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 31st, 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).