Another decision not made?

[Downdraft]

Have you all seen the shot of the school bus yard with what must be scores of school buses all lined up under water? Every city or district has an immediate transportation system at it's disposal to move people. It's called the school bus system. They are saying they had no way to move the poor, old or ill out of the area. Why are school buses sitting in that yard? Why weren't they used? There they are all lined up in neat rows never used. I wonder why and all I can do is shake my head.

[x-y-no]

The picture has been all over the net for days. And yes, it raises very serious questions, as do a lot of other things about local, state and federal response.

I hope we can all agree, regardless of politics, that a thorough and independent post-analysis of the quality of response on all levels is needed. Some problems we've seen have been simply the nature of disasters, others were preventable. Failures were not *all* the fault of individual victims, nor of the mayor, nor of the governor, nor of the president (or of their respective levels of government).

[aumoore]

This has been discussed in other threads about Mayor Nagin not ordering manditory evacuations. He is more to blame as the city of NO is his responsibility. Him and his advisors wasted valuable time trying to see if his butt was covered if he ordered a evacuation.

[MBismyPlayground]

Does anyone have a link to the thing where the mayor says something about not using the buses due to concerns of lawsuits???

[tndefender]

I don't know if this has been asked specifically yet but just who was expected to drive all those buses? Do we think that in the face of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane and mandatory evacuation that the vast majority of school bus drivers would have agreed to separate from their familues and stay behind so they could accomplish this task? And where exactly do you take over 100,000 people on school buses with no means of support whatsoever?

[x-y-no]

I don't know if this has been asked specifically yet but just who was expected to drive all those buses? Do we think that in the face of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane and mandatory evacuation that the vast majority of school bus drivers would have agreed to separate from their familues and stay behind so they could accomplish this task? And where exactly do you take over 100,000 people on school buses with no means of support whatsoever?

The fact is that the use of school and municipal buses to transport people out of the city during the mandatory evac was part of the official plan. So to the extent that wasn't done, explanation is needed for why that wasn't done.

[mf_dolphin]

I don't know if this has been asked specifically yet but just who was expected to drive all those buses? Do we think that in the face of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane and mandatory evacuation that the vast majority of school bus drivers would have agreed to separate from their familues and stay behind so they could accomplish this task? And where exactly do you take over 100,000 people on school buses with no means of support whatsoever?

I've seen thousands of able people who could have driven those school buses. That's about the lamest of excuses I could have imagined as to why they weren't used. As to where they would have gone, I assume that the NO evac plan would have said where. Anywhere along the side of the road inland would have been better than in NO proper.

[THead]

Does anyone have a link to the thing where the mayor says something about not using the buses due to concerns of lawsuits???

If there is such a link, there needs to be a mayoral coup.

[MBismyPlayground]

I don't know if this has been asked specifically yet but just who was expected to drive all those buses? Do we think that in the face of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane and mandatory evacuation that the vast majority of school bus drivers would have agreed to separate from their familues and stay behind so they could accomplish this task? And where exactly do you take over 100,000 people on school buses with no means of support whatsoever?

The Parish area(s) have Presidents and, it seems, Emergency Plans as well. The risk parishes are supposed to go to host parishes. From what I can tell, each parish is supposed to have their emergency volunteers.

01/00 III-3
2. Recommended Evacuation:
a. Risk Area Parishes:
1. Put EOC on 24-hour operations.
2. Mobilize parish/local transportation to assist persons who
lack transportation or who have mobility problems.
3. Announce the location of staging areas for people who need
transportation. Public transportation will concentrate on
moving people from the staging areas to safety in host
parishes with priority given to people with special needs.
4. Coordinate public information releases and
announcements with other parishes and the State to
insure that consistent, correct information is given out.
b. Host Area Parishes:
1. Begin 24-hour emergency operations.
2. Activate reception and care plans.
3. Activate traffic control plans.
4. Deploy law enforcement and traffic control personnel.
5. Declare state of emergency, file with clerk of court and
forward declarations to LOEP.
6. Begin reporting shelter capacity status and evacuees
accommodated twice daily to LOEP, along with
information on hotel/motel vacancies.


Obviously these things were not put in place.
http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EO ... ment1a.pdf
Previously posted by AF Met

[x-y-no]

Obviously these things were not put in place.

I don't know ... how obvious is it?

I've been searching around for references to using buses to evacuate people, but haven't had any luck except for references to bus pick-up points around the city (unclear if these people were being transported out, or only to the last-resort shelters) and one story of some nursing home residents who died of dehydration after being transported by school bus to Baton Rouge (so we have at least one confirmed example of a school bus being used for evacuation out of the city).

[Terry]

If it wasn't in "The Plan" then I don't know how they could have mustered the needed bus drivers by the time the evacuation order was given.

Clearly there is plenty of pre and post blame to go around and we'll eventually get to the facts.

[x-y-no]

If it wasn't in "The Plan" then I don't know how they could have mustered the needed bus drivers by the time the evacuation order was given.

Clearly there is plenty of pre and post blame to go around and we'll eventually get to the facts.

Well, it was in the plan ... which is why I think we need an answer for why those buses weren't used.

OTOH, apparently at least some buses were used (how many isn't clear) ... so I'm not sure the claim that Nagin failed to follow the plan is true either.

[THead]

I thought that first bus that arrived at the Astrodome was a school bus. Of course that was a "renegade" bus........maybe they swiped it from that parking lot full of buses? Must have been part of "plan B"....

[Downdraft]

I can't speak for Louisana but I can speak for how it would work in my county in Florida. We have identified those we called special needs folks. We've also identified mobile home parks, known flood areas. We have pre-arranged agreements that school buses will be used to transport these people. We have known shelters that we haven't guessed will survive a storm WE KNOW they will. They have been checked they have been shuttered they have been staffed. We have what's called an EAP, Emergency Action Plan, that details specifically the role of every area of government to respond and how it will. We have detailed a threat assessment that anticpates everything from a hurricane to a tornado outbreak to some nut blowing up Disneyland. The problem is and I'm NOT second guessing is all the plans in the world aren't worth a pile of dog poop if someone doesn't say IMPLEMENT them. The National Hurricane Center has DAILY teleconferences with areas threatened. They do an incredible job of providing the latest up to date infomation continuously when a storm is anticpated to landfall. A good plan expands as the threat grows. On Sunday we had a storm of historical proportions in the Gulf and the models were all agreeing on it's path.

[artist]

I wish someone could find the transcript of Nagin the day he issued the evacuation - it told them all to get out and those that didn't have rides would be picked up at points throughout the city until 6pm.- and I believe those buses were taking them to the dome. Can anyone find it?