September 22, 2005

A Tale of Two Cities

This picture - of Galveston school buses carrying evacuees out of the Gulf Coast city before Hurricane Rita strikes - sure puts the picture below in perspective. The picture below shows some of the 255 New Orleans school buses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina after New Orleans and Louisiana officials decided not to follow their pre-hurricane evacuation plan's directive to use such public vehicles to evacuate the city's poor residents, thousands of whom had no other way out of town.

Those on the Left who criticized my and other bloggers' focus on the failure to use New Orleans buses, saying using the buses to evacuate people simply wasn't feasible can shut up now. Galveston is proving that it could have been done.

The photo of the Galveston buses was published on the front page of today's Tennessean, with a caption that reads, "Galveston Independent School District buses carry evacuees north on Interstate 45 as Hurricane Rita approaches the coast." Click image to enlarge.

Update: Mike of Mike's America has another photo of buses being used to evacuate people from Galveston. It's an Agence France Presse photo via Yahoo!News

Also, various news media are noting the use of public vehicles to evacuate people in advance of Rita. Note the efficiency and speed with which Galveston was able to evacuate residents who had no other way out. There won't be a parking lot full of destroyed buses in Galveston after Rita passes through, nor will a fifth of the city's population be stranded on their rooftops or in hellish "shelters of last resort," as they were in New Orleans due to the failures of the city and state leadership.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough told the crowd that thousands of their neighbors will need help and the local governments plan to give it to them. But they said there's work to be done before they can assure that everyone who wants a ride out of town will get one. The officials vowed that the city and county will use various means - from going door-to-door to find those in need to signing up people through their churches - to identify people who have no transportation or who have medical needs and can't evacuate on their own. Residents also can sign up for transportation by dialing 211 and detailing their special needs, Thomas said.

Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the city will provide its buses, Galveston Independent School District buses and others to carry thousands of people to safety. The evacuation of people who lack transportation will begin 72 hours before a storm is predicted to hit in the area, he said.

A News8Austin story, Galveston residents bused out, notes that, "From the time the first bus pulled up, to the time the last of the 80 buses left, just before lunch, it took two hours to get everyone on board to head north."

And they started early , as the Los Angeles Times reports toda

"About 2,500 of Galveston's elderly and carless citizens poured into public transportation - bright yellow school buses, plush charter numbers with powerful air conditioning, little shuttles - provided by the city to carry them to safety and shelters well north of Houston. They started boarding around 8 a.m. at the island community center. By noon, about 1,000 had departed. And by evening, the city was down to just a few stragglers...

September 21, 2005

Porkbusters

I haven't done much on the Porkbusters initiative that's sweeping the sensible side of the blogosphere, but I agree heartily with John Hutcheson and Bob Krumm about this: As politicians look for federal spending to cut in order to pay for rebuilding the Gulf Coast after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Lipscomb University - where I was enrolled for three-plus years back in the mid-1980s - ought to step up and give back the $3 million it is getting from the government to build a parking garage.

There are a lot of people who lost everything and need help more than Lipscomb University, a private Christian university, needs a taxpayer-funded parking garage. As a bonus, the $3 million was put in the most recent congressional transportation bill at the request of the previous president of Lipscomb, who left to take a job in the corporate world. His successor could set a new tone right away by canceling the project and asking Congress to redirect the money to Katrina and Rita relief and reconstruction. As Krumm says, it would be a very Christian gesture.

Lipscomb touts on its website that it wants to collect stories for the alumni magazine about how membrs of the Lipscomb community are helping out with Katrina recovery. "With service and missions being a part of Lipscomb's core values we know you are praying, donating and volunteering to help the victims of Katrina. We would like to collect your stories. The Torch magazine is planning to highlight and honor the servant heart in an upcoming issue."

A wonderful page-one story would be one that announces Lipscomb has asked Congress to take back the $3 million and use it for Katrina relief and reconstruction. If you agree - and especially if you are a Lipscomb alum - you can contact the school's administration via email addresses on this webpage.

For more on Porkbusters, see Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear.

Bredesen's Approval Rating Under 50 Percent

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's approval rating continues below 50 percent in the latest SurveyPoll. Among all 50 governors, he's 34th in popularity. Here's the tracking data from SurveyUSA.

Lunch With Ed

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, was the guest at today's meeting of the Nashville citizens' editorial board, a/k/a, the monthly Nashville Area Political Bloggers lunch. Thanks to Randy Rayburn and Sunset Grill for allowing us the use of the private room for nothing other than the price of whatever we ordered from the menu. (Chicken Quesadillas for me - very good!)

