5,000 Wait On Overpbutt 2385

It does not take a rocket scientist to drive a stinking bus. I had never driven a bus, never even looked closely at the controls, but was able to climb in the saddle and drive it all over the city without incident several years ago. They have automatic transmissions and the brake peddle works just like the one in cars, even though they are completely different braking systems. The only puzzle was the stinking control to operate the door, and that took about five minutes to figure out. Let the evacuees drive the bus. Out of 10,000 people there is bound to be a few with driver licenses. Maybe even a few who have experience driving a bus.

Pick a spot. Any spot. The mayor could have picked up the phone and called Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, St. Louis, Shreveport, Texarkana, Beaumont, Little Rock, Tulsa, or any town in between and told them they had x number of buses headed their way. The cities would have opened their arms, just like they are doing. They could have been dropped in the same facilities they are being dropped in right now, as we speak. In the Astrodome, in Reunion Arena, in the Convention Centers. It wouldn't much matter if there were food and water and accomodations immediately available. It would have been easier and faster to get supplies to them in due course than leaving them where they were, in the path of a hurricane.

Does it really matter who gets on what bus? Get as many people as possible to safety. Make the announcements just like they made them for people to go to the Superdome. Tell them where to go catch a bus. Establish and publish a hot line for people to call and get picked up who cannot get to an outbound staging area.

Do you realize how long two days is? The government, all levels of it, could have done a much better job of getting people out. There was no will. And it is obscene. Let me tell you what has happened in Dallas in under 24 hours. One lone Salvation Army worker showed up with one truck to gather supplies for victims. By the end of the day, that lone worker had become hundreds, with truckloads of supplies, an entire parking lot filled to overflowing, with supplies, and all of it done by volunteers. Not a single government official or organization synchopant in the lot. You would think that the government, with billions of our tax dollars in their pocket, four years of planning, four years of training "experts", would be able to do better than a few volunteers who didn't even start with a plan.

Yes. And how many billions have been spent since 9-11 on emergency prepardness that was supposed to provide for coordinated efforts in the events of emergenices just like this? Plans were supposed to be charted to respond to any emergency, presumably one that we didn't see coming. We watched this one coming for a week. This wasn't any sneak attack. It makes it obvious that everything that has been done in the wake of 9-11 has been a total waste of time, money and effort.