September 10, 2005
"Does Anybody... Know Anything About Buses?"
The Times continues to probe the confusion amongst Federal, state, and local lines of authority that marred the New Orleans relief effort.
Their lead offers a puzzle about buses:
The governor of Louisiana was "blistering mad." It was the third night after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of people from the fetid Superdome and convention center. But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal authorities had arrived.
Ms. Blanco burst into the state's emergency center in Baton Rouge. "Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?" she recalled crying out.
They were an obvious linchpin for evacuating a city where nearly 100,000 people had no cars. Yet the federal, state and local officials who had failed to round up buses in advance were now in a frantic hunt. It would be two more days before they found enough to empty the shelters.
Now wait. Bloggers everywhere have seen the photos of the Mayor Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool;the MSM, through the Houston Chronicle, reported on Sept. 8 that "City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm...".
Somehow, those municipal buses never appear in this Times story. Yes, they were flooded by the time the Governor was frantically looking for them, but it still seems to be a bit of news that is on point.
In any case, the Houston Chronicle gives us this:
As Hurricane Katrina approached Sunday morning, New Orleans officials advertised city buses would be used to pick people up at 12 sites to go to the "last resort" shelters.
It's unclear how many buses were used. Planners decided not to use any of the New Orleans school buses for early evacuation, Wilmot said.
Photographers recorded images of them lined up in neat rows and submerged — though one was commandeered by Jabbar Gibson, 20, who ferried 70 passengers to safety in the Reliant Astrodome.
UPDATE: The Captain does a thorough job of rebuking the Times, and has more on emergency planning from Florida.
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