I'll have my thoughts later about the issues discussed. First, some links to the writings of other bloggers who where there:

Michael Hickerson, a/k/a "Big Orange Michael," wrote mostly about the value of the event rather than the specific issues discussed:

What I found the most fascinating is in the day and age of soundbytes and seeing candidates for maybe fifteen or twenty seconds on TV, that to get a chance to sit down, break bread with Mr. Bryant and watch him share his ideas with us in a reasonable, polite and intelligent discourse was a refreshing change. So many times we sit around and say--I'd like to vote for so-and-so, but I am not sure exactly where he or she stands on this issue or that. And I think that those of us who came out for the luncheon meeting got a chance to get beyond the plain rhetoric and the political soundbyte speech that we live in today and to hear the candidate talk frankly, candidly and honestly about the issues he sees as important to our state and nation. And he came out and did it to a crowd that wasn't necessarily all going to be ardent supporters of him or his campaign. He came out to where there were going to be critics and those who'd ask hard questions and not allow him to give easy answers and then move on.

Brittney Gilbert of WKRN's NashvilleIsTalking.com provides a pretty good summary from a liberal perspective, though it's strange to see her say Bryant doesn't differ much from the Republican agenda right after noting that his stance on illegal immigration is sharply at odds with that of President Bush. She also describes Bryant's pro-life stance on abortion as a "moral quandry" when juxtaposed with his support for the death penalty. I guess it doesn't occur to some folks that an unborn baby is both innocent and defenseless while a convicted murderer is neither innocent nor defenseless.

Sharon Cobb promises a transcript.

John Hutcheson doesn't see much of a difference between Bryant and rival candidate Van Hilleary (though A.C. Kleinheider spells it out pretty well in Hutcheson's comments).

More to come...

They Don't Let Nashvillians Run Peru, Do They?

Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell appointed a non-citizen to the Metro Charter Revision Commission, which recommends potential changes to the city government charter, even though as a non-citizen he is ineligible to vote in any election in Nashville. After questions are raised, the nomination is withdrawn.

The man in question is here legally - he is not an illegal alien. Still, until he becomes a citizen, he should not be allowed to be involved in the making of our laws. [Hat tip: Blake Wylie]

Nagin, Blanco Decide to Use Buses

Well, how ironic. It seems that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babbling Blanco have decided to use buses to evacuate people from New Orleans as Hurricane Rita possibly approaches the already-devastated city. Here's a copy of a memo from U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, vice-chairman of the House Republican Conference, circulating, on Capitol Hill that notes the difference.

It's a pity they didn't use the buses before Hurricane Katrina struck.

September 20, 2005

Taxing News

Republicans in the Georgia state legislature are proposing "a sweeping initiative to lower taxes and limit spending by state and local government," reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The measure, similar in concept to Colorado's Taxpayers Bill of Rights, would tie state spending increases to the rate of inflation and population growth; and also place limits using similar formulas on city, county and school district spending - and tax collections above what governments were allowed to spend under the law would be returned to taxpayers, possibly as direct rebates. Voters would have to approve any tax increases, long-term debt or exceptions to spending limits.

By the way, that basic concept has been a boon to Colorado's economy.

Here in Tennessee, House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh wants local governments to have more power to impose or increase more kinds of taxes. Details here in the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Bredesen's TennCare Cuts Killed Man, Doctor Says

There is now at least one patient whose death is documented as having been caused by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's meat-axe slashing of TennCare. The Tennessean reports:

An East Tennessee man's lack of needed medicines — which had been capped by TennCare — was a contributing factor to his death last month, his doctor found, noting it on the death certificate.

James Bryant, of Rutledge, Tenn., was a very sick man, with a hereditary bleeding disorder similar to hemophilia, hepatitis C from blood transfusions, heart problems, diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. He had been taking a dozen medications a month until TennCare capped prescriptions on Aug. 1. Bryant, 50, was hospitalized three weeks later and died a week after that.

Many questions remain about Bryant's illnesses and his plight, but it is clear that TennCare advocates believe Bryant illustrates what they have been saying for months — that people would die because of the cuts to TennCare.

Sharon Cobb, who says she has documented four deaths as a direct result of Bredesen's TennCare cuts, has much more on Bryant's death, including a chilling conversation with Bryant's widow:

We asked Mrs.Bryant if she tried to get her husband's medicines from any of Governor Bredesen's safety nets.

Mrs Bryant: "I tried. I called the 800 number to see about getting his medicines and all I got was a recording that said 'Leave your number and we'll call back.' Nobody has called back and he's been dead since August and it is now Sept. 19. I don't even know if they know he is dead or not, but they should have called back."

How many will die before election day in November 2006?
____________________________________________________________
For more scrutiny of the Bredesen record, see Bredesen Watch.

Thanks

BillHobbs.com gets a mention in today's Memphis Commercial Appeal.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

A union paid non-union temp workers at $6 an hour to stand in 104 degree weather and protest outside a Las Vegas Walmart where workers average $10.17 and hour, reports Las Vegas Weekly.

Soak the Rich!

In The American Enterprise, Robert M. Dunn Jr., a professor of economics at George Washington Universities, thinks a little wealth redistribution is in order in higher education. Read the whole thing.

September 19, 2005

Lunchtime Links

A few political links for you today...

Memphis Mike Hollihan looks at the possibility of fraud in Ophelia Ford's state senate special election win in Memphis. Ford is U.S. Senate candidate Harold Ford's aunt, and the sister of disgraced, indicted and virtually-certainly-corrupt former state Sen. John Ford, who is Harold Ford Jr.'s uncle. ... Bob Krumm think's Ophelia's win is bad news for Harodl Ford Jr.

