Can anyone give me a good response to the bus bullshit?

[electricray]

That is the one thing I haven't been able to counter with official documented evidence. I have a feeling that it has something to do with lack of drivers or perhaps it is a picture of a junk yard or something else. If it is true, I guess that Nagin isn't as faultless as I had first hoped. He is sure a lot less at fault than Bush and company, though.

[discopants]

1. snopes

http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/buses.asp

[MichaelHarris]

3. imagine

those buses underwater, full of people. That's exactly what you would have had if they had been used when the levee broke.

I've evacuated from a much smaller hurricane in Texas once, it took 6 hours to drive 18 miles.

If you wanted them to use the buses after the levee broke then you would have had rolling morgues.

[discopants]

15. What facts we know

I think Scopes did a good job of dealing with this propaganda smear with the info that is available today.

That they are NO school buses that are flooded, the photo itself is valid.

What facts we do not know are what the Mayor and/or Gov had to do with these buses according to their emergency plans.

[MichaelHarris]

2. Look at it this way:

Hurricane is 2 stages, high wind, blowing debris, and tornado's. In this stage you protect the people from that, the Superdome was the best place. Now the second stage, flooding. The buses were used once before the flooding happened but when the realization came that the people in the dome needed to get out the roads and area where the buses were staged was flooded.

The people had to be protected from the high winds and debris first, unless The Bush coalition of Media Moguls though it was best to evacuate people in tall buses in 100 mph winds, that would have been fun to watch.

[OKDem08]

5. I got a BS

e-mail recently from a RW 'friend' on this issue. I used the
"how many in the Bush Adminstration does it take to change a light bulb" in response. Absolutely beautiful response in my opinion and I also told her to TAKE THE HINT. I don't expect to hear from her again (hopefully).

[electricray]

44. Thanks I'll use that. n/t

[wanpete]

4. I do not think Nagin is faultess in this catastrophe. I'm a straight

shooter and he bares some blame. everyone with a (D) behind their name don't necessarily expouse all of our beliefs....shall I name a few...Lieberman, Zell, etc...of course, I dont mean to say that Nagin is as bad as these two, but I dont trust him and I think time will tell about his culpability in some of this. Former rethug but switched sides to win the mayoral election....hmmm?

[TahitiNut]

21. The whole reason for a professional disaster recovery agency ...

... at the state level and the federal level is because local officials don't have the expertise ... and because people make choices that look bad in retrospect. Nagin was not a professional in this area. Neither was Brown. Neither was Smirk. But it was Brown who was hired to be a professional!

The purpose of disaster recovery planning is to have an approach that survives a mistake by one person and balancing it with prompt and effective actions by the pros. The reason it didn't work is because the Bushoilini regime put the political cart before the recovery horse - Smirk wanted sole authority in his regime and, he thought, all the credit.

This is a guy (Smirk) that deals in hostile takeovers, not cooperative agreements -- invasion instead of diplomacy, eradication of the UN because he can't dominate it more, blanket exemption for US military personnel from all laws, and every other manner of "my way or the highway." His regime deals in politics, not accomplishment!

[thefloyd]

6. Real Time had

A man in charge of disaster management from one parish and stated the Buses were used but once the buses returned after the first load officials came to the conclusion evacuees did not have the financial resources to be evacuated

[AirAmFan]

26. For people with emergency savings, home insurance, and high credit card limits,

the Mayor's request to evacuate was something like an invitation to go on a forced vacation.

For many of the very poor, the Mayor's request was an invitation to homelessness. They live paycheck to paycheck, and survive hard times by relying on friends and relatives. The very poor don't have friends and relatives the way you and I have friends and relatives. Friends and relatives are their LIFELINES, their unemployment insurance. They are very reluctant to stray very far from home. Before they'd abandon their homes, floodwaters would have to already be up in the attic.

And they don't trust government to see to it that all their worldly possessions will be intact when they'd return from the out-of-town motels they cannot afford. Do you know what kind of sacrifice it took for them to HAVE those possessions in the first place, working for minimum wage or even below minimum wage in the underground economy?

I believe you are quite right. Buses weren't the issue for the very poor. They have concerns that the average middle class person cannot even begin to comprehend.

