Mayor Nagin and the School Buses FAQ

This post is a summary of the evidence and arguments surrounding the "flooded school buses" story after Hurricane Katrina.  I'm posting this summary as an example of how people can take a picture, surround it with poor argumentation and minimal research, and weave a story of local incompetence that (at least in this case) doesn't exist.  The school bus meme was used as a prime example of a screwup at the local level.  However, an examination of the evidence shows that the Mayor's decision not to utilize the school buses saved lives.  What follows is a basic history of the school bus story, followed by answers to various arguments conjured up by those pushing the local incompetence story.  If others have evidence/arguments to present that are not covered in this post, feel free to put it in the comments.

How did the school bus meme start?

The focus of the media and various blogs on the school buses likely started with the dissemination of various photos showing a large parking lot filled with school buses in about 2-4 feet of water.

These pictures were picked up on various blogs. The first posts were at Junkyard Blog, with a post entitled Local Screwup: Bus-Ted!. A few days later, this was followed up with posts on The Corner, Michelle Malkin, Captain's Quarters with multiple posts, and other sites. The story was then discussed in a Wesley Pruden editorial in the Washington Times, and claims in this story (for instance, that there were 2,000 flooded school buses) were repeated by Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, and other media outlets.

In most accounts, the school buses were used as a symbol of local incompetence in the wake of Katrina. However, there is ample evidence that the Mayor’s decisions regarding utilization of the school buses saved lives.

Was there an evacuation plan?

The evidence for an evacuation plan comes from three sources, the Southeast Louisiana Emergency Operations Procedure, the New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and two articles in the New-Orleans Times Picayune.

Both the SE Louisiana EOP and the New Orleanw plan mention evacuation, but are short on details regarding how the evacuation would be carried out. Here are the relevant excerpts from the SE Louisiana EOP regarding evacuation and the usage of public transportation:

Part II: B, Assumptions

5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

Part III: Evacuation, B. Concept of Operations

1. Precautionary/Voluntary Evacuation

a. Risk Area Parishes:

7. Local transportation resources should be marshaled and public transportation plans implemented as needed.

8. Announce the location of staging areas for people who need transportation. Public transportation will concentrate on moving people from the staging areas to safety in host parishes with priority given to people with special needs.

2. Recommended Evacuation

a. Risk Area Parishes:

2. Mobilize parish/local transportation to assist persons who lack transportation or who have mobility problems.

3. Mandatory Evacuation

a. Risk Area Parishes:

4. Designate staging areas and other facilities as last resort refuges. People at these locations who cannot be evacuated in time to avoid the storm will remain and take refuge in the designated buildings.

5. Assist persons with mobility limitations to find last resort refuge. Mobilize all transportation resources and request assistance from the state as needed.

 

There may have been plans with more detail regarding the use of public transportation in evacuation, but none on the web that I am aware of. However, extra details regarding these evacuation plans can be found in reporting in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. To our knowledge, two recent articles discuss the evacuation plan. First is from the May 31^st, 2005 Times-Picayune entitled Preparing for the Worst: Officials rework evacuation strategy. The relevant excerpt regarding evacuation is posted below:

Busing planned

The busing evacuation plan is a work in progress. Details likely will remain murky until time to implement the plan, because officials don't want people heading to a particular place expecting a ride. Those without transportation need to be planning now how they'll get to safety, New Orleans Emergency Preparedness Director Joseph Matthews said.

"It's important to emphasize that we just don't have the resources to take everybody out," Matthews said.

He said the viability of the bus plan depends on whether Regional Transit Authority and New Orleans public school officials find enough volunteer drivers.

New Orleans is in an unusual situation, compared with neighboring parishes, because more than a quarter of its residents have no personal transportation. According to the most recent census data, about 134,000 out of the city's 480,000 people are without cars, said Shirley Laska, director of the University of New Orleans' Center for Hazards Assessment, Response & Technology.

If the buses are used, Matthews said those on board will have to be patient.

"Lets face it," he said. "In time of an emergency, if we wait until the new contraflow plan is put in effect to begin this plan, it will take anywhere from four to six hours to get people as far as Baton Rouge.

"And we have to arrange for things as simple as finding strategic points along the route for bathrooms and water, for security and medical personnel to accompany the convoy in case of medical needs."