Matt White wants to know why Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen is stalling on calling a special election in the state House district recently vacated by a Republican. Bredesen wouldn't be stalling so the interim representative appointed by the county commission - a Democrat - can stay in office a while longer, would he?

Perhaps Bredesen is too busy letting people die - Sharon Cobb says she has "been able to confirm four deaths as a direct result of Governor Bredesen's cuts to TennCare." That's not going to be good for the re-election campaign...

Or maybe Bredesen was too busy writing on his blog about the reason he ran for governor. It wasn't to fix the budget or fix TennCare after all...

And, finally, out of leftfield today: Cindy Sheehan has gone nutso - referring to New Orleans as an "occupied" city. The Left, by the way, thinks Cindy Sheehan is sane and that we ought to be taking foriegn policy advice from her.

Livin' Large

One final shot from DC - the giant Oprah head looming over the cityscape was a bit unnerving...

UPDATE: As a commenter points out, indeed the photo was taken in the DC suburb of Rosslyn, not in DC itself. Picky picky picky...

September 17, 2005

People Movers

The Washington DC Metro is rather photogenic - not to mention frequent and fast. It certainly beats the Philadelphia transit system I grew up with. Unfortunately I was in a hurry and couldn't stick around, but I was able to grab these shots as I passed through. The impossibly tall and steep escalator is at the Rosslyn station. I hung out at the Freedom Forum offices for about an hour, then headed on to Reagan National Airport for the flight home. Click images for larger versions.

September 16, 2005

Where In The World Is Bill Hobbs?

I was near here today.

September 15, 2005

On Travel...

Well, here I am in Washington DC, on a brief business trip. Flew in to Reagan National Airport on one of those American Eagle "regional jets," a 37-seat Embraer ERJ-135 with an aisle ceiling too low for me to stand up. A decent ride, though, and the seats are surprisingly wide for such a narrow jet. Unrelated factoid: Wynonna Judd was one of the passengers who deplaned from the jet in Nashville before I boarded.

Even when you leave Nashville, it follows you. I stopped in an airport gift shop upon arrival here in DC and Kenny Chesney was playing on the store's music system.

Blogging will be nil tomorrow until after 2 p.m. central. Then I'll have about five hours to kill in Arlington, Va., before flying back home.

Here's a photo of the inside of the Reagan National terminal. It's one of those wonderful airport terminals that makes you feel like you're flying even though you haven't yet left the ground. You can click the image for a much-larger version.

President Bush just started his televised speech from Jackson Square in New Orleans with that beautiful cathedral as a backdrop. I am at a loss to understand why his staff thinks a speech with no audience is a good idea. Still, Bush is proposing the largest rebuilding effort in the nation's history, and that's entirely appropriate as Katrina is one of the largest natural disasters in the nation's history.

UPDATE: I watched part of the the DVD of Friday Night Lights, the story of the Odessa-Permian High School football team during the 1988 season, on the flight, and finished it in the hotel. Excellent film. I enjoyed seeing shots of Abilene's Shotwell Stadium in the film - it's not only where Abilene-Cooper HS and Abilene HS play their games, it's also where my alma mater, Abilene Christian University, has played its football games for the past 46 years.

But mostly I loved seeing the gorgeous shots of West Texas - if a flat, arid, nearly treeless and unrelentingly brown landscape covered by a huge arc of high blue sky can be described as gorgeous. When I'm there, I feel simultaneously at home and as if I'm an alien in a strange land.

There's a complete lack of pretense about West Texas - it is what it is, and the people are wonderful. I miss it even though I can't imagine ever living there again.

As for the movie, it's excellent. And I loved the definition that Coach Gary Gaines (played by Billy Bob Thornton) gave for what it means to "be perfect."

Watch the movie. He's right.

Give 'Til It Hurts The Opposition

Not one, but two liberals have declared their intentions to run against state Rep. Stacey Campfield, the Tennessee legislature's first and best blogging legislator. Campfield, a conservative, tells it like it is on his blog, and that seems to upset folks on the other side of the partisan divide for some reason. With two folks running against him, Campfield is going to need help. And help is spelled m-o-n-e-y. He's put a PayPal button on his site.

Go. Give. Generously.

And please end your donation with six cents - example: $10.06, $25.06, $50.06 - so that Campfield can tell which donations came from BillHobbs.com readers.

My site is read by about 30,000 people every month. If half of you gave Campfield $3 between now and the end of the year, he'd raise $45,000 - or more than triple the $14,100 that he raised for his 2004 race.

Three dollars, folks. It ain't gonna break you. Neither will $3.06.

If you're one of my many readers outside of Tennessee, I'm still asking you to give even if only just a a few bucks, and here's why: Rep. Campfield is one of the good guys, he blogs about the legislature without varnishing the truth, and he gives the bad guys fits.

$3.06, at a minimum, please.

