What happened to FEMA's buses?

[Tesibria]

In all this hoopla re: those flooded NOLA buses, why are there no stories about FEMA's buses???

We KNOW that they knew about the "100,000 evacuation problem." FEMA representatives (and state officials, and about every report out between Saturday afternoon and Sunday night) repeatedly highlighted this problem.

According to a Dallas Morning News report, sometime on Sat or Sunday, FEMA spokesperson said, in discussing this problem, “It’s an incredible undertaking ... There are an estimated 100,000 people who need to be evacuated but don’t have transportation. We’re trying to set up buses to get that done right now.” See http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/082905dntexafterkatrina.31f1021.html

So .... where were FEMA's buses?? And how can they now claim that it was the City's responsibility? Clearly, beFORE the hurricane, they considered it part of their responsibility.

And -- why is NO ONE reporting this??? Even the Dallas Morning News, who reported it beFORE the Hurricane (12:44 AM CDT 8/29/2005), has not addressed this issue.

[shraby]

1. Those buses should have been lined up

waiting to evacuate people from the area as soon as the storm went through.

[Tesibria]

7. EXACTLY!!! - but ... where were they?

I've seen NO reports that these buses showed up or evacuated a single person.

[LiberalArkie]

2. The city was going to evac the people in school buses BUT

The drivers of the buses evac'd first.

[HEAVYHEART]

4. That's what Nagin said

I think it was on meet the press, I'm not sure.

[Tesibria]

6. It was on meet the press (link)

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9240461/

[cynatnite]

3. FEMA cancelled them:

FEMA Requested Only 455 Buses To Rescue 20,000... Then Canceled Order And Took Until Sat. After Storm To Send Enough Buses...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2005/09/13/fema-requested-only-455-b_n_7281.html

As the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency stepped down yesterday, government documents surfaced showing that vital resources, such as buses and environmental health specialists, weren't deployed to the Gulf region for several days, even after federal officials seized control of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

...
In addition, FEMA's official requests, known as tasking assignments and used by the agency to demand help from other government agencies, show that it first asked the Department of Transportation to look for buses to help evacuate the more than 20,000 people who had taken refuge at the Superdome in New Orleans at 1:45 a.m. on Aug. 31. At the time, it only asked for 455 buses and 300 ambulances for the enormous task. Almost 18 hours later, it canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, "the DOT doesn't do ambulances."

FEMA ended up modifying the number of buses it thought it needed to get the job done, until it settled on a final request of 1,355 buses at 8:05 p.m. on Sept. 3. The buses, though, trickled into New Orleans, with only a dozen or so arriving on the first day.

...
"I noticed that every email to a FEMA person bounced back this week. They need a better internet provider during disasters!!" one frustrated Department of Health official wrote to colleagues last Thursday.

[Tesibria]

5. This is the AUG 31 (post-hurricane) request -- I'm talking about the PRE-

hurricane request. David Passey, FEMA, said ON SAT/SUN (i.e., PRE-Hurricane) that they were trying to find buses for the evacuation PRE-strike.

[cynatnite]

8. my bad :)

Sorry about that. :blush: