BUS-TED!

September 4, 2005 1:25 PM

Mayor Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool? The city of New Orleans owns buses - lots of them. So why weren't they used to evacuate the citizens BEFORE Hurricane Katrina struck? A rough count shows two hundred and five buses owned by the city of New Orleans. "Houston is 350 miles from New Orleans. At 50 miles per hour, 13,530 people could have reached Houston in seven hours. Turn the buses around. 14 hours later another 13,530 people are in Houston, far away from Katrina's wrath. In a little more than a day's time, you've gotten the poorest people who wanted to leave but couldn't leave on their own out of the city".
posted by Serena (75 comments total)

And where pray tell would the buses go? Look, even the suburbs in Dallas are turning away refugees instead of clearing their high school gynasiums and community centers to accomodate evacuees.
posted by calwatch at 1:27 PM on September 4, 2005

Essentially a duplicate post, as the issue is already covered in depth here.
posted by insomnia_lj at 1:33 PM on September 4, 2005

That would have to be worked out with Houston ahead of time, and Houston would have to have everything set up to receive the people. On such short notice, that just wasn't possible.

New Orleans did have shuttles running for the poor people...to get them to the Super Dome. Yeah, not the best idea in hindsight but the people there were protected from the initial storm and the flooding.

Now, if you want to use those busses to get them out of the dome...well, too late, they are all flooded out and it is time for the federal or national guard response.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:39 PM on September 4, 2005

And so the conservative backlash begins. Don't pay attention to FEMA's (and hence, Republican) fuck ups, people! It was the Mayor! And the Governor!

Note: using these buses to get people completely out of NO before the hurricane would most certainly have required FEDERAL coordination and leadership. Almost no states are going to have the budget to set up refuge camps. IE: FEMA needed to take the lead here, and indeed, it is in their charter and within their responsibility to do so:

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe ... Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.

Nagin may or may not be able to provide a response. But what is beyond doubt is that the only reason this is being brought up is to deflect blame away from Bush and the Republicans.

The idea that responsibility lies with a city mayor for something this epic is just fucking preposterous to me. That's why we have FEMA.
posted by teece at 1:40 PM on September 4, 2005

The busses were supposed to take people to Houston and drop them off on the street? What a bizarre charge.
posted by taz at 1:46 PM on September 4, 2005

I've seen the photos and heard the questions and arguments. At this time it's impossible to know whether they could have made a significant difference, or not. We don't know if drivers were available for all or some of them. We don't know if there was sufficient fuel available for all or some of them. We don't know if they were all in servicable condition. Assuming they were used, we don't know if the organization on the ground existed to give them somewhere sensible to go. We don't know where in the timeline of planning, the evacuation and later events the decision was made not to use them, or whether it was considered at all (perhaps it was and discounted because other plans were already in place, or for some logistical reason we don't know yet). Those aren't the only buses in Louisiana. Right now, we (people posting on weblogs) don't know. Anything else is pure speculation.
posted by normy at 1:49 PM on September 4, 2005

and it took 9 hours to get to baton rouge from New Orleans a full 24 hours before katrina hit. no way they'd have made houston. and may have had them trapped in shitty city busses on an open freeway instead of in something that might at least hold up to the 150mph winds, like the superdome.
posted by brookish at 1:51 PM on September 4, 2005

And so the conservative backlash begins.

Ain't it the truth. I was talking to my GOP mother who echoed Rush Limbaugh's assertion that "the mayor use those busses on election day to bus those poor people to the polls, why couldn't he have used those same busses to evacuate them?"

"Mom," I said, "where was he going to bus them to?People need water, food and shelter. Was he just supposed to put them on the busses and figure that out later? Isn't it in any case the job of FEMA?"

"FEMA was prepared," she replies, "but they are part of Homeland Security now and they didn't have approval to act."

"And whose fault is that?" I ask.

"It's the Governor's fault for not requesting assistance."

It's always the Democrats fault. The Republicans can do no wrong.

So I pressed her... "Mom when it was clear that the Mayor and Governor failed to do their jobs, wasn't it then the President's job to get on the phone and make something happen?"

"Of course not," she spit back at me. "The governor is in charge of the National Guard."

"But certainly the active duty soldiers are under the direct command of the President and all it would have taken is one phone call to send 5,000 marines into the city with food and water."

"That's not the job of the military. That's what the National Guard is for."

And so on and so forth. No logic. No reason. Anything to defend Bush.

I love my mother dearly, but I can't talk to her about these things anymore.
posted by three blind mice at 1:52 PM on September 4, 2005

Ray Nagin is a monster for not personally driving every single one of those buses to safety through hurricane force winds.

George W. Bush on the other hand is an American Hero for looking out of an airplane window at New Orleans.

This logic is inescapable.
posted by fleetmouse at 1:56 PM on September 4, 2005

"The idea that responsibility lies with a city mayor for something this epic is just fucking preposterous to me."

Yeah, why should THE MAYOR have any responsibility for HIS FUCKING CITY'S EVAC! Remind me what a MAYOR is again, oh that's right! HE'S IN CHARGE OF THE CITY!

It's called the 10th amendment people... Bush isn't responsible for your papercut, your lost car keys, or Nagin's criminal levels of incompetence.

Three Blind Mice: it's called posse comitatus. that would have been against the law. Something your mother obviously grasps that you don't.

I've had enough of the blind hatred here. #1 can keep the $5.
posted by TetrisKid at 1:59 PM on September 4, 2005

It does boggle the mind - stuck on one of new orleans feeder roads in the middle of a hurricane in a school bus? Eep.