"Producers of Freedom"

Some people reach the end of their lives still wondering whether they ever made a positive difference in their country or the world. Marines don’t have that problem, and neither, of course, do soldiers, sailors, airmen or Coast Guardsmen. My son and his fellows are producers of freedom, not mere consumers of it. - Donald Sensing

September 14, 2005

Bloggers: You're Invited to Lunch With Ed Bryant

The second meeting of the Nashville area's citizen's editorial board is set for lunchtime Wednesday, Sept. 21. That's right, it's almost time for the second monthly Nashville Area Political Bloggers Lunch.

Former U.S. Rep. Ed Bryant, a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, has graciously agreed to be our guest. We have room for about 15 bloggers, so if you are interested please send me or Sharon Cobb an email for details including exact location. (It will be at a restaurant not far from Vanderbilt University that has free wi-fi in case you want to live-blog it. We don't publish the location because the event is not open to the public and is space-limited.)

The lunch is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Format will be casual, but on the record, just as last month's lunch session with state Sen. Rosalind Kurita, who is running for the Democratic nomination for the same U.S. Senate seat.

We are aiming for rough ideological balance to the panel of bloggers, so please, lefties as well as righties, reserve a seat today! Seating preference will be given to Nashville-area bloggers who write primarily about politics will be given seating preference if more than 15 bloggers indicate interest in coming, but bloggers from outside the Nashville area also are invited, provided there is space.

Future lunch plans: U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.'s Senate campaign has said he'll be a guest at a future lunch, probably in October, and today Jennifer Coxe of former U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary's Senate campaign called me to express interest in Hilleary being a guest at the monthly bloggers lunch in November.

When Nashvillians WILL Vote FOR Higher Taxes

Editor's note: this story extensively updated late Wednesday - please scroll to the end of the extended portion of the article.

Nashville voters rejected a proposed increase in the local sales tax rate yesterday by a 2-1 margin at the ballot box. Bruce Barry, writing at the Nashville Scene's PithInTheWind.com blog, says that one of the seven things this shows is that, "As a general matter, people aren't crazy about voting themselves a tax increase."

He's right, but not entirely.

Of course, nobody wants to cast a vote for a pay cut, which is what a tax increase amounts to. But if Barry is suggesting that "as a general rule," people will almost always vote NO on tax increases, he is just wrong.

Over the past decade-plus, Colorado's constitution has required that all tax increases or new taxes sought by governments at the local level be put to a referendum. Voters also have to vote on all increases in municipal debt (bonds) and on any plan to retain and spend surplus revenue (defined as revenue above a specified annual spending growth limit - a vote against spending the surplus is a vote FOR a tax rebate or tax rate reduction.)

According to informaion I requested and received a few months ago from the Colorado Municipal League for ALL local tax/bond/surplus retention elections from November 1993 through November 2004, voters voted FOR higher taxes, higher bond debt and higher government spending more than half of the time.

Voters approved 420 of 479 ballot questions seeking to allow their local government to retain and spend surplus revenue rather than raturn it via a tax rebate or tax-rate reduction, and rejected only 59 such requests - an 88 percent approval rate.

Voters appproved 198 of 293 ballot questions seeking an increase in government debt and rejected only 95, a 68 percent approval rate.

And voters approved 248 of 459 ballot questions to allow tax increases or new taxes, rejecting new or higher taxes 211 times, a 54 percent approval rate.

What the Colorado model is showing is that requiring voter approval for such tax and spending choices forces local government to a much higher level of specificity and accountability, and also forces local government to do a much better job of communicating what the money will go for, why it is needed, etc.

The Colorado experience proves that voters WILL vote to increase their own taxes, their bond indebtedness and their government's spending, provided two conditions are met:

1. Cause. The people must support the project or program (or list of projects and programs) to be funded by the higher taxes and spending, and they must believe the increased funding is necessary to accomplish the goal.

2. Credibility: The people must people believe the government both intends to use the funds as advertised, and will competently and effectively do so.

I believe many Nashvillians believe the city's schools could use more money but that far fewer Nashvillians trust neither the mayor nor the school board to competently and effectively use the money.

The tax increase proposal had a big credibility problem: There was no guarantee the money would actually go to the schools, and the part of the tax increase revenue that was advertised as being for a tax-relief program for elderly property owners was clearly unconstitutional and would have been struck down.

One big problem is that Nashville's school board spends the money but is insulated from the taxing decisions. One solution might be to separate the property tax rate into two parts, one for the general city budget and the other for the schools budget, and change the Metro charter to give the School Board the authority to set its portion of the property tax rate.

This would accomplish two things:

1. It would solve the problem of Nashvillians not trusting that tax increases passed in the name of education actually go to the school system rather than into the city's general fund.

2. It would make the city's elected school board accountable to voters for both halves of the school funding equation - revenue and spending decisions - rather than just the spending, thus ending the annual "don't blame us" game when the school board blames Metro Council for whatever money it doesn't get.

Yesterday, the voters of Nashville (okay - the paltry number that showed up at the polls) didn't vote against the sales tax increase because they want bad schools.

