5,000 Wait On Overpbutt 2408

How many school buses are there in New Orleans? How many Greyhound buses are operating on routes in the region? How many church buses are in the city? Why would it have to be all buses? How many car dealerships are in New Orleans? Why not comandeer those brand new cars that are going to be wasted in the hurricane? It does not take a rocket scientist to operate a bus or a car.

A full tank of gas in most cars will get you at least 200 miles away, and usually further. I don't know about the fuel capacity of buses, but I know tractor trailers can make 700-800 miles on a full bag of fuel. Buses should be able to make it at least a couple hundred miles. A 200 mile trip is a lousy 4 hour ride. So, what comfort stops? The national guard could have been deployed to gas stations and fuel stops for control. Fuel tankers could have been diverted and sent to the evacuation routes to insure fuel would be available, free of charge or at taxpayer expense. Ingenuity could have gotten the gasoline out of the tankers and into the cars and buses. As for Marshaling centers, they were already using the Superdome and the Convention Center for marshalling points. It wouldn't have taken much effort to coordinate a destination, even if it was nothing but a Walmart parking lot 200 miles away, and then shuttle refugees from there to more permanent destinations in the cities that are this minute opening their arms to them - Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Ft. Worth, etc.

Where there is a will, there is a way. There was no will. These people were left to die.

SOME would have inevitably been left there. But there was no effort to get ANYBODY out. So, instead of having a few hundred left to suffer the consequences, there are 10s of thousands, increasing the human tragedy, costs of relief efforts, and threats of violence and crime a thousandfold.

Yes. And from there they should have been loaded on buses, or given car keys, or even strapped down on flat bed trucks and gotten out of there. There is absolutely no plausible excuse for our government, at all levels, deliberately and intentionally leaving 10s of thousands of people to die. It is obscene.