Besides, wasn't the plan to get the people to the staging area (superdome) from which they could then be evacuated by the feds if it looked like channels would be cut off? Seems that way from the action plans.
posted by Mossy at 2:00 PM on September 4, 2005

Out of curiousity, could someone reference how the right wing blogs etc are spinning Ms Rice's holiday taking while the foreign nations offering aid had no communication? I always find it fascinating how spin works, but I can't see how they would spin that away.
posted by Mossy at 2:04 PM on September 4, 2005

TetrisKid's comment on Posse Comitatus doesn't cut it. Here's the wiki on it. A couple of notable exceptions: (1) Troops when used pursuant to the Federal authority to quell domestic violence as was the case during the 1992 Los Angeles riots; and (2) The President of the United States can waive this law in an emergency.
posted by psmealey at 2:09 PM on September 4, 2005

Yeah, we're finally seeing the right-wing talking points coalesce. It's all Nagin's fault. The governor officially asked for federal help two days before the storm hit.

And they had a plan, to take people to the superdome. With the traffic, and everything else there is no way that they could have bussed people to Texas, or even baton rouge.

The plan was to take people to the superdome, and then wait for the federal government to come and rescue them. The reason that plan failed is because the federal government didn't rescue them. In other words, they failed because they were depending on federal response, which they had already asked for.

The right wing is now saying that all of this rests on the mayor and governor. Maybe they could have come up with an escape plan (like putting those busses on the roof of the parking garage at the superdome, where they could have blown away in the wind? Or on the bottom level where they could have flooded?)

If you ask me, the government at all three levels should have planned for failure at all the other levels. The City should have stockpiled food and water at the superdome to last for weeks, the state should have had an evacuation plan ready to go without federal assistance.

The plans they came up with relied on FEMA doing its job, and it didn't.
posted by delmoi at 5:33 PM on September 4, 2005

by the way, did you hear the joke about Renquist? Apperantly he died four days ago, but it took 4 days for FEMA to find the body _{(via wonkette)}
posted by delmoi at 5:36 PM on September 4, 2005

A couple of things: firstly, yes, the spinning has begun, and in earnest. And it's working. Go to Fox and read the comments from your ordinary Joes (and make one, if you like). These people have been, still are, and will be the bulwark of support for the administration. And (shudder) similar administrations to follow. It's full of stuff like this:

“It makes me sick to see so many people laying blame on President Bush. If there is blame to be laid, let it be placed upon those who decided to build a major city below sea-level. Dennis Hastert has an excellent point; it is ridiculous to rebuild the city until the majority of it is above the level of the Mississippi River and the Gulf.” — Jack (Londonderry, NH)

"Why is it that if the sky is cloudy outside it is somehow the fault of President Bush? What about all of the local authorities of New Orleans? What about the mayor of New Orleans not orchestrating some effort? What about the governor of New Orleans not invoking marshal law? You reach a point of disgust when you hear our President ridiculed over a natural disaster that people seemed to ignore as if it were a patch of fog coming in." — Jamey

Secondly: I'm sorry, Serena is right, why weren't the busses used? It is criminally neglectful not to have used them. Which in no way makes the FEMA/Fed fuckup any more acceptable. But don't be just like them. You are making excuses for something inexcusable because it does not fit your political mindset. That's what the other side usually does. Who cares where the busses went? At that point in time, with disaster bearing down, who cares? They could have gotten OUT. And some of them should have. There is plenty of screwing up by everybody. The Fox people and the guy in New Hampshire are blindly defending their ideology, but so are a lot of people here. And it doesn't help. It makes you look like what they're accusing you of being. And what they are. Bad trap to fall into.
posted by umberto at 5:47 PM on September 4, 2005

OK, delmoi, I confess that --because of a joke consisting solely of references to a hideous national tragedy, a terrible individual tragedy, and tragic, criminal malfeasance-- I snorked up my juice at that one. Boy, we are funny animals, aren't we?
posted by umberto at 5:52 PM on September 4, 2005

And so the conservative backlash begins. Don't pay attention to FEMA's (and hence, Republican) fuck ups, people! It was the Mayor! And the Governor!

As opposed to the liberal backlash that's been going on here for days? I'm supposed to believe that the mayor nor the governor had no responsibiilty?
posted by gyc at 5:52 PM on September 4, 2005

I'm supposed to believe that the mayor nor the governor had no responsibiilty?

Believe what you wish; however, it is fact that funds were diverted from maintenance and reinforcement of levees to support the Iraq campaign. Those funds were requested by LA state officials two years ago.

The president also decided to move a large percentage of the country's homeland defense (National Guard) to Iraq.

The president's staff also apparently ignored the State of Emergency declared by the governor on the 26th of August, at their peril.

All these decisions were made by the executive branch of our federal government. Nature cannot be fooled. Blaming the mayor or governor for the effects of these decisions seems criminal.
posted by Rothko at 5:58 PM on September 4, 2005

People, this is the South. All those buses were actually up on blocks.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:58 PM on September 4, 2005

Good to see the Republican slime machine back in action, well oiled and ready to gloss over the deaths of thousands, as it does so very well.

The truth is Nagin's amazing interview is candid, emotional, and a punch in the gut. It's real emotion that can't be feigned by the zombie goons in the GOP.