A decade of experience in Colorado shows that people WILL vote for higher taxes and higher government spending if they are satisfied with both the cause the elected officials are pushing and the credibility of the officials pushing it.

One of the two was lacking in the proposal that voters in Nashville rejected yesterday.

UPDATE: In re-reading the MSM's coverage of the vote on the tax increase, I noticed a few things.

First, in the Nashville City Paper story today, Mayor Bill Purcell is quoted saying:

"I’m disappointed in the results and I’m disappointed in the margin," said Purcell. "I don’t think I’ll ever regret leaving important decisions up to the voters."

Somehow I doubt it. In reality, state law already requires a referendum on increases of local-option sales taxes, but not for increases of property taxes - so it was a freebie for Purcell to say he doesn't "regret" doing something that he had no other way to do.

You didn't hear Purcell calling for putting his three property tax increases to a vote of the people, did you?

Still, given that Mayor Purcell now is on record stating that he thinks some "important decisions" should be left up to voters, someone ought to ask him about the Colorado referendum provision and whether he would support such an amendment to the Metro charter. Better than that, someone on the Metro Council who might want to be Mayor some day ought to propose just such a charter amendment. Now.

Mayor Purcell, if you happen to read this, you might give serious thought to backing such a charter amendment. Giving voters the right to vote on any and all tax increases is the kind of issue that you probably could ride into the governor's mansion in a few years..

think

Second, The Tennessean's story today doesn't have that Purcell quote. But it does have him saying this:

The mayor compared yesterday's failed referendum to the city's creation of a Metro government more than 40 years ago, a change that voters rejected at the polls the first time around.

"What they didn't do in Nashville at that time was say, 'Well, that's it. I'm taking my ball and going home.' What they did is what we'll do now. They got up. They focused on the future. They knew they were right about their purpose, and they did what had to be done so the future of Nashville would be secure. When the vote came up the next time … they voted for metropolitan government," Purcell told a group of pro-tax increase supporters who had gathered at the school district's central office.

"I stand here today … to say it will happen again," he said. "It will happen again sooner than most people imagine possible. You keep the faith for these kids and for our seniors."

Third, in the same Tennessean story, local attorney Dewey Branstetter, said to be considering a mayoral run, is quoted saying the vote Tuesday was further confirmation that voters usually don't vote to give themselves a tax increase. "People usually will not vote a tax increase...," Branstetter said.

He's wrong, as I've shown above with the decade of data from Colorado.

September 13, 2005

Bus Story Debunked?

ThinkProgress.org claims that it has "debunked" the claim that New Orleans had a huge bus fleet that it could have used to evacuate the poor from the city before Hurricane Katrina hit, but a careful analysis of ThinkProgress's article makes it clear that the Left-wing website has it wrong. In fact, the piece helps clarify the true scope of the failure of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babbling Blanco to use the transportation assets they had in a timely manner.

First, the ThinkProgress piece:

CLAIM — MAYOR NAGIN LEFT 2,000 SCHOOL BUSES BEHIND IN THE FLOOD: Sean Hannity said, "You would have thought that the 2,000 buses, school buses, that sat in the yards would have been used to help those people that were incapable of getting out on their own, but none of that had happened locally." [Hannity and Colmes, 9/6/05]

FACT — NEW ORLEANS HAD LESS THAN 300 WORKING SCHOOL BUSES: "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down." [New Orleans Times-Picayune, 9/5/05]

CLAIM: LOCAL OFFICIALS DESERVE BLAME FOR LACK OF EVACUATION BUSES: Rick Santorum claimed, "Many didn’t have cars … And that really was a failure on the part of local officials in not making transportation available to get people out." [Times Leader, 9/6/05]

FACT: LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD REQUESTED 700 BUSES FROM FEMA FOR EVACUATIONS, FEMA ONLY SENT 100: The Boston Globe reported, "On Sunday, the day before the storm, the Louisiana National Guard asked FEMA for 700 buses to evacuate people. It received only 100." [Boston Globe, 9/11/05]

Okay, now let's consider ThinkProgress's "debunking" point by point.

1. Sean Hannity claimed Nagin left 2,000 school buses behind in the flood. Well, Hannity's wrong about the number. Score one for ThinkProgress, which cites a Times Picayune story that says "The [Orleans Parish school] district owns 324 buses but 70 are broken down."

But the factuality of the claim that Nagin failed to use his school buses is not dependent on Hannity getting the numbers right. Nagin did leave hundreds of buses behind, unused. In fact, according to the numbers cited in that Times Picayune article, and referenced by ThinkProgress, he had 254 usable school buses.

The question, then, is - did he use them? The now-famous AP photo suggests that he did not. It shows a large number of school buses parked in neat formation in a flooded parking lot. That parking lot, it turns out, is about a mile from the Superdome.

Were all of them working buses before the flood? Unknown. But - again, according to the newspaper article numbers referenced by ThinkProgress - no more than 70 of them were broken down. Which means that, at a minimum, there were around 185 working buses that were left to drown in the flood instead of being used to evacuate some of the city's poorest residents.

