Just watched Mayor Nagin on Larry King Live. Here's the relevant part of the interview where he talks about the school bus meme (and Amtrak):
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.
KING: And people forget the first day of the storm, you thought you beat it, right? Before the levees broke. New Orleans was safe was the headline in the paper.
NAGIN: That was probably the biggest mistake that we set that signal out to the world that we were okay.
KING: Yeah.
NAGIN: And then the levee broke and then, you know, the rest is history. And so I think that was one of the biggest mistakes that were made.
KING: Did Amtrak offer to send trains? There was a report somewhere.
NAGIN: You know what? I heard the other day and that was the first time that it ever had come to my attention. We were looking around for ways to evacuate people as we were bringing them to the Superdome. And I had one of my staff members that call Amtrak and they basically told us every train booked and the earliest to get somebody out was late September so that was not an option for us.
With the buses, it looks like they simply didn't have enough drivers to take use the extra buses. There was a limited number of drivers, barely enough to evacuate people to the Superdome. I'm guessing that the Mayor had a choice...use these drivers to get people out of the city (one trip) or use them to get people to shelter (multiple trips). Considering the resources he had available (i.e. a limited number of bus drivers), it's pretty clear that the smart decision was to scrap the bus evacuation plan and move as many people to safety as possible. People can throw up those pictures of flooded buses as much as they want, but the Mayor's decision saved lives.
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