Meanwhile, LA Senator Landrieu threatens to punch Bush in the face.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 5:58 PM on September 4, 2005

Umberto: yeah the busses could have been used, but as it's already been pointed out, by the time Katrina rolled around, (1) the outgoing traffic from NO was insane, and someone probably imagined 350 busses packed with 10,000 people on some stretch of highway as the hurricane hit. Not good. (2) Where exactly were they going to go? I don't have good info on the conditions at Houston, but would they have been able to take on all those folks from the Superdome? This stuff has to be planned for long-term stay--basically refugees like we have now.

delmoi wins--well said. The mayor and gov. were assuming that there would be help from FEMA, but there wasn't. That's their true mistake--trusting the Bush admin.
posted by zardoz at 6:02 PM on September 4, 2005

Yes he should have bussed them out of the city. He should have bussed them all the way to Crawford Texas where the refugees could have camped out on the President's front lawn.
posted by euphorb at 6:02 PM on September 4, 2005

I agree with umberto and serena about the buses. At least get some people out for God's sake. Any place would be better than in NO....and do you seriously think they would be without food or water or shelter for 5 days in Houston or some other city? When that hurricane hit any other place in the country would have been better than being in the path of that storm. There are plenty of other screwups as well, I would add not using these buses as one of them.
posted by Ron at 6:06 PM on September 4, 2005

I agree with umberto, and there is all kinds of blame to go around. The buses, I agree, that's a fuck-up. However, now, right now, the governor and the mayor are not in control and not in the way: FEMA is. Therefore, right now, FEMA and the feds get the lash. Equally distributed lashes will come later, at least from me.

Man, if I were a tyrant... it's a really good thing I'm not, I gotta admit.
posted by furiousthought at 6:08 PM on September 4, 2005

What does it take for Bush to meet with members of the NAACP after over five years of his administration?

One guess.
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:13 PM on September 4, 2005

As opposed to the liberal backlash that's been going on here for days? I'm supposed to believe that the mayor nor the governor had no responsibiilty?

Well, if George Bush bears absolutely no responsibility for FEMA very clearing not living up to it's charter, why should anyone else?

You've built a straw man.

Any one that fucked up should own up to it. The problem is, from what I've seen, the local fuck ups are very minor. The national fuck ups killed many people. But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about empty buses that could have gotten every body to ... wait, where? Did you see the pictures of the highway? And according to FEMA director Brown and GWB, this tragedy was not foreseeable. Why exactly, then, should folk have been loaded onto buses and then trucked off to sit in a traffic jam, headed towards God knows where, waiting to get stuck in a Category 5 hurricane?

The buck passing by Bush et. al is absolutely disgusting. It's doubly disgusting that any Americans are stupid enough to fall for it.

One can play bullshit blame-shifting games about local/federal responsibility all day, as those on the right have been doing. The actual reality is, FEMA has a very clearly spelled out charter. The states and local authorities relied upon that. The feds did not follow through(and to a significant degree, still are not). If you understand what English words mean, it's impossible to deny that.

The amazing bullshit about posse comitatus and local jurisdiction (despite disaster orders being signed by locals before the damn hurricane hit) and a mayor's magical ability to have the manpower and money to deal with city-wide evacuation over hundreds of miles is really quite fucking disgusting.

The feigned outrage and people blaming Bush is disgusting. Once upon a time, Republicans like Eisenhower had a sense for what responsibility meant. Today, Bush can preside over one of the worst federal fuck ups in modern memory, and have pricks defending his people's every idiotic mistake. Not a proud time to be an American.
posted by teece at 6:14 PM on September 4, 2005

Heh. Guys, don't bother engaging conservatives on "what these right-wing blogs are spinning things as." Make your points, but make your points against Bush and not against "the spin." Stay on the offense and press this one. Don't fucking play defense again.
When the "Mayor/Guvner" blame comes up, point to the ignorance of the FEMA chief about the Superdome. Point to the lack of response and the internal kudos. Don't even bother to respond to their points, because you've got a frame that works for what you want: to highlight the large incompetence of this administration.
Even bothering to be incredulous about the spin only works to reframe it.
posted by klangklangston at 6:19 PM on September 4, 2005

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/4/171811/1974

A plan, preparation, everything seems to be in order..

btw is a State of Emergency considered an emergency situation?
posted by Mossy at 6:19 PM on September 4, 2005

I blame local and state government for the inability to get those people out before Katrina. I don't put the responsibility of how best to evacuate a city on the Federal Government, I put it on the local government. I blame FEMA for their slow ass response afterwards. I don't put the responsibility of saving thousands of lives and supplying food and water to those thousands on the local and state government, I put that on the Feds.
posted by Ron at 6:22 PM on September 4, 2005

Who was going to drive these buses? Not the usual $7 per drivers school bus drivers, not the low paid municipal employees. My guess you would have needed National Guardsman to drive them. Everyone else who was able to get out would have been long gone.
posted by Buck Eschaton at 6:33 PM on September 4, 2005

"One can play bullshit blame-shifting games about local/federal responsibility all day, as those on the right have been doing."

The left is doing its fair share of 'bullshit blame-shifting' as you evidence, others in this thread evidence, and threads from the past few days have evidenced. The blame for this entire mess spans all levels of government and across all party lines.
posted by mischief at 6:35 PM on September 4, 2005

Isn't Nagin Republican?
posted by Mossy at 6:37 PM on September 4, 2005

Why is it so hard for folks to realize there's blame at all levels here? Partisanship sure is blinding. ColdChef, who was part of the evacuation, says 90% of the city got out in a smooth and orderly way, and I see his point, but I'm with those who think the mayor and governor deserve a nice chunk of the blame for the human side of the disaster:

"Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans's 'low-mobility' population - the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people. At disaster planning meetings, he said, 'the answer was often silence.'"