Overall, we know - thanks to the newspaper article referenced by Think Progress - that New Orleans had 254 school buses that it could have used to evacuate people.

The photo I've included clearly doesn't show 254 or 255 buses, so why, then, do I keep repeating those numbers? The answer is that a satellite photo of flooded New Orleans shows the entire bus lot, while the AP aerial photo above shows only part of it. The blogger who found the satellite photo counted approximately 255 buses in it. You can see it here at JunkyardBlog (scroll down).

He counted 255 buses, the Times Picayune said that city had 254 working buses - the coincidence suggests the buses shown in the flooded parking lot in the AP aerial photo and the satellite photo are the city's working school buses.

254 buses, carrying 60 people per bus, could have evacuated 15,240 people per trip. How many trips to Baton Rouge - 75 miles away - might they have made if mobilized two days before Katrina hit? Two? That's 30,480 poor residents evacuated. Three? That's 45,720 people evacuated. The Superdome didn't need to be a shelter of "last resort" for tens of thousands of poor people to ride out Hurricane Katrina. It needed to be a central boarding station for a mass evacuation by bus before Katrina struck.

But the 254 working city school buses made zero trips.

That is undeniable fact. ThinkProgress focuses on the Hannity quote because it can't debunk the larger facts about the 254 buses we know Nagin failed to use.

2. Think Progress attacks a quote from U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum who said, "Many didn’t have cars … And that really was a failure on the part of local officials in not making transportation available to get people out." They counter with a Boston Globe story report that, "On Sunday, the day before the storm, the Louisiana National Guard asked FEMA for 700 buses to evacuate people. It received only 100."

Again, Think Progress is playing a game, attacking a specific quote rather than the general and known facts. And Santorum's quote is not specifically rebutted by the Globe's reporting.

The fact is, the official evacuation plan for New Orleans stated that the city was to mobilize its school and transit buses to evacuate people from the city in advance of a major hurricane. The city failed to do so. The fact is, the official evacuation plan for southeastern Louisiana stated that transit and school buses were to be used to evacuate people in advance of a major hurricane. The state failed to do so. Santorum is absolutely correct.

As for the Globe report that FEMA only sent 100 buses when the Louisiana National Guard requested 700, consider it closely. When did the LNG ask FEMA for the buses? "On Sunday, the day before the storm..."

It is not all that surprising that FEMA could not move 750 buses to New Orleans on such short notice. It is rather remarkable they were able to get 100 buses there that quickly.

Why did the Louisiana National Guard wait until, essentially, the last minute to request FEMA to send buses?

Perhaps they were waiting for New Orleans and the state to implement its own evacuation plan, which stipulated that city transit and school buses would be used to evacuate the city's poorest residents.

Or perhaps they were waiting for an order from Gov. Blanco. She, after all, is the commander of the Louisiana National Guard.

Blanco and Nagin knew Katrina had a high probability of being a monster storm and of hitting New Orleans three or four days before it arrived. Yet Nagin failed to implement the official plan to use his city's transit and school buses to evacuate his poorest residents, and Blanco's National Guard waited until too late to request FEMA to send enough buses to accomplish the task.

If - as it seems clear - Nagin and Blanco weren't intending to implement the official evacuation plan to use city transit and school buses, the next logical question then is why did Blanco wait until the last minute to ask FEMA to send buses?

UPDATE: B. Preston at JunkyardBlog has more on the unused buses here. He also debunks a MediaMatters attempt at spinning away the bus story here, and reports on Nagin being grilled by Tim Russert about the buses here.

Preston has done most of the hard digging on the bus story and calculates that New Orleans had a total of 569 usable transit and school buses before Katrina hit. If they'd used 500 of them to transport people out before the storm hit, at a conservative 50 passengers per bus, they could have evacuated 25,000 people per trip.

That was the official plan. But the officials didn't implement the plan.

UPDATE: Jeff Taylor at Reason.com explains the connection between the unused buses and higher gasoline prices. It's Economics 101 in a nutshell.

Also, thanks to an Instapundit reader, here's a link to a CNN katrina fallout story that includes a discussion of the unused buses.

Why did aerial shots of the flooded city show hundreds of school and city buses window-deep in water? Why hadn't anyone used those buses to move people out? Did Amtrak really offer residents seats on trains the company moved out of harm's way? And if so, who refused that offer and why?
...
Nagin, whose desperate plea for help in the days after the storm made him a folk hero to some, faces criticism for turning away resources that could have moved more people out of the city faster.

The mayor's disaster plan called for mobilizing buses and evacuating the poor, but he did not get it done. He said he could not find drivers, but Amtrak says it offered help and was turned down, so a train with 900 seats rolled away empty a day and a half before the storm.

CNN does not connect the dots by noting that if the City had evacuated citizens using the buses, trains, etc. as set forth in the City's Disaster Plan, there would have been no need to rescue those same people from roof tops, the Superdome, the Convention Center, overpasses, etc. The city's failure started a cascading effect.

