Need Help: The School Buses

[bookman]

I live in Right Wing territory and this keeps coming up. (a FOX thing?):

Why weren't all those school buses used to evacuate by local officials?

(I suspect I know, but..)

What did local officials do to get people out?

[Joebert]

1. I saw the police chief interviewed tonight, and he was asked that.

Pre-hurricane, the question was deferred to the Mayor's office.

Post hurricane, he wanted to get the buses rolling to empty out the convention center and the Superdome, but the water never receded where the buses were.

[libertypirate]

20. The school buses or the local public transit buses?

The local bus system was the primary evacuation method used pre-landfall but not all residents evacuated to emergency shelters; most of which are local schools.

This was what one of the parish's emergency management directory said on this weeks realtime Bill Maher.

[bluestateguy]

2. Here we go again

Many of the buses were used to get some of the people out. There was nobody left to drive them, and of all the buses that were not used, that only would have gotten out about 13,000 people: a small dent, given that 100,000 people stayed behind. Private bus companies were of no help: they shut down and skipped town.

[bookman]

5. Apoligies..

..I needed a crystal clear statement for future "discussions"...
and unlike some of "them" I like to get the facts right.

[libertypirate]

21. There are two bus systems the school buses and the local transit buses /nt

[Erika]

3. There were thousands upon thousands who needed a way out

The relative few school busses could have little impact. That is when the feds should have helped.

[HuskerDU]

4. When sheep try to pull that crap with me, I just stick to

one thought. Why were people left to die in America?

Regardless of what any state or local officials did or didn't do... Why were people left to die IN AMERICA?!?!

[fooj]

6. They used all of the school buses and had them all loaded up for one trip.

Then, the rest of the people apparently didn't have the means or the desire to get out when it was still safe. When the hurricane passed they had a false sense of it being "over", IMO. When the levee broke, it was too late.

Bottom line is that they failed at responding to the crisis. And on Day 2, Shrub was too busy selling his "busted" social security disaster to a bunch of senior citizens in Arizona. When the Mayor of NO was crying out for help...Shrub and McCain were eating cake. Literally.

Peace.

[orleans]

7. randi was talking about this today

and she was saying that the city buses were used to evacuate people before the hurricane and she was reading off a list of schools people were taken to--she said they used the city buses (not the school buses) because the city ones have air conditioning.

and then the hurricane was over.

i saw the pics on the news today of the school buses parked in water almost to the roof -- or so it appeared.

how long did it take for the city to flood after the levee broke? they probably didn't have time to get a bus evac going at that point.

[Carolab]

8. Yes.

We really have to stop talking about school buses.

Air-conditioned city buses were pressed into service on the Wednesday before the storm. There was no need for the school busses.

Then, after the storm, the buses were submerged and couldn't be pressed into service.

Amyway, what was really needed was medical transport and evacuation of hospitals and nursing homes. What was needed was an airlift of supplies to the shelters of last resort before the rain even stopped.

[cornermouse]

11. How long did it take to flood?

Per NPR interview yesterday, somewhere in that mess it took about a half hour for the water to rise 8 feet.

[greyl]

9. Here's mine

This is part of I reply a posted at a different forum in response to the parking lot full of school buses picture:

"That lot isn't "full" of buses - 200 of them are missing because they were used by New Orleans mayor Nagin for evacuation, until 3 people died in them while sitting in traffic. School buses don't have air-conditioning or bathrooms. That's why Nagin begged FEMA for commercial style buses. Is there a photo of a caravan of those commandeered by FEMA?
More to the point, who was responsible for driving them, and where were they to be driven? (Do you think a mayor or senator has out-of-state jurisdiction?) Was there water, let alone medical care, at their destination?
Who is responsible for answering these questions?"

[oasis]

22. Would the busses transport folks to the superdome? then what?

The right wingers don't hasve a leg to stand on.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Nagin did use buses to transport people to shelters and out of NO

However the school buses were not suitable for long trips and they knew that just to get to Baton Rouge would take 8 hours. Imagine 8 hours in traffic on a bus with no AC or bathrooms? Then 3 people died on one going to Baton Rouge and Nagin asked FEMA to send touring buses. Of course, FEMA never sent anything and people died has a result.

Oh by the way, Nagin did get 80% of the people out of NO. That is incredible in a city where 100,000 households do not own a car. This is why we are seeing the death toll being revised downward, because State nd Local officials did do a good job and it was mostly without any help from FEMA.

[bookman]

12. Appreciate all your answers

It was late last night I encountered this. I haven't heard the 80% figure.

I live in Texas and the stories are flowing. I've met some evacuees first hand. I haven't discussed how they made it out, just trying to help them out.

Repugs want so badly to put this on local officials.

[complain jane]

13. Just for the record, a related question that the right poses about this

is that NO's plan, which is floating around the web documented somewhere, included moving all the buses to higher ground prior to the hurricane. Obviously it wasn't done, don't know why.

They complain that those buses could have been used to get the people out of the Superdome much quicker and alleviate the violence.

[bluedawg12]

17. The biggest outrage was FEMA not getting in to help

the SD and Con center. What may or may not have happened before the storm was normal govt. and citizen FUBAR stuff. But watching the people begging for water for 5 days and dying on TV was the outrage.

[enki23]

14. maybe they fucked up, maybe not. it doesn't change a fucking thing

once the extent of the disaster was widely known on FUCKING MONDAY, the feds needed to get their assistance to the area as soon as possible. period. whether the fucking school busses should have been elsewhere or not is completely irrelevant to that issue.

[oasis]

16. You are absolutely correct. The busses are a side issue.

[oasis]

15. Did Bush move to assist 60k Americans that he knew were trapped for

5 days in two holding pens? Did he have the power to say enough, I'll move heaven and earth to change the situation?

The busses are a side issue. No one saw that on tv until it was scapegoat time.

Bush/FEMA did see thousands in crisis and left them to rot.

Go back and tell them that.

[Secular Agent Man]

18. The school buses aren't going to save Bush's ass.

If that's what the right-wingers are wishing for. Hopefully, they can be dried out and used to send Freepers back to school. :crazy:

[Tatiana]

19. School buses is about all the RWers can come up with. *Sigh*

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09_10.html#078692

Federal officials have also faulted Nagin’s administration for not marshaling its own buses and those of the School Board to start ferrying the tens of thousands of evacuees stranded at the Superdome and the Convention Center out of town.

Nagin said perhaps some of the criticism is fair. But he said there were various logistical hurdles that made it hard to use that equipment, and the buses would have hardly created a dent in the size of the crowds anyway.

“It’s up for analysis,” he said. “But we didn’t have enough buses. I don’t control the school buses, and the RTA (Regional Transit Authority) buses as far as I know were positioned high and dry. But 80 percent of the city was not high and dry. Where would we have staged them? And who was going to drive them even if we commandeered them? If I’d have marshaled 50 RTA buses, and a few school buses, it still wouldn’t have been nearly enough. We didn’t get food, water and ice in this place, and that’s way above the local level.

“Our plan was always to use the buses to evacuate to the Dome as a shelter of last resort, and from there, rely on state and federal resources.”