Still, you'd have to be a fool to defend the FEMA response in the last week. The reports of turned-back water tanks, fuel, and other offers of much-needed help are too numerous to ignore. And it's hard to get around monju_bosatsu's comment in the other thread:

It's easy to be cynical about politicians, but the FEMA director under Clinton had a plan to predeploy hospital and pumping ships, ready to come in after a major hurricane in New Orleans.

This just wasn't taken seriously by the federal disaster management folks. The fumbling has been so obvious it's painful. Only the blindest kind of tit-for-tat partisanship would deny that.
posted by mediareport at 6:46 PM on September 4, 2005

"Mom," I said, "where was he going to bus them to?People need water, food and shelter.

You forgot that they also need freedom from exposure to crumbling buildings, falling trees, raw sewage and rotting corpses. Or is it easier to provide water, food and shelter when people are stranded in those conditions?
posted by shoos at 6:48 PM on September 4, 2005

brookish is right - by Sunday the buses could not have been used to evacuate people out of the city. But maybe they could have been moved to some higher ground - someone in the another thread suggested the Superdome parking structure - so that they could have been used to move people on Tuesday.

I think the response of FEMA has been criminally negligant, but the local officials also bear some reponsibility. From the minute the evacuation plan was called, it was flawed. It relied on people being able just to get up and drive out of the city. They should have been arranging buses and trains out of the hurricane path on Saturday. Even getting some of the people out would have made the whole post-storm rescue and evacuation that much more effective.

This was all predicted - a researcher at LSU had modelled this whole event. He told them they would need a massive evacuation and tent cities elsewhere. The military could have been bring in tents, generators, water.
posted by jb at 6:55 PM on September 4, 2005

All right, who is driving these buses? School bus drivers? Does their salary cover this sort of hazard duty? Were they still in town after the call for mandatory evac? So who else would we get to drive them? NOPD already strapped for manpower in an impending crisis. National Guard? They are making the world safe for Shiite Constitutional Theocracy. If I take a hundred school buses in from a cash strapped school district and fill them to capacity and send them on the interstate with an impending Cat 4+ hurricane, that is a whole different kind of disaster when they break down on the interstate. School buses break down. A lot. Especially older ones.

Within 48 hours after Ivan, my folks had MREs and water. But of course, Florida was a swing state.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 6:55 PM on September 4, 2005

Brian Wolshon was the person I saw being interview - from here

"Brian Wolshon, an engineering professor at Louisiana State University who served as a consultant on the state's evacuation plan, said little attention was paid to moving out New Orleans's "low-mobility" population - the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people.

At disaster planning meetings, he said, "the answer was often silence."
posted by jb at 7:00 PM on September 4, 2005

The blame for this entire mess spans all levels of government and across all party lines.

Such a common refrain when a Republican has fucked up.

Like I've said, everyone should be held accountable for their mistakes. From what I've seen so far, the biggest mistake of the non-federal authorities was in assuming that the feds were going to actually do their job. All of the mistakes of local authorities, which surely exist, have been horribly and tragically exploited by an almost wholly inept FEMA response.

America is the most militarily advanced country in the world. The relief effort relies on that technology, and thus America is the best-equipped country in the world to deal with a disaster like this. The closest air field was unharmed, allowing air lifts and humanitarian food drops to commence. America has the ability to mobilize thousands of national guard very quickly (and should have had them on standby since the Saturday before, ready to be on scene as soon as conditions permitted). America has amphibious vehicles that could navigate a flooded city. America has hundreds of helicopters. America has a federal agency whose sole purpose is to coordinate these and other disaster recovery assets. And yet all of these assets seemed to move through molasses, if they moved at all, in the first three or four days. Times during which hundreds of people were dying. This is all under FEMA's auspices.

During this time, the federal branch has told outright, irrefutable lies about why they didn't react quickly (Blanco didn't declare a disaster: bullshit, she did before the hurricane. This was a normal hurricane-type event: bullshit, any idiot tuned into the weather channel knows that is bullshit. That it was unforeseeable that the levees would be breached: bullshit, there are many reports in newspapers, magazines, and radio detailing just that possibility going back decades).

Show me the failures at the local level of this proportion, and the way in which they are being shifted to the federal level, and then we'll talk about this blame across all levels. This buses incident is not among such things: it is not clear it is a failure at all. If it is, it was compounded exponentially by a federal foul up. Currently, the great majority of the pain and suffering post-hurricane seems to be directly attributable to a piss-poor federal response by the agency that was mandated, by law, to provide an effective response to just such an event.

And the man in charge of that agency is said to be doing "a heck of a job." I'd hate to see what a bad job looked like.

America could have done better. America should have done better. It is to our great shame that we did not. It would be to our ever greater shame if we shrug our shoulders and ignore the colossal failures of those that let this come to pass. It'd be even more tragic, to the point of despicable, if we try to pin it all on local authorities, when they certainly don't seem to deserve it, led by the likes of propaganda sociopaths like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et. al.
posted by teece at 7:06 PM on September 4, 2005

echo chamber?
posted by klangklangston at 7:08 PM on September 4, 2005

Yes, lots of screw-ups everywhere. And keep the pressure where it should be, yes, yes, yes.