[oasis]

7. 60 thousand suffering/ dying people were ignored for days by Bush

and FEMA. Bush had the power to end the suffering but turned away.

Busses had nothing to do with failure to immediately rescue dying people from the Superdome and Convention Center.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. And it appears that 'Dubya' will be defended by people like you

Regardless of what he does or doesn't do. And when Katrina raged, his first inclination was to do, frankly, nothing. So what's your point?

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[oasis]

22. See post #19

[jumpoffdaplanet]

33. So 80% of N.O. evacuated is a bad job to you?

And it's been shown over and over that the feds were asked to help and the feds did nothing. And they did nothing in Miss. too. Did that gov. forget to ask? And why don't you blame him for not asking.

Bush is so much to blame, there isn't any non-blame left over.

[MichaelHarris]

14. ummm

taken time from his vacation maybe?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MichaelHarris]

31. 24/7?

Well I guess Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis was horrible compared to Bush reading my pet goat or accepting guitars from some country and western hack or discussing Social Security while people drowned?

I'll leave you with one thing to ponder in your bush-ite brain, In an election year, with his brother Governor, he was on Florida like a fly on shit, why is New Orleans different?

[oasis]

19. If Dubya's momma was inside would he have acted sooner? Tell the truth.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[oasis]

29. Your hypocrisy is NOT unbelievable although it was predictable. (eom)

[Carolab]

32. It's INSURRECTION, not Insurgency Act.

The feds are ever insistent on getting Louisiana's Governor to sign over all regional authority to them. Why? It would give them a free hand to bring in whatever out-of-state contractors they want for the $50 billion clean-up and rebuilding effort. It's about the money.

It would also be a cheap electoral ploy - only a Republican federal government can keep you safe, not a Democratic state government. To this end, a senior Bush administration has lied and said that the Governor of Louisiana refused to declare a state of emergency. Untrue. She did so on the 26 August.

Governor Kathleen Blanco is quite right to be wary of Bush.

Bush...used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

Due to Bush government discomfort with anyone outside of their country club - including a Democratic female governor - more effort is being spent on taking over command than on cooperation. They talk of invoking the Insurrection Act.

Lamentable that National Guard and federal troops cannot cooperate in the face of a national emergency. The unfortunate people of New Orleans have been flooded, not launched an insurrection.

[Garbo 2004]

35. No need to invoke any "insurgency" act after state of emergency declared.

(Which by the way, is not "the Insurgency Act." This isn't Iraq, yet.Try the Insurrection Act.)

People act as if natural disasters and joint fed/state efforts never occured before. And as if active duty troops have never been used to assist in natural disasters in a joint command with state authorities. And in an expeditious manner. Northcom was ready before the storm hit and waited for the go ahead from the Pres. that didn't come for days.

Once state resquested and feds declared state of emergency, all the resources of the fed gov't could have been used...including for purposes of evacuation. And that includes federal troops, except for law enforcement purposes. BTW, the Pres also can send in the National Guard to provide security, yes he has that power. And the state was requesting National Guard in addition to other resources. Those requests have to be processed via Washington, DC at the federal level.

What's unexplained is why the Pres instead chose to wait for days and then press the Gov to relinquish control of the state resources. Even Northcom said federalization of state resources was not required.

Couldn't have done anything different? Other Presidents have.

[skids]

8. There are two inferences to respond to.

When the RWers bring this up they are never perfectly clear as to whether they are complaining that the busses should have been used to bring people to the superdome, or ferry people from the superdome/convention center out of NO. The first thing to do is ask them which part they are complaining about.

To the first part, the plan called for the use of city busses, not schoolbusses, to make trips from the takeup points to the superdome. I haven't seen a solid source as to whether this was done or not, but indications are that there were busses running. Nor have I seen any material saying whether those busses were sufficient for all the people that wanted to take them. (Obviously it does no good to send a bus if the people won't get on it.)

