Bus drivers rushed to help victims (to N.O. from Houston )

[Judi Lynn]

Sept. 18, 2005, 10:21PM

Bus drivers rushed to help victims
HISD responded through Labor Day and Metro assisted as evacuees arrived
By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
HURRICANE KATRINA

Give a big hand to the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Houston Independent School District for giving a big hand to victims of flooding from Hurricane Katrina.


The storm struck Aug. 29, shredding a long expanse of the upper Gulf Coast. Then a levee in New Orleans broke in two places, filling the below-sea-level bowl with water from Lake Pontchartrain. Help was late in arriving, and as days passed the situation went from desperate to deadly.

On Sept. 3, while most Houstonians were enjoying the Labor Day weekend, a convoy of 142 HISD buses made its way to Louisiana to help evacuate survivors.

Some 400 drivers, HISD police and other personnel, took part. Although they were paid, all had volunteered, said HISD transportation manager Bonnie Russell.

Their duties, Russell said, included: picking up survivors at ferry landings and taking them to hospitals and shelters, retrieving residents in wheelchairs from nursing homes, and transporting 600 National Guard troops with their equipment from New Orleans for rescue missions in flooded rural parishes.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3359289
(Free registration required)

~~~~ link ~~~~

[pnorman]

1. That link doesn't seem to work,

and I can't Google it.

pnorman

[Judi Lynn]

2. I posted in in a different form, maybe that will help.

(It is a free subscription site, I'm pretty sure. Maybe that would throw a wrench into things.)

[roguevalley]

3. good for them and all who help here. they will have nightmares for

years. Bless them all.