But that does not and should not mean blindly contradicting everything said just because it's being said by people you generally don't agree with. It just looks narrow, petty, opportunistic, and frankly...sort of neoconnish. Neocon-like? Neoconistic? Oh, the hell with it... It reinforces what a lot (like maybe most) of the country thinks about people on the left. I'm not saying they should think that, or that they are right to think that. But more energy needs to be spent on dealing with the beliefs and reactions that people actually have rather than the ones we want them to have. Their being duped into thinking what they think is really sort of irrelevant. They don't think they're being duped, so pointing it out is not very productive. I personally do that a lot and am trying to break the habit.
posted by umberto at 7:09 PM on September 4, 2005

From what I can remember, the buses were mainly being used to ferry folks to the 'last resort' Superdome (not sure if the school buses were involved). At some point on Saturday afternoon/evening, these services were halted, to give the drivers a chance to evacuate. But basically, it looks as if there was no plan to deal anybody who lacked evacuation resources, either by local authorities before, or by FEMA/DHS after.
posted by carter at 7:12 PM on September 4, 2005

Nagin was a Republican up until 2002. Endorsed G.W. Bush in 2000, bet he is regreting that one.
posted by j-urb at 7:37 PM on September 4, 2005

the buses should have been used, damn it ... just because bush and everyone below him royally screwed up on this doesn't mean that local and state officials should get off scot free for their mistakes

this isn't about partisianship, it's about competency ... something that seems to be woefully lacking in our country right now

this is a SYSTEMIC failure

and as far as who was going to drive the buses is concerned ... first, doesn't anyone think that could have been part of the plan that should have been written up? ... second, that 18 year old kid who'd never driven a bus before figured it out alright ...

as far as where they would go? ... hell, any place had to be better than the gulf coast in the last week ...

gas? ... maintenance? ... all local responsibilities ... it should have been ready in place and good to go

this in no way excuses the criminal reaction of the federal government in the aftermath ... we need to question just how good our authorities are ... ALL of them
posted by pyramid termite at 7:38 PM on September 4, 2005

this in no way excuses the criminal reaction of the federal government in the aftermath ... we need to question just how good our authorities are ... ALL of them

I certainly agree, I'm just not sure I see it as obvious before the hurricane hit that those buses should have been taking people out of NOLA. The plan, which wasn't altogether horrible then, was to ferry the people that could not get out to the refuges of last resort. At that point, the hurricane would either turn and go somewhere else, in which case everybody went home, or it would flood the city. In the latter event, I think local authorities were completely relying on the feds to help them evacuate those people left behind, as the city would be destroyed. That's an entirely logical and probably necessary way to do it.

In hindsight, that was a tragic error. But it is not one that the locals could have easily foreseen. It was FEMA's job to get people out after the city collapsed. It was not all that obvious that FEMA was going to fail to do that for days.

Given that Nagin was operating under that assumption, the idea of fleets of buses potentially trapped on a highway in a hurricane, going who knows where, doesn't seem like a better option than what they did.
posted by teece at 7:58 PM on September 4, 2005

Teece, isn't "trapped" on a highway better than trapped with the flooding below sea level among the various and sundry urban hazards? They wouldn't have needed to go far to get above sea level.

Is it also FEMA's job to teach the local government how to use their brains ahead of a potential natural disaster?
posted by shoos at 8:17 PM on September 4, 2005

Is it also FEMA's job to teach the local government how to use their brains ahead of a potential natural disaster?

"In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility...for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. [Department of Homeland Security / FEMA website].

posted by ericb at 8:24 PM on September 4, 2005

So it is their job to teach the local government how to use their brains ahead of a potential natural disaster! Fantastic. That's great they've got it in writing on their own web site.
posted by shoos at 8:27 PM on September 4, 2005

On Nagin (the former republican who supposedly donated to Bush), see the following: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44830#1034261 by Aknaton
posted by whatgorilla at 8:38 PM on September 4, 2005

i meant http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44830#1034261
posted by whatgorilla at 8:39 PM on September 4, 2005

The buses were a fuckup. In comparison to FEMA's 700,000 other fuckups, it's small potatoes.

I guess I'm not as mad at Nagin because I never had the chance to vote against him. Supposedly, he's been mayor for only three years and was doing a good job of cleaning up a notoriously corrupt city government. Had high approval ratings. Guess it doesn't matter anymore.
posted by fungible at 8:43 PM on September 4, 2005

shoos - the posters are right, it would have been more dangerous in a bus on the highway (which could easily have been tossed off the highway by the winds) than to be in the Superdome. But the people in the dome should have been moved within hours of when they realised that the city was flooding, and they weren't. It's going to be months, maybe years before the whole story of why comes out.
posted by jb at 8:44 PM on September 4, 2005

shoos: being trapped in the open in a Cat 5 hurricane in a bus is not preferable to being in the Superdome, no. Many of the evacuation routes are elevated above water. The waves can, and did, destroy sections of those highways. The winds of a Cat 5 can and will flip a bus over. People in them would have died. If Katrina had stayed Cat 5 and gone over evacuation routes, thousands could have died. Folks on the Weather Underground were terrified that just such a thing was about to come to pass, and that was without a fleet of hundreds of packed buses departing the city at the last moment.

As for the crack about locals not using their brains: that's amazingly crass. What, exactly, was so stupid that the locals did? FEMA had the capability to do a mass evacuation of those unable to leave the city after it was hit, should the need arise. The local plan tried to get people to places where they could ride out the storm, and wait for help afterwards. There seem to have been major holes in the plan to get all of those helpless to the last refuges, and those holes should be investigated. But it is not the case that the evacuation plan was run by a bunch of idiots.

