Remember this gut-wrenching picture?
(AP Photo/Phil Coale)
It was a picture of what was left of the Orleans Parish school systems bus fleet that was supposed to be used to evacuate the citizens of the parish BEFORE the hurricane. That picture was especially poignant because there were thousands of people trapped in the Superdome and the buses that could have saved them were ruined.
But last night I found a picture even more tragic in Google Maps.
On the left is the Superdome. On the right is the OTHER Orleans Parish bus barn (the Algiers Bus Barn at 801 Patterson Ave. [Document Link]), less than 5 miles from the Superdome. These buses never flooded and the route from there to the Convention Center and the Superdome was open the whole time. The hurricane blew in Monday morning and this picture was not taken until Wednesday. They did not finish evacuating the Superdome until Saturday.
To put a fine point on it… These were not private buses. They did not belong to a neighboring parish. These buses belonged to Mayor Ray Nagin. He could have used them at any time. He didn’t.
Here’s a close up:
Your count may vary, but I counted roughly 60 buses in the yard and presumably they filled the bus barns with buses to protect as many as possible. The 2 buildings could have held probably another 50 buses. But for the sake of argument let’s say both buildings were empty. 60 buses X 75 people per bus is 4500 people per load. (you could put 100 per bus, but I’ll be generous)
From the Superdome to Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge is about an hour with no traffic. They could have moved 4500 people every 3 hours. (time to load and unload) Or in other words, they could have had the Dome empty by sundown the day after the storm.
Once at Tiger Stadium they would have had water and sewerage and food would have been much easier to get to them.
Mayor Nagin didn’t need to wait for the Feds to “get off their asses.” All he needed to do was use the resources available to him.
Update (by Kevin): Generic Confusion extends the bloggers as fact checkers metaphor.
- “Thank you, Paul, for once again proving that we can fact-check your ass from orbit.“
Indeed…
Update 2 (by Kevin): Two issues with the story have been raised via comment and trackback. Ironically one objection negates the only salient fact contained in the first. Let’s address them in order received.
First, this Media Matters report obsesses on cable news talking heads wildly misstating the number of school buses available in New Orleans. Given the over estimates on everything from casualties to murders and rapes at the Superdome (all of which seem to be off the mark by a factor of 10X the actual number), misreporting on the number of buses seems like a triviality. The number Media Matters presents that IS of interest is the estimate of the number of out of service school buses in the Orleans Parish fleet. They report that according to a September 5, 2003, article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down.” So it is (theoretically) possible that all of the buses in the picture above are broken down, except that the picture below contradicts that theory.
The second objection is from The Jawa Report, where Rusty Shackleford notes that NOAA images taken the same day (original), show the same lot in use:
Google has widely reported that their images were taken at 10AM local time Wednesday August 31, 2005 – a time at which our previous graphics indicates the buses were not moving. It’s nice to know we were right in assuming that those were buses were in good working order, even if they were sitting unused Wednesday morning.
We don’t know what time the NOAA image as taken, but visual inspection of the NOAA image indicates that is was taken later in the day (notice the shadows on taller buildings), probably between 4-5PM. We were aware that, as of today, the buses are still not back in the Algiers Bus Barn, and planned on getting a picture of the empty lot to prove that the buses were in fact fully operational. The fact that they rolled out Wednesday afternoon does not address the issue of why they were not used before, during, or immediately after Katrina (and the flooding) hit.
The other significant story from Wednesday is that, thanks to total media saturation, everyone knew that the Superdome was filled with miserable people, desperate to get out . It’s probably more than just coincidence then that at just about the same time the NOAA picture was taken Governor Blanco announced that the evacuation of the Superdome would begin Wednesday evening. She also issued an Executive Order (PDF) allowing the National Guard to seize school busses in order to help in the evacuation, so it is possible the drivers in the NOAA picture are Guardsmen. We still have no evidence that Mayor Nagin ever mobilized these buses.