Matthews said the plan is to take people from 10 pickup points throughout the city to one or more shelters north of Interstate 12.

City officials also are cooperating with the American Red Cross, Total Community Action and the University of New Orleans in developing a faith-based hurricane response system that includes a buddy system for evacuation.

Our second source is from the July 8, 2005 Times-Picayune article entitled RTA buses would be used for evacuation. The relevant excerpts:

New Orleans has plans to deploy scores of buses from the Regional Transit Authority to evacuate people without transportation if Hurricane Dennis threatens the city, City Hall said on Thursday.

Such an effort would be both unprecedented and, apparently, far short of the city's needs.

At the same time, it appears emergency planners' efforts to establish church-led private transportation networks have fallen flat.

...

If events warrant evacuation, the Regional Transit Authority will contribute part of its 364-bus fleet to an effort that will end at undisclosed shelters north of Lake Pontchartrain,  RTA spokeswoman Rosalind Cook said.

Not all the buses will be available, she cautioned. "We might be talking about as many as 100," she said.

The agency would hold much of its fleet back to continue operating on city streets until forced to shut down by a city curfew. The number of evacuation buses is further limited by the number of volunteer drivers who sign up to drive them away, she said.

Even if the entire fleet was used, the buses would carry only about 22,000 people out of the city -- far short of the 134,000 people estimated to be without cars in a recent University of New Orleans study.

Why didn't they follow the plan? And what did they do in lieu of the plan?

One reason they may not have followed the evacuation plan is because the planned shelters were north of Lake Pontchartrain. This region was right in the center of the predicted path of Hurricane Katrina. This could have been a factor in not using city resources to evacuate.

But more importantly, Mayor Nagin stated that the city didn’t have enough drivers for the evacuation. From an interview with Mayor Nagin on Larry King Live:

KING:  A couple other things, mayor.  Why weren't buses utilized?

NAGIN: Well, you know, we had the buses, you know, high and dry as we thought they would be. There was our normal procedure. It had ever flooded in those areas but Katrina was an awesome storm, so when the storm hit, it started to flood and when 17th Street Canal burst, there was no way to get to the buses and that's why they were flooded but even if we had gotten to the buses, Larry, drivers were an issue. We didn't have enough drivers.

We barely had enough drivers to get people to evacuate to from the homes to the superdome as a shelter of last resort. For the people that probably would have need buses, we would have needed about 1200 buses and drivers. And we don't have those kind of resources.

If they didn’t have enough bus drivers, why didn’t they ask non-bus drivers to evacuate the city?

There are too many risks, including theft, vandalism, etc. But the risk of an accident is likely the largest concern. If there was a bus accident during an evacuation, backups would increase making evacuation even more difficult.  Major backups would discourage evacuation by people in the city, as well as limiting the ability of people on the road to get out safely.

What did the city do instead?

They focused their efforts on moving citizens to shelter before the storm hit.  Here is a report from the Salt Lake Tribune:

As many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, so the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome.

The Baltimore Sun also reports that city officials used sirens and bullhorns to round up as many people as possible into the shelters, presumably using city buses.

And a first person account from Metafilter:

That's not entirely correct. While it is true that there was no clear plan of evacuation (at least to the everyday citizens of New Orleans), on-the-fly plans involving buses and the Superdome fell into place quickly. Saturday and Sunday were beautiful, clear days and even though police drove around with bullhorns, begging people to at least head for higher ground, many people never even attempted to evacuate or seek shelter.

As ridiculous as it sounds to...well, let's just say it...more educated people, SOME PEOPLE JUST WON'T FUCKING LEAVE.

They won't. They just won't. The believe that they are better off in their own hands and they know if it gets TOO bad, the rescuers will come to them.

I know people involved in the evacuation effort and NO ONE was denied help if they asked for it.

Couldn't they use the drivers they had to evacuate the city instead of taking them to the Superdome?

Evacuations started in earnest on Saturday morning, with the mandatory evacuation coming on Sunday. In an optimal situation, buses would be able to make one trip a day in and out of the city. Any one bus could be used, at most, twice. However, a bus in that same time period could be used a much larger number of times to move people from points in the city to the Superdome. Focusing city efforts on moving people to the Superdome would likely save many more lives

Was the Superdome in the plans? 