Given that FEMA has a legally mandated responsibility to aid in the aftermath, it doesn't seem to be brainless at all to try and wait it out in tough structures, for those who could not leave in time. And it's damn lame to call it such. It seems like a tough choice to make, and one that people made hoping it was the best. It wouldn't have been so bad if FEMA had actually came through with its legally mandated role.
posted by teece at 8:45 PM on September 4, 2005

The simple truth is Bush would have to bugger a young boy live on national TV before Wal-Mart America decided enough was enough. Why? Because this demographic loves Jesus-Lite, guns and gay bashing.

Bush is their David against the perceived Goliath of sodomites, abortionists, free loaders, and atheists, and every time this small man is proven smaller, the slingshot of bigotry and stupidity whirls all the faster.

Now look, if the city could have bussed folks out in time and failed to do so, or if any other state or local agency dropped the ball, then whoever fucked up deserves our full wrath, and I hereby incorporate by reference all the venom and loathing I've directed at Bush for said fuck up.

That said, Bush really, REALLY fucked up. So the Bush apologists are in full spin mode. Big surprise. It's what they do so well. How perfect, then, that Michael Chertoff is a lawyer not an emergency management professional.
posted by Toecutter at 8:49 PM on September 4, 2005

Aug 26: National Weather Service forecasts cat 4 for Katrina at the eastern coast of Louisiana (ie, New Orleans) and the coast of Mississippi.

Aug 27: Nagin issues voluntary evacuation. Buses sit.

Aug 28: Cat 4 Katrina hits as forecast. Nagin issues mandatory evacuation. Welcomes citizens to the Superdome.
posted by shoos at 9:10 PM on September 4, 2005

I stand by my continuing assertion that this thing involved fuckups at all sorts of levels, and that anybody who claims otherwise (at this point in time) has an agenda.
posted by mosch at 9:10 PM on September 4, 2005

shoos: Katrina made landfall on the 29th. Before the mandatory evacuation, of course the buses sit. After that, they were used to take people to the Superdome. Which, without using your magic 20/20 hindsight goggles, seems like the best choice available of an array of less than happy choices.

Now, you can argue that the evac. should have been mandatory on the 27th. But even then, it's still not clear that bussing people out of NOLA to (where, exactly? still not answered) was in any way the obviously right choice even then.

A mandatory evac. announcement on the 27th was probably warranted, but those are very hard calls to make, from the weather experts I have read. Very expensive, and predicting hurricanes is very inexact, and "evacuation fatigue" can and does seriously hamper the ability to get people to take them seriously, so it's a mistake that is more understandable than others.

I still don't see any good, non-20/20 hindsight reason that makes it very clear that these buses have any real bearing on anything.
posted by teece at 9:25 PM on September 4, 2005

Here's my Nagin post in another thread with various links to pre-Katrina bios.

Also, if you google him, you'll find all sorts of lefty groups which really hated the guy, despite his superficial status as a Democrat.

From reading about his pre-Katrina career, its apparent he wanted to be Guiliani II: a republican rushing in to save a corrupt city from the Democrats who let it fester. He seemed to be partially successful.

Its a pity he wasn't able to keep his Republican party affiliation because we would then see the FreeRepublic, Red State, Rush, Hannity, and other voices on the right turning their powers of stridency to defend Nagin at all cost while Kos and the others would be showing the bus pictures with glee.

Thats one of the saddest things to me about the response to this crisis: ideology trumps all and is blinding otherwise reasonable people. I wish more media outlets were like Brenden's blog where blame is apportioned on a bipartisan, ideology-free basis.
posted by pandaharma at 9:26 PM on September 4, 2005

I wish more media outlets were like Brenden's blog where blame is apportioned on a bipartisan, ideology-free basis.

The problem with that, pandaharma, is that it's the illusion of non-bias. Sometimes blame is not actually evenly distributed. In my experience, sites like that often try so hard to make it be, that it's just a different kind of bias than partisan, but a real and annoying bias nonetheless.
posted by teece at 9:39 PM on September 4, 2005

I think Brenden's blog is quite good at being nonpartisan about this, actually, because he is not trying hard to be even-handed – he's just not that partisan. It's worth reading through his archives, by the way. He was covering Katrina pretty much as soon as it was apparent it would be a major hurricane, so you get a better sense of the timeline than you do most places.
posted by furiousthought at 9:49 PM on September 4, 2005

Does anyone else think that if the buses were taking people to the superdome as a last resort a good hurricane plan would have been to have some food and water there? Again, I believe screwups were on all levels. If the city had an evacuation plan that got 80% of the city out and the rest into the superdome, then wouldn't having a small supply at least of food and water seem like a good idea too? Or are we to completely rely on the federal government for everything? And I am not letting FEMA off the hook either, they screwed the pooch royally, but my word, stop blaming the Feds for everything and stop relying on them for everything.
posted by Ron at 9:51 PM on September 4, 2005

teece:

Of course, you'll always have a bit of bias, no matter what you do.

And Brenden seems to be Republican-lite, and has received accolades from Malkin, Renyolds, and Hewitt. However, he has reserved his strongest criticism for the Bush administration, despite also criticizing Nagin and Blanco.

I just wish more people were as honest rather than placing blame only on those of the political party they most disagree with.

And I'll be a bore and repeat what I said only a few lines above: had Nagin been able to win as a Republican and all the other facts in this situation remained the same, you would see a complete reversal of the criticisms from both sides. Thats how dishonest most of these pundits and blogs are.
posted by pandaharma at 9:55 PM on September 4, 2005

shoos: Katrina made landfall on the 29th.

