It was Ivan. Below are several articles on how Louisiana and the City of New Orleans coped with the lessons learned from Ivan and the evacuation.
There are several striking things in the material–just go back a few posts to see the full articles over the last year.
One is that the City was acutely aware of the problem of evacing the poor and others who couldn’t get out, but didn’t have the resources to do it. Even with the claims on Drudge, the reality is the City didn’t have 200 bus drivers to volunteer to drive them. The young man who comandeered a school bus was great, but imagine just grabbing two hundred drivers and sending them in heavy traffic to evacuate–the number of problems involving accidents would only make a difficult evacuation harder. City resources were focused on securing the city and moving people within the city to shelters including the Superdome. An action that save innumerable lives.
During Ivan, only 1200 people showed up at the Superdome. Since Ivan, the City improved it’s plan and had city buses run routes for people without cars to places where other special bus routes ran people to shelters. This time, 20-30,000 people got there. If there was a mistake, it was not designating another shelter of last resort–such as the Convention Center (this would have helped additionally because there would have been some real security planned).
The State and the City were acutely aware that a Mandatory evacuation would still leave at least 100,000 behind. There simply is no infrastructure to solve that problem anywhere in the nation. Knowing that, the City was working to make the Superdome retrofitted in its rehab to provide exactly the kind of improvements that would have alleviated the suffering–power sources and sewage modifications.
Overall though, those who vote have their concerns most addressed and in Ivan’s case the contraflow system was very poorly managed. The State fixed that plan and those with the means to leave certainly had a lot of traffic to deal with, but it moved relatively fast other than the Mississippi border which was a whole other problem.
Those who vote are those people who could evacuate and politicians responded. What’s stunning is that even in the case of the worst off, the City of New Orleans still worked to improve the shelter intake and provision system to give a last resort.
What is unbelievable is the federal government didn’t have a contingency for evacuating those left in the City after the storm. The problem was known and the City did what it could do to alleviate those concerns and in the long term had plans to alleviate the problems even further. Katrina beat them to it though.
There are going to be thousands of mistakes to identify and problems to identify over the next few years. Everyone in the situation make some understandable mistakes given the breadth of the crisis. Some of those mistaked are not understandable and at a minimum we are seeing a flood of bullshit out of Mike Brown’s mouth that seriously questions whether he is in touch with reality. Replace him now–put Honore in charge so you lose no continuity and then deal with other problems later.
There are some facts here that need to be corrected.
First off is the number of busses: Between the city transit, school busses and private transportation such as Greyhound, there are closer to 500 busses in NO. That is not counting the vehicles from places like Shreveport and Baton Rouge both less than 75 miles away.
Next up, driving a bus isn?t rocket science. Other than size issues, the only learning experience is dealing with an air brake. Anyone with a mid-level CDL knows how to work an air brake and can drive one. That includes city employees from their Department of Transportation and the motor pool. If necessary, an APB could have been put out for citizens who have applicable driver licenses to show up at the nearest bus yard with their families. After all, this was an emergency.
Also, that is not counting the employees of the surrounding cities who could drive a bus. How do they get to NO; on their cities busses.
As for the contra flow traffic, that order wasn?t issued until late in the evac. If it and the hi-cap transportation had been deployed early, like say right after the declaration of a state of emergency, they could have been able to make the lanes coming into town for hi-cap vehicles only. So that round-trips could be made.
The round trip to Baton Rouge, including the drive, the off-loading the people, the loading of food, water and other supplies, the trip back to NO and then the off-loading of the supplies would take approximately 4 hours.
There were 36 hours after the emergency was declared equalling, for example, 9 trips to Baton Rouge. With 60 people on each of the 500 busses, that is 30,000 people per trip. 9 trips with 30,000 people is 270,000 people and an unknown quantity of supplies. Also known as 270,000 fewer potential victims.
The logistics are feasible, which is why it was part of their plan. The city government (and the state government) itself just wasn?t up to it.
The federal government, while not absent of fault, trusted that city and state officials to enact their evac plans. That didn?t happen.
From:
http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf
Page 44, top left, under “Guiding principles for Proactive Federal Response”:
“Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment or use of critical resources”
==First off is the number of busses: Between the city transit, school busses and private transportation such as Greyhound, there are closer to 500 busses in NO. That is not counting the vehicles from places like Shreveport and Baton Rouge both less than 75 miles away.