The Superdome was not specifically mentioned in the City of New Orleans plan posted online. However, this passage makes it likely that the Superdome was part of the evacuation plans.

"Last Resort Refuges and Super Shelters are described in specific SOPs covering their applications."

But wasn’t the Superdome horrible?  Wouldn't evacuating the people have been much better?

The conditions were less than ideal (though the reports of mass chaos and murder seems to have been exaggerated).  However, considering that there weren't enough resources to evacuate the city, the Superdome was a much better place to be than out in homes during the hurricane.

But the Superdome couldn't withstand the winds, correct?

The Superdome was built to withstand 200-mph winds.  However, there were questions regarding whether wind patterns due to newer high-rise buildings would cause major damage to the Dome.  However, using the Dome seemed to be a necessary risk because other planned shelters could not either withstand high winds or were in flood prone areas. From a WWL-TV article after Hurricane Ivan:

On the surface, the Superdome seems like the most logical choice for an emergency shelter, and city officials are leaning in the Dome’s direction for future shelter needs instead of schools.

“Anything above a category two makes them pretty much ineligible because they’re not wind resistant enough and they're in flood prone areas it looks as though we're pointing to the Superdome in being reinforced with the proper back up system as shelter of last resort,” said Nagin.

It appears a facility as large as the Dome could hold up in hurricane conditions but Bill Curl, spokesman for the Superdome, says that is yet to be tested and if there is no other choice then maybe the Dome could serve as a shelter.

“Only in dire emergencies. The Superdome is not a shelter,” said Curl.

According to Curl, the assumption that the Superdome can withstand hurricane force winds is just that: an assumption. He says more analysis is needed to determine what the Dome can actually withstand because previous wind studies have become somewhat irrelevant since they did not factor in the new high-rise buildings around the Dome.

But the Superdome didn't have any food.

This misconception may be due to the Mayor instructing citizens to bring 2-3 days worth of food. However, there is ample evidence that the city/state did have provisions for those in the Superdome.  For example, here is a CNN interview with Lieutenant Cowan of the Lousiana National Guard from during the hurricane:

COSTELLO: OK. I want to talk about the Superdome and the people inside. Can you tell us what it looks like inside there with that many people?

COWAN: Well, I haven't actually been inside the Superdome to see, being in Baton Rouge.  But from what I hear, there's -- it's a little crowded, but there's ample room for everyone. It seems to be going all right with the 30,000 or so people that are there.

COSTELLO: What kinds of things have you prepared for these 25,000 people?

COWAN: Well, you want to make sure that you have adequate needs as far as food and water go, make sure that they have facilities for the restroom, and somewhere for them to sleep. It's not going to be the Hilton, but at least it's a safe place that they can stay and not have to worry about the storm.

COSTELLO: Do they have enough water? Could -- were you able to bring in enough for them?

COWAN: Oh, yes. There's plenty of water, and we actually have more water staged and ready to go once the storm does pass through. We have the capabilities with our coordination with the state police, local law enforcement agencies, to where we can get out on the roads with our National Guard vehicles loaded down with the supplies, and get them down to wherever they need to go relatively easy.

COSTELLO: What kind of food have you provided for these people?

COWAN: Typically, we have the military meals ready to eat, the prepackaged food that the Army guys eat. It's healthy and tasty, and it's easy to package and easy to transport.

Why didn't they move the school buses to higher ground?

What higher ground? In the worst case Category 4-5 scenario, both the Pontchartrain and Mississippi river levees fail or are overtopped, leading to flooding in the entire city. In order to get buses to high ground, one would need to get them out of the city.

And getting buses out of the city would involve a long trek in evacuation conditions. It’s not simply a matter of moving buses over the border. Buses can’t be evacuated south, since those areas are also prone to flooding. Evacuating buses to the north or northeast involve going over long causeways which would take hours to traverse. Travelling west on I-10 involves passing miles of marsh before even hitting dry land. Simply moving the buses to dry ground would take hours and use bus drivers, which were a limited and valued resource. And this doesn’t take into account other issues (such as where to put the buses, how to secure the buses, etc).