Julia Reed on the radio, I turned it off, and that triggered the

[Gloria]

usual fight with my freeper mother.

It was about the damned 600 BUSSES!!!! And blaming Blanco.... Due to the high traffic, I can't search for the info...what is the rebuttal to that crap???

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I believe FEMA had to be contacted

so that the buses had a place to go.

[deutsey]

2. Reed is a friend of the Bushes and has contributed $$ to the GOP

look her up on Media Matters and sites where you can find out where she's contributed to political parties.

Everything she says should be taken with a spoonful of salt.

[FloridaPat]

3. Saw this on one post: they needed drives to get the people out.

Normally the drivers would be national guard soldiers. Regular bus drivers would be evacuating themselves and family. 65-75% of LA ACTIVE national guard were in Iraq.

Note that the gov't keeps saying LA had 60% of their NG there to call up. However, the NG has two parts - active and inactive. The active ones are the weekend warriors. Most of those were in Iraq.

[teach1st]

4. I found this....

Buses could have been used

They were. Buses were used to ferry people to the Superdome. That was essentially the plan as is identified in these articles about the problems of a mandatory evacuation in New Orleans.

http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012870.html

http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012866.html

http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012865.html

http://www.archpundit.com/archives/012864.html

Specific lie--Nagin could have evacuated with school buses. There were no drivers necessarily and buses were used to get as many as could to the Superdome and other shelters. And the City had developed a system recently to get people matched to rides in such cases and was educating churches and other bodies in poor neighborhoods.

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.

Operation Brother's Keeper, financed with a grant from the Baptist Community Ministries, is aimed at assisting religious institutions in both preparing for a hurricane and in finding ways to pair with other religious institutions north of the lake to provide transportation and shelter.

There are four pilot churches this year, with a goal of providing assistance to about 2,000 residents.

Red Cross officials recommend that families put together
emergency kits including personal financial information, flashlights, first-aid kits, medicines and other supplies, which can be used during evacuations or during other non-hurricane emergencies.

[rocktivity]

5. If that's the yardstick she's going to use

The articles in this thread should come in handy.

Maybe the levees would have held if, in 2003, the Bush White House hadn't pulled the funding of making them strong enough to weather a Category 4 storm. They'd started funding the Iraq invasion then, but funding both would have been as easy as reducing the tax cuts.

The biggest mistake the mayor and governor made was not insisting that the Bush White House help them come up with a way to evacuate a city with Category 3 levees when--not if--when a Category 4 storm hit.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Gloria]

6. thanks all...And, if I recall correctly, once the city plan was carried ou

the Feds kicked in according to some of the stuff I read

[chalky]

7. Well isn't SHE the little gadabout...

She's just all over the place now, isn't she? And seems to be very generous with the punditry, considering no-one has ever heard of her or her stupid book before she started her attacks.

This is the hag that blind-sided Rachel Maddow on Friday's Al Franken. At the time she was spitting all over Ray Nagin. Guess her puppeteers told her to dial it back because the mayor already had too much sympathy on his side.

Looks like she's switched her fangs to Blanco.