And again, where do you find the drivers who are in the middle of evacuating their families? Do basic logistics just go out the window when you try and think about an evacuation of this size? This fantasy that there are a thousands of surplus people in a relatively poor city to do these tasks is fantasy.
===Next up, driving a bus isn?t rocket science. Other than size issues, the only learning experience is dealing with an air brake. Anyone with a mid-level CDL knows how to work an air brake and can drive one. That includes city employees from their Department of Transportation and the motor pool. If necessary, an APB could have been put out for citizens who have applicable driver licenses to show up at the nearest bus yard with their families. After all, this was an emergency.
And who is going to track those people down? the first responders who are already busy in a time like this? Again, a fantasy of someone who doesn’t have a clue about basic logistics. Even if you get those buses moving, you can’t move everyone.
===Also, that is not counting the employees of the surrounding cities who could drive a bus. How do they get to NO; on their cities busses.
First, contraflow, second, they were evacuating too genius. Do you not understand that every damn Parish was having similar problems/ C’mon.
==As for the contra flow traffic, that order wasn?t issued until late in the evac. If it and the hi-cap transportation had been deployed early, like say right after the declaration of a state of emergency, they could have been able to make the lanes coming into town for hi-cap vehicles only. So that round-trips could be made.
Contraflow was started on Saturday and once that starts the Parishes have to go in order of lowest lying to higher ground. You are simply making up bullshit here cowboey.
=There were 36 hours after the emergency was declared equalling, for example, 9 trips to Baton Rouge. With 60 people on each of the 500 busses, that is 30,000 people per trip. 9 trips with 30,000 people is 270,000 people and an unknown quantity of supplies. Also known as 270,000 fewer potential victims.
Wrong again, all emergency planning estimates for evacuation plans estimate 4 times the normal period of time. This is so basic that it’s amazing you don’t even figure that out. Beyond that, you have to have breaks and you can’t dump 134,000 people in Baton Rouge given it’s still potentially in the line of the storm.
====The logistics are feasible, which is why it was part of their plan. The city government (and the state government) itself just wasn?t up to it.
It wasn’t a part of their plan. Are you too fucking dumb to read?
http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012845.html
http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012864.html
And the federal government was a part of the plan to use buses to shelter people in shelters of last resort.
“City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans’ poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you’re on your own.”
OK pal, I can see you?ve never worked in either a job that involved logistics or planned for a disaster. We?ll start at the top;
The fact that there are tens of thousands of drivers licensed to drive medium to large vehicles in a major port city the size of NO is your fantasy. The fact that you can?t see people from other cities coming in to help is your hatred and that you do not think that there are enough heroes who would show up if called to drive is your racism (NO being nearly 75% African American). And have no doubt, anyone who would have driven a busload of people out of certain disaster would have been a hero.
I don?t want to move everyone. I never said I did. That is you putting words in my mouth. I only want to move as many people as is possible. Which you , and the mayor, and the governor, seem to not care about.
Your basic contention is that none of this could have happened because they called the emergency on a Saturday. How truly sad.
You forget that the Governor should have switched the roads to contraflow immediately after declaring an emergency. State DOT managers would have then designated traffic flow in the contra flow lanes.
I?m not ?wrong again?. Anyone who says that it would take 16 hours to load a bus, drive 75 miles, off load a bus full of people, then load supplies and then drive 75 miles back on a road designated for hi-occ vehicles only has their head on sideways.
Maybe you are the one who can?t fucking read (from the links you put into your response comment),
“Lets face it,” he said. “In time of an emergency, if we wait until the new contraflow plan is put in effect to begin this plan, it will take anywhere from four to six hours to get people as far as Baton Rouge.”
While BR was still in the line of the storm, it is above sea level, which makes it a much better location that the Superdome. BR has many public buildings, colleges, universities, etc that could easily house 135000 to 270000 people as well or better than any building in NO.
And once again, you are the one who can?t read,
“Matthews said the plan is to take people from 10 pickup points throughout the city to one or more shelters north of Interstate 12.”
Sounds like the busses WERE in their plans. Maybe you should watch your links, pal? You?re hanging yourself here.
Maybe you should also quit expecting an agency that is hundreds of miles away to do what the locals are required to do. Sure, the feds can help out when they get there, but if the local leadership was exactly that, leadership, and not a bunch of whining pansies, the job I?m describing would have happened.
Even on a Saturday.
==The fact that there are tens of thousands of drivers licensed to drive medium to large vehicles in a major port city the size of NO is your fantasy.
No, that you have them at you expense when a city needs to evacuate and you have multiple other organizations pulling at these people is the reality.
==The fact that you can?t see people from other cities coming in to help is your hatred and that you do not think that there are enough heroes who would show up if called to drive is your racism (NO being nearly 75% African American). And have no doubt, anyone who would have driven a busload of people out of certain disaster would have been a hero
And again, you are just making shit up. The reality is that with a fast moving and upgrading storm the people in other cities either don’t have warning or they are in the middle of evacuating other people.
===I don?t want to move everyone. I never said I did. That is you putting words in my mouth. I only want to move as many people as is possible. Which you , and the mayor, and the governor, seem to not care about.
Again, the basic point of the whole plan is that moving many people is a fantasy. They looked at alternatives like Amtrak, but ultimately wihen you have only a limited amount of time, you can only move so many people out–or you can concentrate on making as many safe for the hurricane as you can.
==While BR was still in the line of the storm, it is above sea level, which makes it a much better location that the Superdome. BR has many public buildings, colleges, universities, etc that could easily house 135000 to 270000 people as well or better than any building in NO.
So what, you leave them outside? Are you really that fucking stupid? Reallly, it is that much of a problem–look at how many people could be fit into the largest dome in the US and then tell me how you can fit all these people in other places.
===
Sounds like the busses WERE in their plans. Maybe you should watch your links, pal? You?re hanging yourself here.
Not if you read the other articles and what was actually decided upon. Remember, that such a location would be a one way trip and there still isn’t any actual facilities to hold people.
==Maybe you should also quit expecting an agency that is hundreds of miles away to do what the locals are required to do. Sure, the feds can help out when they get there, but if the local leadership was exactly that, leadership, and not a bunch of whining pansies, the job I?m describing would have happened.
Excpet the federal government agreed to this plan because of the relative feasibility of other plans..in other words, no one one who dealth with the issue thought much more could be done–and in fact, feds refused to even think about tent shelters–and they did so for all the wrong reasons.
Cheers.
Well thanks, Arch, I see that you think the lowest possible of the people of Louisiana. Good to see that your true colors are showing.
With 36 hours before the storm hits, there is plenty of time to get help into NO. While some folks in towns outside of NO were evacing, most were just hunkering down. If asked, I can guarantee you that some of them would have come in to help.
If the order to evac had been issued on Friday afternoon when the NHC had told determined where Katrina was heading, that would have given them 50 hours to evac. Plenty of time to move people.
You said ?but ultimately wihen you have only a limited amount of time, you can only move so many people out–or you can concentrate on making as many safe for the hurricane as you can.?
You?re wrong, you can do both. You have your meeting points be at secure locations like the Superdome and anyone who can?t get onto a bus before the storm hits stays there. Everyone else who wants to, gets a ride out of town. There are thousands of government employees who can do any number of things. Again, you?re contention is that because it was Saturday, nothing could have been done.
And as was proven in the aftermath, there is nowhere safe in the city of New Orleans. Remember, it is below sea level.
As for fuel for the busses, there are these things called gas stations that sit along the freeway. They store fuel in underground tanks and people drive up and fill their cars up from them. Good luck trying to do that after the storm. You can also have tanker trucks stationed at designated locations. Good luck doing that after the storm as well.
You really don?t have any fucking reading comprehension skills, do you? I never said anything about making people stay outside, pal. Schools and universities have auditoriums, classrooms, hallways, offices and probably at that time of year, empty dorm rooms. Geezus, do you have absolutely no ability to think outside the box? Are you just stuck on sports arenas or something?
You also said, ?Not if you read the other articles and what was actually decided upon. Remember, that such a location would be a one way trip and there still isn’t any actual facilities to hold people.?
Well pal, we?ve got the transportation handled, even if they are just one way trips, we?re still moving people out of a flood zone, and I just handled the housing situation with LSU.
Also, I don?t know if you saw any pics of the folks inside the Superdome, the thing wasn?t even half full. The upper level seats were empty and there was no on the field. The could have put hundreds of more people in there.
I?ve got the words of Nagin saying that his school busses weren?t good enough to evac out of town in before the storm and that he decided to wait and see if Greyhound could bring some busses in from out of town to use.
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/8/114045.shtml
What a pig.
I?ve also got the order from the governor stating that they should use the school busses to get people out of town. Too bad it was issued on the 31st of August.
http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_09_04.html#004792
What a cow.
Basically, you and they were just throwing your hands up in the air because a job was hard to do and hoping that someone else will cover your ass. I hope that Nagin, Blanco and especially you, never get put in a leadership position that requires tough decisions.
At least I can thank Democrats for the new slogan for Katrina ?Nagin had a ride, and people died?.
===With 36 hours before the storm hits, there is plenty of time to get help into NO. While some folks in towns outside of NO were evacing, most were just hunkering down. If asked, I can guarantee you that some of them would have come in to help.
They were getting themselves out. You aren’t so dense that you don’t get that the disaster had many victims in Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Placquemines are you? Apparently so.
==If the order to evac had been issued on Friday afternoon when the NHC had told determined where Katrina was heading, that would have given them 50 hours to evac. Plenty of time to move people.
No, it isn’t and the federal government, the state government and the city government all were aware that the City didn’t have the infrastructure.
Can you fucking read?
http://www.archpundit.com/archives/2005_09.html
http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012862.html
Wishing to magically have the capacity to move people out quickly doesn’t make it so.
===You?re wrong, you can do both. You have your meeting points be at secure locations like the Superdome and anyone who can?t get onto a bus before the storm hits stays there. Everyone else who wants to, gets a ride out of town. There are thousands of government employees who can do any number of things. Again, you?re contention is that because it was Saturday, nothing could have been done.
No, a lot was done–the highest percentage of people ever evacuated in New Orleans and there was a refuge of last resort. If you take a limited supply of drivers and send them out of town–then you can’t get people moved within the City.
This is all spelled out in articles on this web site. Why do you think that you know more about the logistics than the Federal Emergency planners, the State Emergency Planners and the local emergency planners?
==You really don?t have any fucking reading comprehension skills, do you? I never said anything about making people stay outside, pal. Schools and universities have auditoriums, classrooms, hallways, offices and probably at that time of year, empty dorm rooms. Geezus, do you have absolutely no ability to think outside the box? Are you just stuck on sports arenas or something?
No, I’m stuck on logistics. And again, you aren’t even fucking reading the basic points that have been made in articles over the last year–you don’t have drivers, you don’t have buses and you have a Contraflow system that is one way. Magically claiming you can reduce the lanes means you go back to an Ivan case—as mentioned in the articles I posted here, and you can’t move people as quickly.
Furthermore, the estimates by all emergency planners argue that the average time for a trip is 4 times what it is during a non-evacuation.
Finally, you are completely fucking clueless that other Parishes had to evacuate first–at least three other parishes have to announce the evacuation before New Orleans to keep an efficient Contraflow system going. That means, insisting that you can just start evacuation without considering others, is again, a fantasy.
Another fantasy is that you have all of these buildings you can stick people in–unless you go to Houston there aren’t other major cities to hold an additional 134,000 people–you do get the basic idea that just in New Orleans alone nearly 400,000 other people were seeking shelter at that time out of the city plus much of the population in Jefferson, St. Bernard, Placquemine, St. Tammany…..and more. They aren’t the only people seeking shelter at that time and the state shelters were full. If you don’t have any space, you have to send people farther away and that means longer trips which again shoots a huge hole in your fantasy.
==Well pal, we?ve got the transportation handled, even if they are just one way trips, we?re still moving people out of a flood zone, and I just handled the housing situation with LSU.
LSU had students there already dumbass. Are you paying attention to anything? You have no comprehension of the basic concept of scarcity. If you use what drivers you do have to move people out of the City, you lose the ability to move them to shelters within the city. People without their own transportation can’t walk across town to a refuge. This is, again, a part of the plan pointed out in the articles you refuse to read.
==Also, I don?t know if you saw any pics of the folks inside the Superdome, the thing wasn?t even half full. The upper level seats were empty and there was no on the field. The could have put hundreds of more people in there.
The field had no one on it because they had to move them after the roof broke open. And everyone who wanted to get in before the hurricane did get in–the people who were turned away were those after the hurricane on Monday. Read much?