All of which returns us to the whole point of the story.
Why didn’t Mayor Nagin use these readily available assets to empty the Superdome for over 48 hours?
Update 3 (by Paul): Someone over at the llama school took a nose dive into the bizarre trying to make the case that Gretna officials (Jefferson Parish) blocked access to the busses. In a fit of irony that can only be produced in the blogosphere, he calls my conclusion that the mayor did not use the busses “absurd.”
OK… He bases his conclusion on the unrelated fact that Gretna officials turned back New Orleans residents after Mayor Nagin gave up and urged his people to WALK into a neighboring parish who had no facilities to support them AND Nagin never even called the neighboring parish to tell them he was sending thousands of hungy/thirsty people over. (what a nice guy) While Gretna officials did turn back people on foot, there is absolutely no evidence to support the notion there was a blockade of Orleans Parish vehicles.
You can go read the whole bizarre illogical conclusion the llama student drew, but I’ll save you the time and offer you the obvious debunking. If Nagin found time to whine to the media about Gretna sending his people back… And Nagin found time to whine to the media that the Feds did not send buses… How on earth could it be that a neighboring parish blocked Orleans from using their own busses and Nagin never said a word?
Get real. To believe this bizarre conclusion, you’d have to believe that the Mayor was calling for the busses the whole time but Gretna set up road blocks to stop the busses. Then 48 hours later Gretna let the busses roll (see above) and Nagin never said a word to anyone about another parish blocking his busses. You’d also have to believe that Gretna also made sure their magical school bus blockade never made it to any of the media. Yeah, right. Now you know why that llama is still in school.
Good job ferreting this out. The visual evidence is stunning.
Score another one for the P.J. Crowd, great job Paul!
YOU REPTARDS JUST WON’T LET UP WILL YOU? STOP TEARING DOWN THAT WONDERFULLL MAYUR NAGIN!!!! IF CHIMPY MCBUCHITLERBURTON WASN’T SO CORRUPT AND INCOMPETENT HE WOULD HAVE DRIVEN THOSE BUSSESS HISOWNSELF!!!!
/moonbat
Sorry! Just had to beat the BDSers to it for a change.
unfuckingbelievable!
meanwhile, the pleading incompetent mayor and msm reporters filling the bunkyards with the alleged baby-rapes, muggings, suicides, dead bodies, and shootouts…
next think you know, we’ll find out that money that was supposed to go to aiding people went directly into his pocket.
unfuckingbelievable.
I believe the accepted safe seating, of adults, for a standard school bus is 46. So it might have taken up to roughly 1/3 longer to move the people, but still a hell of a lot better than what we saw.
Good illustraion.
Except “Convntion”.
Also, you should draw a red rectangle around the area that you enlarged. At first, I thought the bus barn was a lot bigger than the superdome, untill I understood that the arrow pointed to the enlarged portion, and didn’t point north.
Could you tell me please just who you had in mind to drive all those buses on a Sunday morning? Takes a special license (trucking license) to drive a bus, doesn’t it? Had all available bus drivers fled the city early on, and if not, would any potential bus driver want to be paid?
Sheik Yur Bouty that made my day.
———
> I believe the accepted safe seating, of adults, for a standard school bus is 46.
Hey! Thank you Cliff Clavin!
———-
But you are missing a couple of things as Herman astutely points out.
Governor Blanco already said you can’t get Lousiana government workers to work on a sunny day, so absent a meterological analysis, those busses might as well be under water.
Also, before you could allow any untrained, non-union bus drivers to rescue the Superdome refugees, they would have to attend diversity awareness classes followed by sexual harrassment training. By the time they finished training the Superdome would have been under water.
So Nagin was better off hiding under his desk and bitching out the Feds.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120005
I have little doubt that you’ll ever issue a correction but the link above disputes that picture. The overwhelming majority of those buses were broken down. They were not ready to evacuate anyone.