UPDATE: Mike's America has a photo essay.

UPDATE: Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker writes of three heros who didn't wait for others to help them, and explains why rules-followers are to blame for the buses not being used to evacuate people before the storm - and about one Jabbar Gibson, a decisive leader despite his young age. Gibson is...

the 20-year-old who commandeered a school bus and drove 70 homeless passengers from New Orleans to the Houston Astrodome, beating the other 25,000 or so survivors awaiting evacuation from the Superdome by officials still trying to figure out who was in charge.

When no one is in charge, as seems to have been the case for too long in New Orleans, a leader eschews the clipboard and takes action. While city officials couldn't find their way to use hundreds of available school buses to evacuate about 100,000 residents without transportation, Gibson "stole" a bus and rescued 70 strangers.

A photo of the abandoned and eventually submerged school buses has become an iconographic image in Katrina's record — a kaleidoscopic history that would qualify as comedy if the results had not been so tragic. At times like this, bureaucracy isn't just a frustrating boondoggle; it is a faceless accomplice to negligent homicide.

September 12, 2005

Why She Supports Ed Bryant for the U.S. Senate

Rebecca Easley, whose sister was brutally murdered, has written a must-read comment to this post regarding U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. having sent a letter to the killer's parole board to support his bid for parole - a letter Ford later apologized for and blamed on his staff. Ford is a candidate for the Democrtic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat that will be vacated after next year by Sen. Bill Frist.

September 11, 2005

The Late Bus

Bloggers have been exploring the issue for a week now, and finally some bigger newspapers in the mainstream media are waking up to the failure of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babbling Blanco to utilize hundreds - or even thousands - of available transit and school buses to evacuate New Orleans' thousands of poor, carless residents before Hurricane Katrina struck the city.

The Houston Chronicle, Sept. 8, said:

As the floodwaters recede, serious questions remain about whether New Orleans and Louisiana officials followed their own plans for evacuating people with no other way out.

The mayor's mandatory evacuation order was issued 20 hours before the storm struck the Louisiana coast, less than half the time researchers determined would be needed to get everyone out.

City officials had 550 municipal buses and hundreds of additional school buses at their disposal but made no plans to use them to get people out of New Orleans before the storm, said Chester Wilmot, a civil engineering professor at Louisiana State University and an expert in transportation planning, who helped the city put together its evacuation plan.

Instead, local buses were used to ferry people from 12 pickup points to poorly supplied "shelters of last resort" in the city. An estimated 50,000 New Orleans households have no access to cars, Wilmot said.

State and local plans both called for extra help to be provided in advance to residents with "special needs," though no specific timetable was prepared. But phone lines for people who needed specialized shelters opened at noon Saturday — barely 30 hours before Katrina came ashore in Louisiana.

Many people from New Orleans ended up staying home or using a "last resort" special needs shelter state authorities and the city health department set up at the Superdome. Those who made it out of town initially found limited space. The state of Louisiana provided shelter in Baton Rouge and five other cities for a total of about 1,000.

The Chronicle reviewed Louisiana's Emergency Operations Plan, adopted in 2000. It calls for the establishment of specialized shelters for people with special medical needs. It also recommends that cities use public transportation to evacuate residents if necessary.

As Hurricane Katrina approached Sunday morning, New Orleans officials advertised city buses would be used to pick people up at 12 sites to go to the "last resort" shelters.

It's unclear how many buses were used. Planners decided not to use any of the New Orleans school buses for early evacuation, Wilmot said.

Photographers recorded images of them lined up in neat rows and submerged — though one was commandeered by Jabbar Gibson, 20, who ferried 70 passengers to safety in the Reliant Astrodome.

UPDATE: How many buses were available to Gov. Blanco before Katrina hit? 21,000.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has an excellent dissection of Blanco and Nagin's failure to implement their own pre-hurricane evacuation plan, and the NYT's inability to tell the story of the buses accurately. The NYT says:

Minutes earlier, Blanco had been pulled out to take a call from the president, pressed into service by FEMA's Brown to urge a mandatory evacuation. Blanco told him that's just what the mayor would order.

Nagin also announced that the city had set up 10 refuges of last resort, and promised that public buses would pick up stragglers in a dozen locations to take them to the Superdome and other shelters.

But he never mentioned the numbers that had haunted experts for years, the estimated 100,000 city residents without their own transportation. And he never mentioned that the state's comprehensive disaster plan, written in 2000 and posted on a state Web site, called for buses to take people out of the city once the governor declared a state of emergency.

In reality, Nagin's advisers never intended to follow that plan -- and knew many residents would stay behind. "We always knew we did not have the means to evacuate the city," said Terry Ebbert, the sharp-tongued city director of emergency management.

The NYT continues...

By late Sunday, as millions of people in the Gulf region sought a safe place to hunker down, hundreds of shelter beds upstate lay empty. "We could have taken a lot more," said Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response at the Red Cross. "The problem was transportation." The New Orleans plan for public buses that would take people upstate was never implemented, and while many residents did manage to get out of town - about 80 percent, the mayor said - tens of thousands did not.