LOL::http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/8/114045.shtml
That’s because part of FEMAs response was to send large passenger buses down there–they had a sign up system and didn’t activate it at first because they were to stupid to turn on the TV or talk to the Corps, or to their own people to find out the 17th Steet canal had been breached and water was rising. The school bus issue, if you bothered to do the fucking reading again, is that the districts outside of New Orleans would have to be notified and drivers found in a state that was overrun with evacuees. Nagin was pissed because he knew what FEMA’s plan was because they had developed it with the City and they weren’t carrying it out.
===I?ve also got the order from the governor stating that they should use the school busses to get people out of town. Too bad it was issued on the 31st of August.
Which she had to do because the Federal Government hadn’t initiated the call-up of private buses that was in the plan to evacuate the city.
===Basically, you and they were just throwing your hands up in the air because a job was hard to do and hoping that someone else will cover your ass. I hope that Nagin, Blanco and especially you, never get put in a leadership position that requires tough decisions.
Here’s a clue dumbass, there was a plan that federal emergency planners knew of, agreed with, participated in developing and then failed to carry it out. Blaming Nagin on the feds inability to carry out what they promised is a bit lame.
Alright, listen up, buttercup. I came in here with a polite disagreement about logistics and all you have done is accuse me of not being able or refusing to read your pap and curse at me while telling me how things couldn?t have been done. You and your cohorts seem to forget that lives were on the line and that when things are dire, you do every thing you possibly can to save lives. It is attitudes such as yours that has killed people in NO.
You are not an American, you?re an American?t. Someone who only sees how things can’t be done, instead of think of how things can get done. How sad for you.
Yes, my numbers may be higher than those issued by LA officials, but both they and I agree that using the busses was the best way to move as many people as possible out of NO. You want to say that the busses were never in their plans (while pointing me to a link that showed that they were, BTW)
You want to say that the logistics of the situation was just too hard. But in that same link you told me to read was evidence that I was closer to the real numbers that you were.
You, Arch, need to stop it with blaming everyone but those who failed the citizens under their charge. The governor and the mayor.
You, Arch, need to stop apologizing for the people who decided that a job was too hard and sat around, probably with mint juleps in hand, saying ?Don?t worry bout it. The DC boyz is gonna show up and take care of everything?? You are no better than your Dem Congress members who were asking for money in the wake of the disaster.
You keep saying that there were no drivers for the busses. Do they drive by themselves on weekdays? Did the phones go dead on Friday afternoon? Are there any other large metro areas that are under sea level?
In plans, did NO get evac priority because of that status? Yes.
Maybe you should try reading your own links.
?An RTA emergency plan dedicates 64 buses and 10 lift vans to move people somewhere; whether that means out of town or to local shelters of last resort would depend on emergency planners’ decision at that moment, RTA spokeswoman Rosalind Cook said.?
Where were those 74 vehicles? Surely there were 74 drivers available. Oh wait, according to your excuses, the local people were sitting on their hands, waiting for the feds to ?do something?, right?
Or how about this one,
?According to a television interview Mayor Ray Nagin gave the Saturday night before the storm, he didn’t think he had the legal authority to order a mandatory evacuation or the ability to enforce it.?
Why didn?t Nagin have this question answered months before hand? Surely when the city went over its emergency plans, anyone with a functional mind would have thought to ask this during the drill.
I also like how friendly the press is to him. I can?t think of a mayor who was more out of touch with what was going on than what I heard from Nagin on the national news programs, demanding someone come down to him with ?a plan?. The guy is a loser and a piss poor mayor. He deserves to be impeached if for nothing else than not asking the question I listed above.
Did the NHC call Louisiana officals on Friday afternoon? Yes they did. Did the Louisiana officials do anything after those phone calls? Other than have meetings to see if they would get sued or if they had the power to order an evac, no they didn?t.
Why didn?t the state give funding to the city to upgrade the infrastructure? Did they even ask for money to fix it so that they would have enough roads leading out of town? No.
There is your fault line right there, pal.
36 hours is enough time to move tens of thousands of people out of the danger zone. 50 hours could have equaled tens of thousands more. But I guess it was just too dang hard for Nagin and Blanco, so they just threw their hands up and said screw it.
Hell, it is coming out now that Blanco stopped the Red Cross from delivering supplies to the evac points so that no one else would be ?attracted? to them. Isn?t she sweet?
You?re right, if you take the drivers out of town, you won?t be able to move people within the city. But since those busses were making one-way runs to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where is better for those people, below sea level or above?