I dunno, Herman, seems like that Jabbar Gibson kid did a pretty good job. I expect there would have been a lot of volunteers both to drive and to ride with the inexperienced drivers, assuming that was all that was available which is by no means a given.
Herman perfectly demonstrates the mindset that failed so many poor people in N.O. The state, city and RTA had a plan that included busing residents to Red Cross shelters. But the RTA ultimately punted because they could not find enough volunteer drivers.
Competent public officials would have had in their plan the provisions for paid drivers and training them to be drivers if needed. Instead, the local officials did not follow through on their bus plan, leaving the “shelters of last resort” as the only resort — an option that FEMA had criticized for years, pointing out that the shelters could get ugly if the power and sewer went out.
Anyone that can drive a stick can drive a bus. There’s not much to it. There were likely a hundred LANG soldiers nearby qualified to drive a bus. Chances are, given how ill-prepared NO was, the LANG had no idea where any buses were located. Someone in city government however should have known. If one were to call it as they see it, one would have to simply conclude that NO and LA government freaked and were incapable of rationally dealing with the event.
The X factor can you read?
Not a word of your link spoke about the busses in Algiers that were available AFTER the flood. But not try keeping the spin going.
I apologize for slandering Gov. Blanco. The “sunny day” quote was of course made by Senator Landrieu.
**********
The City of New Orleans had several hundred bus drivers on the city payroll driving city buses. All Nagin had to do was to call them to duty PRIOR to the hurricane. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out. Just a tiny bit of common sense.
Great job guys. One other point though; I seem to recall that when the subject of buses came up in the early moments of all the turmoil,the Mayor said he didn’t want any school buses. He wanted Greyhounds to get the people out. I guess he didn’t want to use school buses anyway.
Whatever! This guy is un-credible!!!
If Gore had been President there would have been more buses available for evacuation. If John Kerry had been President he would have been down there personally evacuating refugees in his Swift Boat.
Puddin’,
You’re close. Gore would have invented buses that drive themselves.
And I’m sure that Kerry’s memory of personally rescuing people from NO in his Swift Boat is seared, seared in his memory.
I find it hard to believe that of the 10s of thousands of people stuck in New Orleans in the Superdome and the Convention center that none of them could drive a bus and drive themselves and 50 other people to Baton Rouge. And so what if there were only 700 buses that went under water instead of 2000 (the liberal media said 10,000 people died and that is a lie- 900 have officially died- so they lied 11 times instead of 2 times) That is still about 35,000 people that could have been evacuated in 1 (one) trip.
I saw this picture and similar commentary on blog(s) weeks ago. Which doesn’t make the point invalid, just a bit behind the times.
“The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down.”
Do you have any proof that the buses in your photo worked? Or are you just making that presumption?
There’s no question that Nagin screwed up. But FEMA’s whole purpose is to take charge and coordinate a response to situations that local and state officials can’t handle. Nagin couldn’t handle this, fine. Neither could Blanco, fine. Neither could FEMA . . . not fine at all.
I think it was FEMA’s responsibility to provide buses and drivers! Just name me one city in the United States where local people are allowed to drive buses. All buses, trains, planes and dog carts require a special FEMA license.
X factor –
If you look at the quote from the T-P article on broken school buses, it dates back to 2003. Please tell me what a two year old article on school buses has to do with anything?
But wait, Senator Landrieu said those buses were already underwater! How could they be used if they were already underwater? You say that they were in Algiers and not flooded? But she said they were already underwater! How could they be used if they were under water???? Surely the Senator knows what she is talking about! Come on, now. Let’s trust our officials. They would never mislead us.
groan.
Clerk: Hear ye, hear ye, all involved draw near for the case of the people v. Gibson.
Judge: Clerk, please read the charges.
Clerk: Mr. Gibson stands accused of saving 80 lives without the proper license.
Judge: Proceed.
