Does anyone have a comprehensive debunking of JUST the "Unused School Bus"

[mrfocus]

conservative lie?

Con-sheeple on Yahoo keep trotting out the picture of the 'unused school buses'....does anyone have a good comprehensively argued response?

[Kagemusha]

1. I'm waiting to hear even a discombobulated debunking

I'm hoping there is one, because it's a nasty story to spread and a damning picture

[Pepperbelly]

10. It is not a damning picture at all ...

It is damning only to those who want it to be. An objective review of the facts assuages that completely. The problem in the NO evacuation was that somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 people did not have transportation out of the city. If you look at the photo, there are approximately 100 school buses. In what universe could you put 2,500 people on a single bus? At most, the buses could have carried no more than 5,000 citizens.

The PLAN was for FEMA to come up with the evacuation assets. It's part of their gig since they became part of Homeland Security. NO and Governor Blanco were requesting help as early as 8/28 yet no help arrived in time to evacuate the city or, for that matter, to even get life's necessities to those citizens left behind.

So, what it comes down to is this: those buses would not make a popcorn fart in a hard wind's difference in the evacuation of the city.

[AllegroRondo]

2. What I've heard

1) The mayor DID begin using school buses to get people out of town but had to stop after someone died from the heat. (remember, school buses have no AC, and roads out of town were backed up making it a LONG sit in a hot bus). He requested "greyhound type" buses with AC from FEMA and was denied.
2) there was nowhere to bus these people to. FEMA did not set up any evacuation centers, and told the mayor to move everyone to the superdome.

[DURHAM D]

5. I think the biggest issue was no place to take them. The other

towns were not allowing people from NO in - remember this is the south - lots of people against busing.

[Guaranteed]

3. LOOK: 80% OF THE PEOPLE WERE EVACUATED.

THEY EXPECTED EVERY SINGLE PERSON TO GET OUT???

There were GOING to be 10's of thousands behind, by simple statistics and the law of averages!!

The mayor got out 80% of the people. He did his goddamned job. After the disaster, the WHOLE CITY WAS UNDER-FUCKING-WATER. You expect THEM to solve these problems at that point?

Come ON, people!!!!

[abbeyco]

4. A few items

1. Weekend and no drivers - esp if they had evacuated.

2. Where to take the evaucated people? There were already people going into the Superdome and Conv Center. New Orleans gov't didn't get clearance to take people out of the city to place them in another city.

3. Lack of gas and traffic jams out of town.

That's what I know of so far....

[derby378]

6. Here you go

From DoYouEverWonder earlier this morning. Keep in mind that the school buses had no air conditioning and no restroom facilities of any kind - and they were stuck in evacuation traffic for hours.

3 Die While Fleeing Storm

An official with the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office said three residents of a New Orleans nursing home fleeing Hurricane Katrina aboard a school bus died Sunday during an evacuation to a Baton Rouge church.

The names, ages and sexes of the dead were not available.

Don Moreau, chief of operations, said the coroner's office responded to a call from emergency medical technicians to a Baptist church, which was the destination for the bus of nursing home patients. Once there, Moreau said one person was dead inside the church and another was found dead inside the bus.

He said the person in the bus appeared to have been dead for some time.

http://www.wdsu.com/news/4909184/detail.html

[Dr Fate]

7. Where was the Board of Education supposed to take them? The woods?

???

[never cry wolf]

8. There were some great threads on the subject yesterday

But no search function. In essence the city's part of the plan was to use busses to transport people to local shelters, ie: superdome, convention center, which they did. The city was not authorized to take people beyond city limits.

[derby378]

9. Also, see post #6 (n/t)