Those two locations were turned into hell holes. I?m sure that they?d have rather waited out the storm in an auditorium in Shreveport or Baton Rouge than there. Maybe you should look to history, Arch, to see how people in danger will work together. During the Nazi bombings of London, people were stacked shoulder to shoulder in the Tube after the air raid sirens would go off. Hell, some folks just decided it was better to stay down there over weekends. Are you telling me that a major university like LSU couldn?t have held 130,000 people? Can you not do spatial math?
Another thing you seem to be forgetting is that there were plenty more busses in NO available to use to move people to the shelters. If they had used them all, they would have filled the Superdome AND gotten people out of town at the same time.
You keep harping that it was the feds plan to move people using the busses, if there were no drivers for the busses, just how would the fed plan work, and how is it their fault that the plan didn?t work? It was the locals fault to get things set up for the fed arrival and implementation and even get things moving. They failed. They failed themselves and they failed the people of NO.
And here is a clue for you, Arch: Nagin was pissed because no one was saving his ass. He dropped the ball and he knew it was going to be his ass. The feds are only supposed to supplement efforts started by the local officials. Since the local officials were incompetent, the fed response suffers.
Yes, there was a plan that was agreed upon, but it required the local officials to do start the ball rolling until the feds could get there. Local officials, Nagin included, sat on their hands for a day and then half-assed the job. The fed ?failure? stems from the local officials actual failure to do just about anything in their plan.
I?m sorry that our federal officials don?t have capes or wear their underoos on the outside of the clothes like the superheroes you seem to think they are, but until we Clark Kent falls to earth, we are dealing with mere mortals who require the same transportation both you and I do to get from point A to point B.
I don?t think I know more that the local officials, but at least I have the state of mind to actually implement the plans I come up with. Win, lose or draw, I?m getting people out of the disaster area while people like you and Nagin are confining them to hell.
FYI, the field was not cleared because of the roof situation, pal. It was kept empty. You can?t make shit up here. If it had been emptied, they would have put the people from the field into the upper decks. But they didn?t. The officials filled the lower decks and that was it. There were some folks who decided it was more comfortable on the ramps than in the seats, but not enough to fill the field or the upper decks.
And I never said that people were turned away. Everyone who showed up got it after being searched. That is the second time you?ve seen something in what I wrote that isn?t there. Maybe you should see a shrink there, Arch?
Have fun in your hate-filled little fantasyland. Go see that shrink and then take whatever medication he prescribes you. Your inability to read only what is entered makes you difficult to hold a conversation with, but I?m sure modern science can help you.
===Alright, listen up, buttercup
Actually you came in with an attitude and decided that facts didn’t matter. When someone pointed out the facts, you kept making them up.
==all you have done is accuse me of not being able or refusing to read your pap and curse at me while telling me how things couldn?t have been done
LOL. are your feelings hurt? Boo-hoo. It’s great that you came in and didn’t know your facts and that you don’t find that to be a bad thing. However, most people live in a world of scarcity and they live in the reality based community
==You are not an American, you?re an American?t. Someone who only sees how things can’t be done, instead of think of how things can get done. How sad for you.
Unfortunately, being delusional and making up shit when you haven’t looked at the actual efforts might make for a silly quote, but it doesn’t solve any problems.
==Yes, my numbers may be higher than those issued by LA officials, but both they and I agree that using the busses was the best way to move as many people as possible out of NO. You want to say that the busses were never in their plans (while pointing me to a link that showed that they were, BTW)
No dumbass, can you read–I said using buses to move people out of town en masse was never in the plan. And again, you are failing to grasp a very basic point–using the limited number of buses and drivers that were available to move people to a refuge of last resort saved more people than putting people on buses and moving them out of the City.
They thought they were the best way to move people around the City. Unfortunately for the chronically ignorant you don’t bother to learn about how such evacuations work in other communities. When Key West tried on a far, far smaller scale to move people out by bus, 5 of 25 drivers showed up–and that was for a mass transit system not a school bus system where drivers are less professional and often part time. RTA had promised that the buses would run for the City, thus saving the maximum number of people. Remember the vast majority of people at the Superdome survived.
===You, Arch, need to stop it with blaming everyone but those who failed the citizens under their charge. The governor and the mayor.
