New Orlean's school buses

CBL4

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I am sorry if this has been discussed before but I found this picture of school buses underwater amazing.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015

Between school and transit buses, New Orleans had hundreds (thousands?) of buses. Why were not city buses used to evacuate the city? At the very least, the buses should have been filled with gas and put on high ground to be used after the hurricane.

This was major incompetence on the city's part.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
I am sorry if this has been discussed before but I found this picture of school buses underwater amazing.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015

Between school and transit buses, New Orleans had hundreds (thousands?) of buses. Why were not city buses used to evacuate the city? At the very least, the buses should have been filled with gas and put on high ground to be used after the hurricane.

This was major incompetence on the city's part.

CBL
Click to expand...

Jeezus H Christ! It's because the people they were evacuating weren't going to school. They were taking them out of the city. Think man!
 
I looked a little more and it gets even worse. The school buses that were usable were not being used. Some enterprising people had to steal them to get evacuated.

Several school buses were stolen from Orleans Parish, loaded with storm victims and driven out of New Orleans toward Houston in desperate acts to leave the ravaged city, according to reports.
...
An 18-year-old also decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an abandoned city school bus and drove storm victims to Texas, according to a CNN report.

The teen driver, Jabbar Gibson, 18, said he had never driven a bus before but wanted to save people.
Click to expand...
http://www.local6.com/news/4929516/detail.html

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
I am sorry if this has been discussed before but I found this picture of school buses underwater amazing.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050901/480/flpc21109012015

Between school and transit buses, New Orleans had hundreds (thousands?) of buses. Why were not city buses used to evacuate the city? At the very least, the buses should have been filled with gas and put on high ground to be used after the hurricane.

This was major incompetence on the city's part.

CBL
Click to expand...

I remember seeing it at the very beginning and I'm glad that it didn't escape notice in the long run. It's really hard to pick the one thing that went wrong, now, isn't it? But it doesn't seem to be stopping people from demanding resignations and firings. Gee ... think there are agendas?

Jen
(Pollyanna's negative, cynical alterego)
 
CBL4 said:
I looked a little more and it gets even worse. The school buses that were usable were not being used. Some enterprising people had to steal them to get evacuated.


http://www.local6.com/news/4929516/detail.html

CBL
Click to expand...

Worse than that ... I heard or read that they were PART OF THE EVACUATION PLAN. And what about the three city boats - two of which were broken down?

Jen
 
Unfortunately, they were only suggested to be used as part of the evacuation plan. After Hurricane Georges, specifically, in 1998. And again after Ivan last year. (cite)
 
Re: Re: New Orlean's school buses

The Central Scrutinizer said:
Jeezus H Christ! It's because the people they were evacuating weren't going to school. They were taking them out of the city. Think man!
Click to expand...

Exactly. If they used the busses to evacuate, then how would the children ever get to school? You've gotta think of the children!
 
Oops, meant to mention:

Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, the busses should have been used. And equally clearly, local officials had the foresight to use them and chose not to.

However, it's worth noting that using the busses would have alleviated the problems but not solved them. As many people refuse evacuation even now it becomes obvious that New Orleans had a much deeper problem, perhaps one which defies a full solution. There was a deeply ingrained culture of not leaving in the face of hurricanes. I've said before that I believe that some of that results from failure to trust a corrupt government to protect belongings left behind from high crime and I'm still confident that that explains at least some of the problem. But it seems to go deeper than that. If people can't be convinced to leave even now, when all their possessions are gone, there's no food or water, and the very environment is toxic, what can one do to convince them to leave in advance of such conditions when most of the time the advertised tragedy fails to happen? I don't know that anyone has a ready answer to that.
 
manny said:
As many people refuse evacuation even now it becomes obvious that New Orleans had a much deeper problem, perhaps one which defies a full solution.
Click to expand...

Yes, the problem is:

"How can we twist matters to make George Bush responsible for people refusing to leave?" ;)
 
Manny

Nice post.

It's hilarious how the Fox and CNN guys are accusing others of playing the "blame game". They were tossing a lot of blame around before they had any idea what was going on. But the general discussion seems to be becoming more reasonable, at least.

Jen
 
My mother absolutely refused to leave. I had to go down there and drag her out. And this was 5 days after the storm hit.

Even after I got to her and explained that she had to leave, that she could not stay, that there would be no power, water, or food, she still insisted on staying. I finally told her that I was taking her out if I had to tie her up (not, I assure you, an idle threat) so she could either pack a bag and take something with her or she could travel as is.

There are, I am sure, a great many people who stayed because they had no way of leaving, but this is not, in my experience and estimation, the case with anywhere close to all (or even the overwhelming majority) of the people that stayed. Of the people with whom I had contact during my trip to get my mom, none stayed out of necessity; all stayed by choice. And few of these people had any idea that their very presence, even absent any pressing personal danger, increased the burden on the rescue and recovery effort.

What happened in Orleans Parish is hardly a surprise; it has long been understood that there existed no plan in place to provide for people who ignored evacuation orders. The implication that the Superdome was intended as some sort of "rescue center" is dead wrong - it has always been intended as a shelter-of-last-resort to protect people from the wind, collapsing buildings, and flying debris, only to be used if you could not get out of town, and only during the storm itself. It was a classic BYOB party - bring what you need and sit out the storm. It was never intended as a primary evacuation center or long-term refuge facility.