"Once a mandatory evacuation was ordered, those buses should have been leaving those parishes with those people on them," said Chip Johnson, chief of emergency operations in Avoyelles Parish, who helped put together the plan. In Avoyelles alone, there was room for at least 200 or 300 more on Sunday night before the storm, and more shelters could have opened if necessary. "I don't know why that didn't happen."

People died because Ray Nagin and Gov. Blanco didn't do their jobs.

September 10, 2005

New Orleans: An Essay

The following is an essay written by my friend Grant Rampy, White House correspondent for the Tribune television news stations, including WGN in Chicago, about what he saw while on assignment in New Orleans last week.

One day in the not so distant future, when the country looks back on the events of the past two weeks much the way we're about to re-visit 9-11, those of us who've seen the devastation in New Orleans will remember not the water or the broken windows or the darkened skyline at night. We'll remember all the missed opportunities. There were so many; so many chances for everyone from first responders to average citizens to have made a difference early on. Those opportunities slipped by. Many suffered, many may yet die.

Looking back on the still-unfolding tragedy in New Orleans, we know the most egregious crimes committed against our fellow citizens took place in and around the Superdome. Countless hours of video and innumerable still-shots of the war zone attest to that fact. People were led there, then forced to stay for days on end penned in like animals. They were for a time virtually abandoned by their government, by officials at the local, state and federal level. We can committee this question to death, but really: How did this crime happen?

Late Tuesday evening, photojournalist Gregg Hamlin and I walked the corridors of the Hyatt Regency and the shopping area attached to the 'Dome. We navigated the dark tile floors, flashlights in hand, carefully dodging the remnants of excrement which hadn't been scraped away. Even after a week, the air still reeked of mold and misery. It never had to be this way.

How did we let this happen? It can not happen again.

He's headed back to New Orleans on Sunday. He says he's not looking forward to it.

September 08, 2005

Covering Katrina

Getting Out

As promised, here are some more shots from New Orleans taken by my friend Grant Rampy, the White House correspondent for several television stations owned by the Tribune company (including WGN). The shots that he's in were taken by esteemed photojournalist Som Buddyelse. I don't have much cutline info for the shots, but will include what info I do know...

All images are clickable for a larger version:

Billboard, bent over by Katrina's winds

Evacuating after the storm

All waterlogged merchandise 100 percent off

With some troops from Texas

Wild Stories

Lt. Gov. John Wilder now says he didn't discuss a bank loan from his bank with a state senator described in a federal indictment as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a fraudulent land deal. Last week he said he did. Details here. I believe he was telling the truth the first time. But he could be telling the truth this time, and the first time, when he gave a fairly detailed account of a conversation he now says never happened, have been just the odd ramblings of an old man whose mind is going buhbye...

Wilder things have happened.

Bredesen AWOL as Other Governors Lead Fight To Curtail Eminent Domain

The Washington Post reports that Supreme Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London "has sparked a furious reaction, with politicians of both parties proposing new legislation that would sharply limit the kind of seizure the court's decision validated."

But Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has issued no public statements about Kelo and shown no interest in strengthening Tennessee property owners' protection against eminent domain in Tennessee.

Here's more from the WaPo's story today:

As a result, a decision first seen as a key legal victory for cities that want to use eminent domain for private projects has turned into a major setback on the political front for pro-development interests. The popular backlash has slowed or blocked many pending projects, as developers, their bankers and local governments suddenly face public furor.

Three states have already passed new laws in response to the Kelo decision. The statutes in Alabama and Texas sharply curtail eminent-domain condemnations for private development. "We don't like anybody messing with our dogs, our guns, our hunting rights or trying to take property from us," said state Sen. Jack Biddle, a sponsor of the Alabama law. Delaware's new statute permits condemnation but sets new procedural requirements for local governments.

Larry Morandi, an analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, predicts a rush of new laws next winter, when 44 state legislatures will be back in session.

"Most if not all state legislatures will be dealing with eminent-domain laws next year," Morandi said. "The outcry has been so sharp that many states already have task forces or study committees at work on this issue this summer. Most of the proposed legislation is designed to restrict the kind of governmental action that the court upheld in Kelo."

The Institute for Justice, a Washington-based libertarian think tank, said that hundreds of local governments around the country are also debating new ordinances to restrict the use of eminent domain. Many have passed laws this summer barring any seizure of private property for commercial development. Other cities are tightening the conditions that could authorize such seizure.

In Tennessee, some legislators are talking about passing laws next year to curb eminent domain, but - three months after the Kelo decision was handed down, a search of news databases and the governor's website shows that Gov. Bredesen still has not issued one public statement about the Kelo decision, his opinion of it, and whether or not he'll back efforts to reign in government's eminent domain powers.

Bredesen also has ignored a
letter from Citizens for Home Rule, a Knoxville organzation, asking him to clarify his position on Kelo and the proper use of eminent domain.

Governor To Tennessee Motorists: Drop Dead

Republicans in the state legislator want to temporarily suspend the state's gas tax in order to give consumers s