Actually, the Mayor largely complied with the Hurricane Evacuation plan that Federal, State and Local planners signed off upon. That was in the reading too–did you miss that? FEMA also promised a 48 hour response time. They didn’t do that despite having the evacuation buses on a registry, despite having the helicopters to drop food and water, and despite their own people knowing the situation as soon as the hurricane passed. How does the guy who largely followed the plan worked out with the other agencies get blamed for increasing the number of people evacuated and being the first to draw up a serious effort.
For all of your American’t whining, why don’t you show me another major city that is vulnerable to a Hurricane that does it differently? Amongst major urban centers the same basic plan is in place–Miami uses exactly the same system, but in previous years had put up markers on bus stops to indicate it was a hurricane stop for refuges of the last resort.
==You, Arch, need to stop apologizing for the people who decided that a job was too hard and sat around, probably with mint juleps in hand, saying ?Don?t worry bout it. The DC boyz is gonna show up and take care of everything?? You are no better than your Dem Congress members who were asking for money in the wake of the disaster.
Mint juleps? You mean the highest elected official who stayed in the City until it was largely evacuated regardless of the conditions? It’s a bit hard to buy this bullshit that you are spreading when he was the guy who was making rounds. It’s great that the press was late or attended press conferences until the situation got really bad, but he was in the City other than to meet with Bush and Blanco for the first 8 days. So was the OEP and Police Chief.
===Where were those 74 vehicles? Surely there were 74 drivers available. Oh wait, according to your excuses, the local people were sitting on their hands, waiting for the feds to ?do something?, right?
No, according to Nagin’s statements close they were allowed to evacuate with their family’s after finishing their runs. Apparantly RTA had a system in place to facilitate this–thus avoiding part of the problem found in Key West.
And again, when a plan is agreed upon by three levels of government, why isn’t it the fault of the level that didn’t follow the plan?
===?According to a television interview Mayor Ray Nagin gave the Saturday night before the storm, he didn’t think he had the legal authority to order a mandatory evacuation or the ability to enforce it.?
I already have criticized him for exactly this. Unlike you, I actually don’t believe that it was a screw-up on one level. He should have ordered it sooner.
At the same time, three things to keep in mind is that hey did order the Mandatory evacuation according to plan. Everyone was late ordering the prep time at 72 hours for two basic reasons. First, until 71 hours no one really thought it was headed towards Southeast Lousiana. Second, it landfall was shorted by nearly 12 hours over that period. Third, he ordered the evacuation in the timeline called for in the plan and he did it in the order the Parishes had set up to evacuate low lying areas first.
===You keep saying that there were no drivers for the busses. Do they drive by themselves on weekdays? Did the phones go dead on Friday afternoon? Are there any other large metro areas that are under sea level?
And you need to read the first fucking thing about previous attempts to pull off finding drivers.
====I also like how friendly the press is to him. I can?t think of a mayor who was more out of touch with what was going on than what I heard from Nagin on the national news programs, demanding someone come down to him with ?a plan?.
LOL–he wasn’t asking for someone to come with a plan, he was asking for FEMA to execute the plan–something he assumed they would do on Monday and Tuesday. In fact, in his Monday night interview the only good news he had for people was that FEMA had promised to get there fast and deliver everything he asked for as per the integrated plan. He was complimentary to everyone involved–only after neither the state nor FEMA carried out their jobs did he get upset.
===The guy is a loser and a piss poor mayor. He deserves to be impeached if for nothing else than not asking the question I listed above.
He did ask the questions. And he got answers before thinking he knew everything. And he modeled his program on other successful, but smaller scale projects. What’s funny is that you seem upset because he dared to criticize Dear Leader, yet he criticized Blanco as well. Why is it when he did what the three levels of government agreed to and the other two didn’t carry out their end and he got mad because it cost lives that people like you only heard that he didn’t think FEMA and Bush didn’t do a good job?
===Did the NHC call Louisiana officals on Friday afternoon? Yes they did. Did the Louisiana officials do anything after those phone calls? Other than have meetings to see if they would get sued or if they had the power to order an evac, no they didn?t.
Again, your ignorance is stunning. On Friday afternoon the consensus model track was still heading east of New Orleans, but as soon as the call came in they did initiate the 72 hour plan–because the warning only came at 4 PM on Friday and at 5 PM the Governor declared a State of Emergency. That opened the shelters upstate and got everyone on alert. Then they started to call for evacuations starting with the lowest Parishes so traffic flowed decently and you didn’t end up with people on the road stuck in traffic with the hurricane approaching. Between that time and Monday, the hurricane sped up and moved in closer.