Prosecutor: The people call John Smith. (Mr. Smith takes the stand).
Now then Mr. Smith, please tell us what happened.
Smith: Well, this guy jumps in and drives us all to safety.
Prosecutor: Were you, and all others, wearing your seat belts at the time?
Smith: Well, er, not exactly, you see many of us were standing.
Prosecutor: Was the bus inspected before moving it, was it in proper working order?
Smith: I didn’t inspect anything because there was no time. The water was 3 feet and rising fast. I did notice a broken window though.
Judge: OK I’ve heard enough. Bus stealing, moving violations – and Gibson, you do not have a license to unkill. Throw them all into jail, forever.
NYT: A band of criminals stole city property and narrowly escaped being drowned or eaten alive during the Katrina hurricane. Two police officers, and their shopping carts, were run down in the escape attempt. As it turns out, Mayor Nagin is a genius for not using the city buses in unlawful and risky ways.
“It was tempting to grab 50 or 100 volunteers from the Superdome to drive those buses that were right there waiting”, Nagin said: “In the end though I decided to forget about it and get on with buying that house in Dallas.”
J “But FEMA’s whole purpose is to take charge and coordinate a response to situations that local and state officials can’t handle.”
It is NOT FEMA’s responsibility to (psychically?) just KNOW what resources are available in a city. It is the city’s job to tell FEMA what resources they have, what is damaged, what is not.
That is where Nagin was criminally negligent. As Laddy pointed out, there were LANG people available. All Nagin had to do was tell them where the busses were.
I wonder how many of those supposedly 3000 people let go due to budget constraints on the NOLA payroll really exist?
It never fails. When the subject of the school buses is brought up, some lefty always asks who’s supposed to drive them? As if driving a school bus is some specially difficult task.
My uncle owns a school bus company in Pennsylvania. During my summer breaks during high school and college I used go up and work for him doing various gofer chores. One of which was to drive buses from one place to another.
Believe me it doesn’t require any special training or skillset to drive a school bus. My cousin, who is 5’2″ and barely weighs 100 lbs. drives her dad’s school buses. It’s a BIG car, that’s all. Special attention is given under normal circumstances because of the people who normally ride in a school bus, i.e. kids. But a hurricane isn’t a normal circumstance.
So there were plenty of people capable of driving the buses. For example, the LANG easily has thousands of people trained and experienced at driving large heavy equipment.
So my advice to those same lefty’s is either go back to the drawing board and come up with a much better reason why the buses weren’t used or accept the fact that Nagin bears the blame for not using them.
Alrighty Folks,
I am a Alabama National Guardsman, I know that we have lots of folks that can/could drive a bus, I’m sure the LA Guard does too. As a matter of fact, there is a Transportation Company in Slidell, across the bridge from New Orleans, they can drive a bus.
A lot of you really don’t have a clue as to what FEMA’s mission is.
It is not FEMA’s JOB to evacuate anything!!!! Period, It is the responsibility of the City/Parish/State Gummints…
I’m not a fan of FEMA, I live in a disaster area, I still do not have my roof fixed, but I do find it amazing, that folks can sit around and bitch about FEMA, and they do not even know what FEMA is/does.
There were thousands of Guard soldiers on the ground Thurs night and Friday, and we could have driven those buses, if we had known they had them.
The New Orleans disaster plan, discusses just that.
But, the INCOMPETENT Local Gummint fell apart, and instead of asking for help right away, they spent their energy pointing fingers and bitching. That went all the way to the State level.
My 2 cents
Denied a post. Why???
My denied response will be up on my site.
What’s up with the denials…?
No cursing, just a decent argument against.
What is the sound of one hand clapping???
Fran,
Check out the comments on the post at your blog for a clue…
Oh, about that denial Fran. There was a poll last week and you lost.
