Number of buses...

"According to a September 5, 2003, article in the Times-Picayune, "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down." In addition, a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development profile of the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA), last updated May 5, notes that RTA owned 364 public buses, bringing the total of the city's public transit and school buses to fewer than 700."

Public transit buses were being used to evacuate people. But as I said before, they were being used in the manner that would help the most people under the circumstances... taking them to the nearest emergency shelter.

The school buses people saw in neat rows under water in pictures could very well have been the 70 buses that were broken down and not operational.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120009

That article debunks quite a few other falsehoods that are being spread here in this thread. For instance, the stupid accusation that Blanco should have, but didn't ask for specific assistance...

"According to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP), when responding to a catastrophic incident, the federal government should immediately begin emergency operations, even in the absence of a clear assessment of the situation. Because a "detailed and credible common operating picture may not be achievable for 24 to 48 hours (or longer) after the incident," the NRP's "Catastrophic Annex" states that "response activities must begin without the benefit of a detailed or complete situation and critical needs assessment.""

On the subject of prepositioning assets...

"In fact, a Navy ship -- the USS Bataan -- was "preposition[ed]" off the Louisiana coast ready to aid Katrina victims but was deprived of needed guidance by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as the Chicago Tribune reported on September 4.

Moreover, the Bush administration did not send a hospital ship to New Orleans from Baltimore until four days after the levees were breached. Kelly wrote that the Army Corps of Engineers had by September 10 "begun pumping water out of New Orleans." But James Lee Witt, FEMA director in the Clinton administration, said that both efforts should have happened much sooner: "[I]n the 1990s, in planning for a New Orleans nightmare scenario, the federal government figured it would pre-deploy nearby ships with pumps to remove water from the below-sea-level city and have hospital ships nearby.""

National Guard...

"In fact...according to Department of Defense officials, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had requested additional Guard personnel before the storm hit. And, as the Associated Press reported on September 3, Blanco accepted an offer for additional troops from New Mexico the day before the hurricane hit, but that help was delayed by paperwork needed from Washington."

According to the NRP (http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf), the local government officials did everything they were responsible for under the plan.

FEMA before Bush (from the perspective of Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., whose house was damaged by Hurricane Andrew)...

"The day after I crawled from the wreckage of my home in 1992, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was there with water. Shortly thereafter came low-interest loans and other forms of help."

And after Bush...

"By contrast, a woman who saw me conducting interviews in Bogalusa, La., seven days after Katrina struck marched up and demanded to know if I was, finally, the man from FEMA because her house was split in two and she and her husband and children and grandchildren were sleeping on the porch."

_______________

From the Mayor of Hattiesburg, Mississippi (originally taken from an article in the CNN website, for which the link is now defunct)...

"FEMA, meanwhile, has refused to release 50 trucks carrying water and ice sitting at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree said.

'They're sitting down there right now because one person from FEMA won't make the call to say, "Release those trucks,"' he said.

Two-thirds of the residents of the southern Mississippi city have no power, and that figure was 100 percent for three-and-a-half days, he added.

He said FEMA representatives did not arrive in Hattiesburg -- 95 miles from New Orleans -- until Saturday.

'People from all over America have come in to help us," he said. "But the people who get paid to do this haven't done what I think they should have done.'"

www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04...topstories"


We've already covered all of this ground many times in previous threads.