So I was being generous. Now doesn't that make Nagin's behavior even more egregious? What did he need, a month's notice to get his hindsight calibrated?
posted by shoos at 10:07 PM on September 4, 2005

pandaharma, I just like to crap on anyone mefi likes.
posted by shoos at 10:08 PM on September 4, 2005

"Show me the failures at the local level of this proportion"

Just turn on CNN, houses are still underwater there. Orleans Parish and those surrounding it have their Representatives in Congress and the state of Louisiana has its Senators. Were they Republican or Democrat? I don't know and I don't care.

Whatever they are and were for the past oh-so-many decades, they traded away those monies for improving the levees. Bush did not strip those monies from the Corps of Engineers to upgrade them, he submitted a budget.

It was Louisiana congressmen who voted on that budget and bore the responsibility for looking after their constituents interests and convincing other legislators to vote Louisiana's way. Further, it was city and parish politicians who did not raise holy hell when their Congressmen indicated such.

Politics at the federal level is not isolated to DC. It reaches all the way down to the local level.

The same goes for those representatives senators operating in the state legislature, regardless of party. Every one of them have and had an active interests in protecting the city of New Orleans. If they couldn't count on their federal counterparts to convince the feds to pay for upgrades, they should have taken the matter into their own hands. It's not like the Army Corps of Engineers is the only outfit in that state who can move dirt.

Pull your head out of the sand, and learn how politics in this country really operates.
posted by mischief at 10:17 PM on September 4, 2005

Pull your head out of the sand, and learn how politics in this country really operates.

Right. Thanks for the lesson. Now, to get back to what I was talking about, how about organizational failures on the level that FEMA has given us, NOW, rather than over the past 35 years?

What, exactly, has Blanco or Nagin or any other LA official done that has resulted in anywhere near as many deaths as what Brown has done? (It sure as hell ain't these busses). Which people have put blame onto feds for those mistakes, and how? Specifics, not platitudes: I'm sure there are some. I gave you mine up-thread, for a short list of specifics, relating to how FEMA has fucked up spectacularly. Not crap about "everybody is at fault." That's pointless nonsense born of a desire not to face the issue. Are we trying to fix problems, or merely play games?

All of our government shows amazing lack of foresight sometimes: not in the least surprising. But a generation or two of putting off the construction of bigger levees is not quite the same thing as a federal agency sitting with it's thumb up its ass, doing nothing, while it is supposed to be saving people's lives, today. The former is a nice way to blame no one by blaming everyone. The latter actually has consequences in the here and now, which is why there is such fierce resistance to it.

It's nice to blame locals for not taking over a job generally left to the feds over the last 35 years. It's a common symptom of the American "individualist" pathology, but whatever. I wonder if LA should have started building its own tanks and planes if it thought Mexico was about to invade, too? Why count on the federal government for anything, or hold them responsible for anything? It can all just be done at the local level! Hell, why even have it at all? Let's just be 50 separate nations. What fantasy land is this?

On the other hand, fixing complete incompetence, as evinced by FEMA this past week, is a much easier thing: fire the assholes that have done nothing right, and hire someone other than a failed lawyer for this critical job. Deflecting that blame by playing the "everybody fucked up" card does nothing but let the fuckers at FEMA responsible for dereliction of duty off the hook. It's the "mistakes were made" bullshit, instead of the "I screwed up" that allows nobody be held responsible and lets nothing get done to fix things, of which I have seen an astounding amount in the last few years.

Yeah, Bush will suffer political fall out from that (which is actually the root of the problem for many who protest). Tough fucking shit. The federal government is his baby right now, whether he likes it or not. FEMA had a legally mandated role. It failed to come through in that role in anything resembling an adequate or timely matter. I think it's pretty sad that anyone thinks that stating that is playing partisan politics.

The mistakes made at the local level in the last week are nothing compared to the dereliction of duty at the federal level in the last week. At least not that I've seen: again, point them out to me if I've missed them. And it's not some ideological debate about what FEMA's duty was: it's a matter of law. Trying to "balance" things by loudly yelling about local problems is a false balance (as Drudge and others are doing with these busses), borne of a fundamental dishonesty.
posted by teece at 11:12 PM on September 4, 2005

Believe what you wish; however, it is fact that funds were diverted from maintenance and reinforcement of levees to support the Iraq campaign. Those funds were requested by LA state officials two years ago.

Haha, this is laughable. First of all, the levies were only designed to withstand a Cat 3 hurricane, which was a cost/benefit decision made by the Army Corps of Engineers. This is why they say additional funding wouldn't have made much diff.

Second, the feds funded $14m of the $82m requested. Now, if your very existence depends on this project, don't you think NO or the State of LA could come up with the remaining cash, SOMEWHERE?? After all, the Superdome cost $150m to build in the 70s (what would that be in today's inflation adjusted dollars?), I imagine little to none of that was federally funded.

Blaming George Bush for cutting $70m out of a $4b + budget is just stupid.

That's not to say the Feds didn't screw shit up on this one, but that point in particular is rather stupid.
posted by b_thinky at 11:16 PM on September 4, 2005

For the record, I don't believe blame lies at the feet of any one person, though there is plenty to go around.

Doesn't anyone see the culprit is the system of beuracracy that's in place here? The system is one of too many chiefs and not enough indians.