It should be noted that from the time the mandatory evacuation order was given, many of the able-bodied could have walked to the dome or other shelters.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

The second point is whether those busses could have been used to bring people out of the Superdome. Here the details are more murky, and we have to wait until they are fleshed out. Nagin probably had better transportation than schoolbusses in mind. Certainly the busses would not have helped him if he had no licensed drivers. If he let unlicensed drivers do it, and one of them flipped over like that charter bus did, the city would have been at fault. What the plans were, how those plans fell through, and who's at fault for that are not clear AFAIK.

[Tatiana]

Busing people out of the Superdome/convention center.

Details are murky here, but the question is, where would these people be bused to? Mayor Nagin did not have the authority to just send busloads of NO residents to other states and cities.

There were already examples of NOLA residents evacuating (on foot) to other towns and parishes and being refused entry. Establishing agreements of receiving evacuated residents falls somewhere between FEMA and/or the governor's responsibility.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tatiana]

There was an evacuation plan. It was used.

The problem is that FEMA told local officials to hold on for 2-3 days and they would be there. The evacuation plan (for NOLA) included evacuating people to shelters, anticipating Feds would then come in and transport the evacuated people to places they had designated to receive them.


FEMA did not keep up its end of the bargain, while the parishes did. They were told the "calvary is coming." Only it never arrived.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tatiana]

28. They were TOLD the calvary was coming.

Blanco was specifically told this by Brownie. Brownie, who was appointed by your guy Bush, was supposed to be the point-man in the management of this disaster.

Listen to the words of the great Trent Lott (R):

"Something needed to happen," Mr. Lott's statement said. "Michael Brown has been acting like a private instead of a general. When you're in the middle of a disaster, you can't stop to check the legal niceties or to review FEMA regulations before deciding to help Mississippians knocked flat on their backs."

And even if local officials ASSUMED the calvary was coming, it would have been a correct assumption because that's FEMA'S JOB and the responsibility of the government under the National Response Plan.

[Tatiana]

18. dupe n/t

[Tatiana]

10. dupe n/t

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

11. The criticism about all...

...those buses just sitting there has some validity in my opinion. What I would counter with is that it is NOT the story. The story is the Fed's non-response and FEMA's interference with ordinary citizens who were trying to help and others who were trying to leave. This is what caused the unnecessary nightmare people had to endure. They use the bus argument as a diversion.

[DoYouEverWonder]

40. The mayor doesn't control the school buses

they fall under the jurisdiction of the School Board. Besides school buses are not appropriate for long distance use, since they usually don't have AC and they certainly don't have bathrooms. Just to get to Baton Rouge during an evacuation takes over 8 hours.

However, he did use City Buses with AC to move people from pick up points around the city to the Superdome. Nagin asked FEMA to send touring buses in to take the people out of the city from there. Of course, FEMA did nothing.

[The Traveler]

17. Sure. Best case for total evacuation

of NOLA is 55-72 hours, based on various studies. Best case. Everyone cooperates, no snags, traffic moves without incident. They had about 62 hours between warning and landfall. The Superdome was the planned shelter for everyone would couldn't or wouldn't make it out. (A lot of people felt they couldn't spend the money on what they thought would most likely be a false alarm. They've gotten a lot of those down there. Poor people have to make choices like that and take their chances.)

Now, I saw this before the storm hit on CNN. Some NOLA official being told that they would have to make it for 48 hours, but no longer. FEMA promised the city that the cavalry would arrive within 48 hours. That would have been Wednesday morning.

That being the plan, holing up at the Superdome was a lot safer than trying to continue hustling people out of the range of the storm. It was too late. As near as I can determine, there was never a plan for the local authorities to perform a post-hurricane evacuation, the assumption being that FEMA would be on the scene with relief within 48 hours.

Such a plan could not count on parked school buses, anyway. Even if they survived the storm, which certainly could not be guaranteed, school buses are nationwide notoriously unreliable vehicles and unsuitable for long range travel. (Most of them are old and marginally maintained as budgetary pressures mount on school systems.) That's why supplies and personnel were planned to arrive in 48 hours ... to manage the situation with an understanding of what resources were left and keep people alive while that was being resolved.

Further, without Federal intervention, it is unclear a caravan of school buses would have been allowed to pass anyway. Local jurisdictions were terrified at the prospect of receiving refugees while they were dealing with their own chaos. (And, let's face it ... there was racism inspired fear operation there, too.)

