behave]

And every time I see that pic, I get sick. Damn.

[Howlin]

They were city buses, like Greyhounds.

[Enchante]

One teenager, one bus = 80 people saved

Meanwhile, the obscenely negligent Mayor and Governor left HUNDREDS of buses (and probably thousands of vans, trucks, etc.) sitting idle all over southern LA, failed utterly to plan any adequate shelters for refugees, and left informed people wondering just what these two losers do with all the supposed LA tax dollars and federal emergency funds that have been squandered....

[Miss Behave]

Thank you, but where are all those city buses now? Why are not those same city buses shuttling the poor people out of the Hell Dome and Convention Coop NOW? Are the city buses on their way to Canada or something? Why didn't the *plan* include coming back for the now very stranded citizenry?

Anyone? Bueller?

[Howlin]

I do not know that, Miss!

[Miss Behave]

What a great *plan* it was.

[Howlin]

As I said before, I believe their plan was "I Hope It Turns."

[IrishRainy]

Plus it would have taken YEARS before the project was finished, approximately 2015, so it should have been started during the early to mid 90s -- which was Clinton's reign of terror...I mean, era.