One week later, nobody knows who's in charge. The mayor? The governor? The president? FEMA? Homeland Security? I'm pretty sure eventual studies of Katrina will show communication and the various checks and balances between the myriad departments to be a major problem.

In states of emergency, we need ONE person in charge of making the calls and delegating as he or she sees fit.

If people would let go of their political agendas for the time being and actually study the problem (you know, evaluate facts before reaching conclusions) we might be able to save lives next time.
posted by b_thinky at 11:25 PM on September 4, 2005

"What, exactly, has Blanco or Nagin or any other LA official done that has resulted in anywhere near as many deaths as what Brown has done?"

Not preparing adequately.
posted by mischief at 11:26 PM on September 4, 2005

I've had enough of the blind hatred here. #1 can keep the $5.

Thanks for keeping our blind hatred running, then.

*fumbles for car keys*
posted by dhartung at 12:03 AM on September 5, 2005

Haha, this is laughable.

Ahhahaha! Hy-lairious.

First of all, the levies were only designed to withstand a Cat 3 hurricane, which was a cost/benefit decision made by the Army Corps of Engineers. This is why they say additional funding wouldn't have made much diff.

Engineers don't make decisions. They tell you what it costs to do something, then you cut the budget by 80% because blacks and Democrats live there.

Second, the feds funded $14m of the $82m requested. Now, if your very existence depends on this project, don't you think NO or the State of LA could come up with the remaining cash, SOMEWHERE??

That's an optimistic and big shortfall to recover from tax revenue from poor people. And the region is an economic center for shipping, transportation, manufacturing and value-added goods, like, say, gasoline. If my country's well-being depended highly on a place's existence, perhaps I wouldn't be so cavalier with its safety.

After all, the Superdome cost $150m to build in the 70s (what would that be in today's inflation adjusted dollars?), I imagine little to none of that was federally funded.

What an abominably miserable point. The Superdome doubled (poorly) as a shelter because the federal government had no motivation to get people out of the area, and that's all that was left for the local authorities. Arenas are almost never designed (or funded) with the primary functionality of a shelter in mind. Next.

Blaming George Bush for cutting $70m out of a $4b + budget is just stupid.

Nah, I'll blame him for spending more per day on Iraq than once on a levee arrangement that would last 20-30 years and save countless lives. What an incompetent dope.

That's not to say the Feds didn't screw shit up on this one...
posted by b_thinky at 2:16 AM EST on September 5

Well, we agree on that. Boy did they ever fuck up.
posted by Rothko at 12:23 AM on September 5, 2005

Sorry, but I just don't think those school buses could have made more than one trip, seeing as it was taking 6 to 9 hours (or more) just to get 80 miles to Baton Rouge. So which 13,530 people get to go and which don't ... and what happens if some of the buses break down or all of them get stuck out in the storm? I'd rather take my chances in a crappy old house or the Superdome than try to make it out on a school bus fighting both outrageous evacuation traffic and bad weather, especially when you expect that someone will be coming in to help you after the storm passes as soon as possible (and not nearly a week later).

It's taken since Wednesday to get all the people that were in the Superdome and Convention Center out of town on how many buses and planes? And there are people who think that batch of old school buses were going to do it in a day and a half? The breakdown of the disaster plan was rescue not coming immediately and leaving people starving, without water, and having no way out.
posted by Orb at 1:42 AM on September 5, 2005

I don't think anyone wants to completely exonerate local or state officials. But, the federal government is trying to wiggle out of this thing scot free by blaming everything on everyone else. If they had responded to Katrina as quickly as they shifted into 'Cover Our Ass' mode, things wouldn't have gotten so out of control in New Orleans. We've seen this administration pull this same sort of feint of hand before. We've seen it work before. 9/11? Not our fault. No WMDs in Iraq? Not our fault. Iraqi insurgency? Not our fault. It goes on, and on, and on. Up to this point, we've got no reason to believe it won't work again, and if that happens then no one is going to be held accountable for what went wrong this week. After what we've all seen, can anyone honestly say they still want these jokers running things when terrorists strike again? If we let Bush and Co. shift all the blame onto Nagin and Blanco then that just might happen.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 2:57 AM on September 5, 2005

Eh, I lose focus when I ramble on like that. All I really wanted to say was this: If folks seems excessively touchy about criticisms of Nagin, it's because they don't want to watch the Feds slime their way out this scot free.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 3:20 AM on September 5, 2005

If they couldn't count on their federal counterparts to convince the feds to pay for upgrades, they should have taken the matter into their own hands. It's not like the Army Corps of Engineers is the only outfit in that state who can move dirt.

I'm afraid you're mistaken, mischief. I can assure you that nobody can move more than a speck of dirt without the involvement of at least the ACE, and very likely a federal lawsuit by interested business parties, governments, and NGOs. If you built a private or municipal levee that they didn't like, I'm quite sure they have the authority to come in and tear it down.

> If you have a project that involves either the placement of dredged or fill material into any waters of the United States, or the performance of any work or placement of any structure into or affecting any navigable water, then you will need authorization from the Corps prior to beginning.

I'll say again, though, that I don't think more/higher levees is the primary answer. The city needs to be raised up. The wetlands and barrier islands need to be restored (a process of decades). The Mississippi ought to be allowed to move away from New Orleans, somehow (I've never entirely understood why the river past the Atchafalaya can't exist just as a navigation channel). And Lake Pontchartrain needs a storm surge barrier near the I-10 bridge.

teece: Keep up the stellar work.
posted by dhartung at 10:06 PM on September 5, 2005