Go Greyhound

Hundreds of buses sit in floodwaters.

NewsMax answers a question that I have wondered about since last Friday.

What about those school buses?

A more careful reading of the transcript of Mayor Ray Nagin's infamous interview on WWL radio a week ago gives some insight into why all those school buses were left to be flooded out in New Orleans parking lots rather than be used to evacuate citizens prior to the storm and on Monday before the levees broke.

Complete WWL Interview Transcript

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin garnered a ton of publicity with a profanity-laced interview he gave to WWL radio last Thursday, where he blasted President Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for not coming to rescue his city in time.

However, Nagin's most newsworthy comments - where he explained why he didn't use hundreds of city school buses to evacuate his city's flood victims - went almost unnoticed.

Turns out, Nagin turned his nose up at the yellow buses, demanding more comfortable Greyhound coaches instead.

"I need 500 buses, man," he told WWL. "One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here."

Nagin described his response:

"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

While Nagin was waiting for his Greyhound fleet, Katrina's floodwaters swamped his school buses, rendering them unusable.


Less than a mile from the Superdome, 146 buses were engulfed by the flooding.



Nagin's explanation for his failure to use the available school buses in evacuation efforts is a sorry excuse.

Since Bush didn't commandeer the Greyhound Fleet and send it to News Orleans, Nagin determined that it would be better to leave thousands of his city's people in danger rather than helping them flee on school buses from the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.

Pathetic.

Nagin is a sorry excuse for a mayor.