I mean, really, have you even bothered to read anything about how this situation developed? Or does it even matter to you?
===Why didn?t the state give funding to the city to upgrade the infrastructure? Did they even ask for money to fix it so that they would have enough roads leading out of town? No.
LOL–actually they were in the middle of improving the access and lane usage. Did you bother to read anything other than what you read on Newsmax?
===36 hours is enough time to move tens of thousands of people out of the danger zone. 50 hours could have equaled tens of thousands more. But I guess it was just too dang hard for Nagin and Blanco, so they just threw their hands up and said screw it.
LOL–again, I already pointed this out, but at 36 hours Contraflow was in place. Other than some backroads there was no way back into the city or the entire Southeast Louisiana region. That’s because it was needed. Expected travel times are 4 times average in an evacuation making return trips impossible–worse, people on the verge of not leaving make a decision at the last minute instead of 36 hours early. This means trying to round up people until the last minute virtually impossible and if you plan to have the roads cleared, you want everyone to be moving by about 6 hours before the weather hits—meaning if landfall was around 10, then you needed people on the road by 8 hours earlier at a minimum and this storm moved in faster than predicted.
===You?re right, if you take the drivers out of town, you won?t be able to move people within the city. But since those busses were making one-way runs to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where is better for those people, below sea level or above?
No, they were making multiple runs to the Superdome (no buses ran to the Convention Center–it wasn’t used until after flooding started–I know, those pesky facts suck and everything). I have no idea why you decided to make up facts about them only making one run each.
===Those two locations were turned into hell holes. I?m sure that they?d have rather waited out the storm in an auditorium in Shreveport or Baton Rouge than there. Maybe you should look to history, Arch, to see how people in danger will work together. During the Nazi bombings of London, people were stacked shoulder to shoulder in the Tube after the air raid sirens would go off. Hell, some folks just decided it was better to stay down there over weekends. Are you telling me that a major university like LSU couldn?t have held 130,000 people? Can you not do spatial math?
Some buildings could hold lots of people–however, Baton Rouge isn’t considered entirely safe so the type of shelter is an issue in such a case–which I’ve already pointed out. I can do the spatial math the problem is that putting them into LSU under the same conditions as the Superdome makes absolutely no sense. You create the same problems and you use your available resources for one trip instead of multiple trips. This is self-evident to anyone thinking about the logistics. You couldn’t leave them there after a storm any better than you could the Superdome so you still need someone to evacuate LSU then.
===Another thing you seem to be forgetting is that there were plenty more busses in NO available to use to move people to the shelters. If they had used them all, they would have filled the Superdome AND gotten people out of town at the same time.
No, in denying the reality of evacuation, the buses would have to have drivers. As in other cases, and why cities like Miami don’t evacuate everyone by bus, they don’t necessarily show up.
—-You keep harping that it was the feds plan to move people using the busses, if there were no drivers for the busses, just how would the fed plan work, and how is it their fault that the plan didn?t work?
As mentioned before, the Federal Government has a registry of coach bus companies that sign up before an emergency–right now they go through NERC–though before the sign up call goes through DOT. Motor Coach companies sign up if they can be a part of such an effort and then are called up as needed. As with everything else, FEMA didn’t carry out the call up until later.
===It was the locals fault to get things set up for the fed arrival and implementation and even get things moving. They failed. They failed themselves and they failed the people of NO.
No, the locals–meaning Orleans, St. Benard, Washington, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Placquemine Parish all followed their plan which included having federal help starting on hour 48 to 60 depending on their location. Everyone understood from the Hurricane Pam exercise and before that the locals would be largely able to hold on by their fingernails for 48 hours and then the feds would arrive. Funny, how so many different local governments counted on a very specific response isn’t it? Same in Mississippi where Biloxi didn’t even have state help for 60 hours.
===FYI, the field was not cleared because of the roof situation, pal. It was kept empty. You can?t make shit up here.
Wrong, Brian Williams reported that they had to move people as the roof opened up. You are just making shit up again.
Did anyone ever thing about using the railroad system?
If you had a pre designated site with tents and food prepositioned, then you take numerous people on the trains to that location. Just another alternative.
With enough volunteers and military assistance, you
could even has a meal and water waiting on the
people as they got off the trains.
Just another transportation method that was not used nor considered.