Hope this helps a bit. But it is hard to convince a fool.

[electricray]

43. Thanks so much for the ideas. n/t

[MichaelHarris]

23. The "Lurkers" and freeps here

can go on and on with the bus story and maybe that's what they wanted, rolling morgues in a flood. At least body recovery would have been easier. Has anyone of you freepers ever evacuated a city? I have as I stated and it took 6 hours to drive 18 miles and that was from a city of 45,000. Now calculate the speed of the rising water and the average speed the buses could travel evacuating a city of 500,000. I know, I know advanced math scares you but here is your answer, flooded buses full of dead people.

Maybe they would have made the I-10 bridge that was washed away.

[oasis]

27. They won't answer questions, they just spew O'Reilly talking points.

They will jump all over a discussion thread to avoid a question that would reveal their hypocrisy.

[MichaelHarris]

36. I don't even know

why I'm bothering with this idiot, his mind was made up before he got here, eyes blinded by the light known as bush. We can tell him over and over you can't evacuate 500,000 people and FEMA should have been there, the government should have activated disaster relief knowing the impossibility of evacuating a major city. All he will ever see is buses and wonder, "Why oh why couldn't the mayor put 500,000 people on a bus".

He'll never see that if the mayor had even tried that these people would have died in the high winds and rising water.

His mind is muddied by the waters of republicanism.

[oasis]

37. He's gone now. Too many facts to deal with.

[MichaelHarris]

38. I was wondering

when that vein in his head would explode

[electricray]

45. Thanks for all the information

I wish I had been here to watch the freep melt down. Now all I see are a bunch of deleted posts. Oh well. I am probably able to piece together a pretty good idea of what went down based on the bullshit in freeperville.

[aikoaiko]

30. The Fed is more at fault, but Nadin Blanco should have done more

we'll know more in time about how much specific people screwed up

[Carolab]

34. A few points I'd like to make.

When New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city the day before the hurricane struck, he exempted "essential personnel of operating hotels and their patrons" along with transportation and utility workers, hospital staff and their patients, law enforcement and prisoners.

Many tourists with the means to escape the storm-targeted city did not do so ahead of the storm. Meanwhile, New Orleans residents without means of transportation or money to pay for places to stay in other cities lacked choice in the matter: they could not evacuate.

An estimated 100,000 people in New Orleans were without personal transportation or were too sick or elderly to leave on their own, according to Brian Wolshon, who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, in an interview with the New York Times. Over two-thirds of the city’s residents are black, and nearly 30 percent live below the poverty level.

[linazelle]

39. Link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4715653

[DoYouEverWonder]

41. Maybe this interview with the Mayor from yesterday

will answer some of the questions people are asking here. Also Nagin will be on Meet the Press, Sunday AM. Now that the dust has settled, it looks like Nagin is ready to answer some questions.


Mayor Nagin speaks out

By Gordon Russell
Staff writer

Sept 10, 2005


In a stark reminder of how drastically Hurricane Katrina has impacted the lives of New Orleanians, Mayor Ray Nagin has purchased a home for his family in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there.
Nagin, who spoke with The Times-Picayune by telephone from Dallas, where he has been since Wednesday, said he planned to return to New Orleans on Saturday. He said he will remain in the Crescent City while his family lives for the next six months in Dallas, making occasional visits to his family when possible.

It’s not clear where Nagin will be living: His home along Bayou St. John suffered massive flooding, the mayor said, although he has not inspected it.

In a brief but wide-ranging interview, the mayor reflected on the tragedies of the past two weeks, acknowledging that he may have made some mistakes but said that he hopes others in positions of authority – including President George W. Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco -- are scrutinized as closely as he and his staff have been.

"I’m not pointing any fingers at anyone," Nagin said. "But I was in the fire. I was down there. Where were they? I’m confident the truth is gonna come out. But I want everybody’s record analyzed just as hard as mine.

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

[americanstranger]

42. Buses can't drive themselves.

Who was going to drive all those buses? The people whose job it was to do so had probably evacuated.

-as