Katrina Coverage

On Wednesday morning, Aug 31, Blanco's staff stopped trying to arrange schoolbuses for the evacuation. They believed that Fema was sending them buses. Not only that, they thought the military would use Chinook helicopters to airlift people out of the Superdome.
Then, when that didn't happen by the afternoon, Blanco started the search for buses again, […]

2theadvocate.com: News - Disaster response 10/23/05
…Buses are not among [FEMA's] pre-staged supplies [MREs, cots, etc.].
Within hours of Katrina hitting on Monday [Aug 29], FEMA promised to deliver buses, according to Blanco.
On Tuesday [Aug 30], Blanco aide Leonard Kleinpeter recalled, the governor asked him to start trying to arrange for use of school buses.
FEMA relies on […]

While I've seen many references to Nagin saying the plan was to move people to higher ground, I haven't seen the same about the schoolbuses. However from 2theadvocate.com: News - Disaster response 10/23/05:
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that, before the storm hit, the buses were moved to higher ground that traditionally didn't flood. But […]

There's a long roundup here, including this:
# New Orleans Regional Transit Authority buses weren't available. Most were flooded by the same waters that trapped residents. Buses that could have taken people out of the city before the storm did not.
# Buses that the Federal Emergency Management Agency promised reportedly within hours of Katrina's landfall weren't […]

From "City blamed for botching N.O. evac plan":
They gave New Orleans city officials an affordable plan to evacuate 30,000 low-income, elderly and homeless people, said New Orleans attorney Val Exnicios.
But city officials failed to put it in play come crunch time, he claims.
Exnicios blames city officials for botching an evacuation plan in place as needy […]

The Loyola University Hurricane Emergency Plan (effective August 1, 2003) is available here or in this cached page, and it contains this:
Limited bus transportation is available to evacuate those resident students who are unable to evacuate on their own. Loyola can only evacuate approximately 150 remaining residents. The City of New Orleans and other agencies […]

From the 9/12 article "Floodwaters also may be full of gasoline":
Some 150 buses that were moved to the Poland Avenue Wharf in the Lower Ninth Ward appear to have fared well, but about 70 of those vehicles were commandeered by the police and fire departments, the National Guard, and in a few cases by individual […]

See the pictures here, which reputedly depicts 60 unflooded school buses at the Algiers Bus Barn at 801 Patterson Ave. The image is from google, and was reportedly taken on Wednesday 8/31, two days after the storm came in; the Superdome wasn't evacuated until Saturday. The route between the bus barn and the Superdome and […]

Remember "Blanco: where were the 500 FEMA-promised buses?" Well, "Offer of buses fell between the cracks" has the shocking details.
A Florida trucking logistics company called Landstar Express America had a contract with FEMA that was worth up to $100 million per year to provide buses for evacuation purposes.
On Sunday, Aug. 28, Landstar apparently contacted a […]

Bill Clinton has criticized Our Leader Bush for his response to Katrina on Sunday's "This Week". Your job is to determine why. Is this an attempt to help heal the Bush administration, with perhaps another Bush appearance in which he'll shovel out even more money? Surely, Clinton wouldn't turn on his new best friends in […]