Ur banished to DU again 😛
Back in 1983, Hurricane Alicia hit Galveston. The City of Galveston was so unprepared that when the electricity failed, the emergency generator was started and ran for about 10 minutes before it failed. The radios, then working on car batteries, were used to broadcast an appeal for anyone with spare and charged car batteries to being them to City Hall – in the middle of the storm.
The irony is that the City itself had many car batteries in its garage less than one half mile away and the garage manager was in the hall outside the EOC – yet no one thought to ask him if the garage had any batteries.
I only mention this because the NOLA buses in Algiers would have been useful if 1) someone knew the buses existed and were available, 2) could relay that information to the mayor, 3) the mayor could connect the availability of the buses with the need to evacuate people from the Superdome and Convention Center, 4) the mayor’s decision could have been relayed to someone capable of executing the order.
If the Mayor and his staff is unable to communicate, his decisions are being made in a vacuum and being given to an empty room.
The bridge was still open when they needed it the most. Most school busses have automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes, nearly anyone can drive the bus, especially in an emergency.
And one smart kid did. Remember?
http://rightwingsparkle.blogspot.com/2005/09/listening-to-jabbar-gibson-20-yr-who.html
More bumbling from a idiot mayor he should be replaced he has proven himself irresponsible
If the NOLA people were looking at TV they would have had the info, just as they blamed FEMA for not looking at TV.
Geraldo R. got driven in by taxi to air his complaints on national TV, so why didn’t they evacuate everyone by taxi?
Being a school bus driver, most school busses built within the last 15 are automatic, so truly there can be no excuse as to why these or any other bus wasn’t used. Sounds like Mayor Nagin should be Re-Nagin his Mayorship ASAP.
“meanwhile, the pleading incompetent mayor and msm reporters filling the bunkyards with the alleged baby-rapes, muggings, suicides, dead bodies, and shootouts…”
That’s why I will NOT watch any of the TSM during the next disaster to hit where ever it decides to hit. Why waste my time on glory seeking propagandists. I now get everything from the Internet. The TSM can go pound sand up their ass.
I have to wonder, why is it that problems with logistics and manpower, are acceptable excusese for local authorities to fail but not when it comes to the Bush administration.
So, when is Senator Landrieu going to punch Nagin in the mouth?
Oh, I forgot. It’s the federal government’s fault:
“They did [have] a hundred thousand people left in the city because this federal government won’t support cities to evacuate people, whether it’s from earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes. And that’s the truth.” – Sen. Mary Landrieu
“the route from there to the Convention Center and the Superdome was open the whole time”
Well, other than the days the Gretna cops turned back those who tried to cross the bridge. The chief of police said “Evidently, someone on the ground (in New Orleans) was telling people there was transport here … There wasn’t.”
Local governments come up with emergency plans all the time. They are even expected to practice them, go through dry-runs, to work out bugs. So are we to believe that after a successful walk-through, someone says to the bus drivers, “OK, that’s a wrap; you did real good. Now, in the event we really have to do this, we hope you show up, but if you don’t, well, we can always blame FEMA.” The question of where to get drivers should not have been a last minute consideration, it should have been an integral part of the LOCAL plan.
Haven’t you used Google Maps enough to notice that the satellite imagery can be up to several years out of date? I know the visual of my neighborhood still shows stuff from more than a year ago. You’re right that any available buses should have been used, but where is the proof that this Google Maps picture is recent?
Tom:
Do you notice the roof of the Superdome? That happened with the hurricane.
Hope that helps.
Um, maybe all that water downtown? I don’t think that was there before.
Behind me, tossed on my bed, is a pamphlet entitled, “Community Evacuation Plan”. Our local issue is fire. We have a plan.
In California we got earthquake emergency instructions every so often, what to do, how to prepare, minimum items to have on hand.
No “What to do in a blizzard” instructions remembered from Minnesota, at least not distributed by local governments but there’s a reason that people up North don’t put groceries in the trunk of their car.