Bus photos prove the ineptness of Nagin, New Orleans officials

Everyone remembers this now-famous photo of the New Orleans school buses in the flooded parking lot, and the hullabaloo that followed when we realized that the city could have used those buses to evacuate stranded refugees from the Superdome:

But if you haven't been reading WizBang, then you don't know the whole story.  Wizblogger Paul, who is a New Orleans native, first broke this story last Tuesday after poring over satellite photos of New Orleans.  It seems that the city had at least 60 school buses parked in the Algiers Bus Barn, where they remained dry throughout the storm and flood, and were only a few minutes away from the Superdome.  Here is a detail of the satellite photo:

Then on Friday, Paul posted yet another satellite photo showing 150 City of New Orleans RTA buses parked at the Poland Avenue Wharf, also high and dry, and also just a few minutes away from the Superdome.  Here is the new photo:

To put this all into perspective, here is a satellite photo that I found some weeks ago via a link from Donald Sensing.  This high-resolution photo shows most of the city of New Orleans, and it shows all three groups of buses in question.  It will also help you to understand why the failure of New Orleans city officials to even have a plan to utilize these buses to transport refugees out of the city before the storm struck should be considered a crime.  I have marked pertinent areas with red squares.  (Warning: high-res image, 3 Mb download)

Paul from WizBang says,

They could have easily put 140 people per city bus. Or, to do the math, they could have moved 21,000 people in a single trip. There were an estimated 20,000 in the Dome. Between these buses and the 60 previously found school busses in Algiers, they could have made it in 1 trip with room to spare.

This -perhaps better than any other example- shows why local officials are in charge of first response and not the feds. Local officials (ahem, the Mayor) should have known who to call. Once they knew there were busses on the wharf, they should have known they were just minutes from the Dome and the areas around the river never floods. (The convention center is also on the river and everyone knew it was fine) Locals know their area (or should) and -in any other city- can manage the response better than some bureaucrat flown in from Washington. Instead of trying to find a solution, Nagin whined that he was a victim.

If Nagin had used the resources available to him properly, he could have had the Dome evacuated by Tuesday at noon and much of the chaos that broke out in the city would have been avoided. But he didn't.

Exactly.  And if either Ray Nagin or Kathleen Blanco run for re-election, they are fools.  Period.

Comments

[buy patio furniture]

A good placement in moving these heavy loads.