Lest anyone misunderstand, I love New Orleans. I lived there for 11 years and my parents moved to the area in 1978 and never left. But the reality is that while it calls itself "The City that Care Forgot", it is as accurate to call it "the city that forgot care". The city is culturally and politically incapable of planning for unpleasant events.

I am not surprised that transportation was available but not used to evacuate people - that is the nature of this particular beast.
 
Thanks for that story, Metullus (and thanks for the kind words, JenJen). Do you have any insight into what causes such a strong attraction to staying? I understand the general impulse not to leave home, but when 9-11 happened and Guiliani said get out of lower Manhattan you could have counted on one hand the number of people who stayed who weren't supposed to. Now in fairness, that's mostly a business district and the apartments down here mostly belong to the rich who could re-create much of their possessions with a Gold Card and an hour at a decent mall. So I guess that makes it easier. But I really don't understand the impulse that makes people's worries about where will they go take precedence over the instinct that staying will kill them.
 
Good for you, Metullus - you took good care of your mom.

You'd better duck, though, the PC bomb is probably on the way.

I don't have relatives down there but I have some that I know wouldn't have left. Part stubborn and part distrust of the gov't and/or science. Maybe curiousity, also. Why do people go to the beach during tsunami watches?

Jen
 
manny said:
Thanks for that story, Metullus (and thanks for the kind words, JenJen). Do you have any insight into what causes such a strong attraction to staying? I understand the general impulse not to leave home, but when 9-11 happened and Guiliani said get out of lower Manhattan you could have counted on one hand the number of people who stayed who weren't supposed to. Now in fairness, that's mostly a business district and the apartments down here mostly belong to the rich who could re-create much of their possessions with a Gold Card and an hour at a decent mall. So I guess that makes it easier. But I really don't understand the impulse that makes people's worries about where will they go take precedence over the instinct that staying will kill them.
Click to expand...

My first wife's mother lives less than a mile from Mobile Bay. They have been placed under mandatory evacuation many times, and she (ex-wife's mother) refuses to leave every time. Because she won't leave, her daughter (my ex) stays with her, which means my oldest son is hostage there as well.

I have had countless futile phone conversations with my ex mother-in-law during these times. I have even sent the police by their house to inform them of the mandatory evacuation to no avial. I have asked the police to arrest them and drag them to a shelter. I have asked the police to at least take my son out there and put him in a shelter. In all cases, they have told me this is beyond their authority. "BUT HE'S A ****ING MINOR!!!!" I have shouted and taken names.

Anyway. My ex mother-in-law says it costs money to leave. And she says the hazard from tornados farther north away from the Gulf is worse than the hazard of the looming hurricane. So logic isn't her strong suit.

And she is afraid if her house is damaged, she won't be allowed back into the area to prevent further damage from rain and such.

They are in a pretty strong house. There is a huge basement they stay in which my ex father-in-law (now deceased) built with his own hands, and his skills were as good as it gets. And that is always a comfort when I am pacing in front of the TV news during these times. I am literally trusting my son's life to his skill. And he hasn't let me down yet.

But here's the thing. This past weekend I'm talking to my son's great Aunt who also stays in that house with them. The subject of the dead in Gulfport, which isn't so far from them, comes up and she says, "Well they should have evacuated."

Talk about your exploding irony meters...
 
I have first to confess to that particular sin myself in past years.

I think part of the problem is that folks in Southeast Louisiana are (were) inured to a not insignificant degree to the threat of hurricanes. Every summer the hurricane tracking maps go up at the office and people watch and even make bets on the location of landfall for each storm. Every storm "might be the next Betsy", and, when it fails to deliver a catastrophic punch to the city, there is a sigh of relief and the folks that did evacuate return sheepishly to town feeling more than a little bit foolish. And each time there is just a little more reluctance to leave when the next storm comes.

Some years people would have to evacuate 5 or 6 times in a single season in order to be safe - with no significant storm ever hitting. You might guess that it gets old fast.

So, instead of leaving when the storm turns north towards NO, we wait. For the inevitable turn to the east towards Mississippi and Alabama. For the likely shift towards Texas. For the absolutely certain decrease in intensity.

Why evacuate if you don't have to? I mean, if I'm going to get a day off I'd like to spend it relaxing at home, right?

By the time that it becomes obvious that none of these inevitabilities are going to occur, well, let us say that evacuation, which 24 hours earlier would have been inconvenient, is now hugely problematic, and slow.

And who wants to sit in traffic for 16 hours just to travel 100 miles or so. It’s uncomfortable and boring.

Besides, you see, I'll be just fine in my house. It survived Francine. Or Betsy. Or Bob. Its still here. And I can go a couple of days without electricity.

I'll be fine.
 
Jocko said:
Yes, the problem is:

"How can we twist matters to make George Bush responsible for people refusing to leave?" ;)
Click to expand...

Bound to be the riught wing mantra in the coming months.

But of course FEMA knows that there are always a lot of people who won't/CAN'T leave in time.
 
So, what, exactly, should FEMA have done differently?

I ask this not to pick a fight, but because I have not heard anyone say what should have been done. My mom had rations, ice, and water on Tuesday. People were on the ground in St. Tammany Parish and the Mississippi Gulf Coast within 24 hours.

Thats pretty good IMO.
 
Renfield said:

But of course FEMA knows that there are always a lot of people who won't/CAN'T leave in time.
Click to expand...

Correction ...

... WON'T/can't leave ...

See? That's part of the point.

Jen
 
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