proper preparation prevents piss poor performance

proper preparation prevents piss poor performance

Check these two pictures out: this one from Google Maps, and this one on JunkYard Blog. I counted 262 buses on the image from JYB, and 137 buses from the Google Maps image. These buses are all sitting in their parking lots in New Orleans.

President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday. Mayor Nagin of New Orleans waited until Sunday to declare a state of emergency. The storm hit on Monday morning, and those 399 buses sat idle in their parking lots and are now creating an oil slick.

Every single person who took refuge in the Superdome could have been bussed out of the area.

Update: Bill Hobbs points out that the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority (NORTA) has 364 buses that could have been used to evacuate people, but which were not used to do so. I think that the picture from Google Maps above may be some of those 364 buses, but I know that the picture at JYB is of school buses... so right there is over 600 buses that could have been used to evacuate the poorest residents of New Orleans, that were not used and are now destroyed.

Mayor Nagin is pleading for "500 buses" (and Greyhound has stepped up to the plate and has routed some to help out in the evacuation)... but Nagin had over 600 (and possibly as many as 763 if those on the Google Maps image are school buses) at his disposal and he didn't use them.

Technorati Tags: New Orleans, Hurricane